Hello Ali and congrats on becoming vegan!

1.I've never tried cooking with ghee so I cant help you on this question but I'm sure someone else will. But we usually use canola for frying tofu.

2. Not all dark chocolate is vegan but a lot is, some good brands for chocloate bars are tropical source (they are also my favorite for chocolate chips), dagoba (a bit expensive but they have good flavors), and chocolate decadence (www.chocolatedecadence.com). Vegan Essentials is a good place to find things if you can't find them in local stores (www.veganessentials.com). There are also great fancy chocolates like the cream filled or truffled kind. Rose City is my favorite (www.rosecitychocolates.com). There is also www.betenoirechocolates.com./ and www.sjaaks.com. Hopefully that will get you started on the chocolates. Go for the Rose City Irish Cream, it's amazing!
I'm not real big on carob though.

3. My favorite subsitutes are Sunshine Burgers and Wildwood Tofu Burgers which are made of all pronouncable and identifiable ingredients. Dr.Praegers is also good. I'm limited by celiac disease so I can't try most of the substitutes, other people will probably have more suggestions. If you like to make your own then the book Meatless Burgers by Louise Hagler has some really interesting ideas and its less then $10.

Good luck and welcome to the tribe!
~Shaina

Yogurt, I love Silk Yogurt the best! All flavors but plain...I don't like plain. But, all other flavors are great!
Sour Cream, I like Tofutti brand.
Tofutti also makes vegan cream cheese, which is great.
I'm not sure which, but some of their products do have sugar in them.

Ice cream--I love So Delicous (Soy Delicious) brand, they make a pint kind called "Purely Decadent" with gourmet flavors such as "peanut butter zig zag" (which is like peanut butter cup ice cream!!!).

I love Yves brand veggie dogs and veggie pepperoni.

I love Tofurkey brand deli slices.

I love Vegannaise for mayo.

I love "Follow Your Heart" brand "Vegan Gourmet" block cheese, which I use to make incredible vegan mac and cheese and pizza.

Congrats, and have tons of fun with your food!

Hi Ali,

Congrats on going vegan! It's awsome to know there is one more vegan bellydancer out there :)

It looks like you've gotten a lot of good advice/suggestions already, but here is my 2 cents anyway:

1. I've had pretty good luck with Spectrum. You can find it at Whole Foods. They make a spray on cooking oil that has an orange cap. That's the stuff I use. A few of their oils are marked vegan on the back of the can. I like this brand because it has a good selection of different oils, and it tells you what each of them are good for: high heat, low heat, etc. It's also nice because you won't end up coating your food in oil, since you can just spray the pan instead.

2. Carob has a more bitter taste than chocolate. I do like it better than chocolate because I don't get a headache or a sugar high and then a crash from carob. It is a laxative though, so be careful not to each too much. It's also safe for dogs to eat. I recently bought some carob-peanut butter cups from my local Co-op. You can replace it for chocolate in a lot of recipes:pudding, brownies,cake,etc.

3. Have you tried seitan or tempeh yet? Those are both good sources for protein, fairly easy to cook, and have easy to pronounce ingredients. You can buy prepackaged versions of both and cook them with a stir-fry.

Now I'm hungry, :)

Have fun experimenting!

The quality dark chocolates are vegan (cheapos like Hershey's aren't as far as I've seen)--all the dark ones at the coops by me are vegan though. There is a vegan rice milk chocolate, too. It used to be kinda ricey, but the newer reformulated one is even better than before. That company also came out with a truffle version.

But I love carob apart from chocolate--it has it's own flavor, it's naturally sweet and very nutritious. I mix it with almond butter for a yummy treat. Some people find that chocolate affects them like caffeine, or that it triggers food cravings for them, so then carob is a brownish alternative. Not me, though! I like both separately.

mmm, I had chocolate banana ice cream (frozen banana blended with cacao powder) and carob pudding (carob, stevia, vanilla and silken tofu) for dessert, both were great!