About my blog
One of the main traits I inherited from my mother was my desire to make everyone feel welcome and included. I hope this blog will accomplish that as I chronicle my culinary and health journey as I experiment with new recipes and ingredients and try to create healthy, interesting dishes. I want everyone to put aside their differences and come together over food. I welcome everyone from the staunchest of vegans to those who consider corn and potatoes their main vegetable sources. I hope my blog will help you develop an appreciation for vegetables or at least allow you to tolerate them. I celebrate any step someone makes towards making their diet a little bit more plant-based.
Like one of my favorite bloggers, Lindsay Nixon at Happy Herbivore, I celebrate progress, not perfection. I'm not perfect, and I'm still learning myself. I hope you will follow my journey with me and learn something yourself. I appreciate positive, constructive criticism, if you notice something I could do better in terms of eating vegan or living environmentally, please let me know, and thank you!
I'll write about what I'm cooking and eating, what restaurants I eat at, my favorite plant based products, and current events related to food and the environment.
I put time and effort into my recipes and reviews, I appreciate any links you make to my content but please do not copy them.
Like one of my favorite bloggers, Lindsay Nixon at Happy Herbivore, I celebrate progress, not perfection. I'm not perfect, and I'm still learning myself. I hope you will follow my journey with me and learn something yourself. I appreciate positive, constructive criticism, if you notice something I could do better in terms of eating vegan or living environmentally, please let me know, and thank you!
I'll write about what I'm cooking and eating, what restaurants I eat at, my favorite plant based products, and current events related to food and the environment.
I put time and effort into my recipes and reviews, I appreciate any links you make to my content but please do not copy them.
How I became vegan
I've been eating a plant-based diet since August of 2011. I started, like many at that time after reading Skinny Bitch by Kim Barnouin. Up until then I was unaware of the huge environmental implications of the Standard American Diet (SAD) and was motivated to do my part to cut back on waste. I slowly cut meat out of my diet and 6 months later decided to go completely vegan for a month and see how I liked it. I never looked back. Sure, it hasn't always been easy, but I've never regretted it.
Some things made it easy for me to go vegan - I was living alone so I didn't have to worry about roommates or cooking for my family; I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes so it was fun for me to learn a new set of recipes; I love going to the grocery store and reading the label of everything I buy so I had the patience to learn about new ingredients; similarly, I love reading restaurant menus, so I enjoyed researching places I could eat; I was living in D.C. at the time so I had easy access to vegan ingredients and restaurants; finally, I had never really liked the thought of eating something that had once been alive.
There were times when I struggled. My boyfriend is decidedly not vegan - at the point I became vegan his diet consisted mostly of frozen pizza, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and buffalo chicken calzones - so it became much more difficult finding places where the two of us could eat and finding recipes we could cook together. No one else in my family is vegan - or vegetarian - so at holidays and when I go home to visit I have to come up with my own meals and cook for myself.
If you are thinking of going vegan but are worried it would be too hard, I hope this blog will inspire you. It's not easy at first, as you learn new recipes and foods to eat and kick your cravings for non-vegan foods, but you'll get there, and it'll become second nature.
Some things made it easy for me to go vegan - I was living alone so I didn't have to worry about roommates or cooking for my family; I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes so it was fun for me to learn a new set of recipes; I love going to the grocery store and reading the label of everything I buy so I had the patience to learn about new ingredients; similarly, I love reading restaurant menus, so I enjoyed researching places I could eat; I was living in D.C. at the time so I had easy access to vegan ingredients and restaurants; finally, I had never really liked the thought of eating something that had once been alive.
There were times when I struggled. My boyfriend is decidedly not vegan - at the point I became vegan his diet consisted mostly of frozen pizza, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and buffalo chicken calzones - so it became much more difficult finding places where the two of us could eat and finding recipes we could cook together. No one else in my family is vegan - or vegetarian - so at holidays and when I go home to visit I have to come up with my own meals and cook for myself.
If you are thinking of going vegan but are worried it would be too hard, I hope this blog will inspire you. It's not easy at first, as you learn new recipes and foods to eat and kick your cravings for non-vegan foods, but you'll get there, and it'll become second nature.
What does Jay Approved mean?
If an item is marked Jay Approved it means that my meat and cheese loving boyfriend tasted it and asked for more! These recipes are perfect for non-vegans who are trying to add more vegetables into their diet or vegans who miss the taste of their favorite foods!
Do you have sponsorships from any of the brands you feature?
Nope! While I try to make as much of my food from scratch as possible I also love trying to things and seeing what other people are doing, and I recognize that not everyone can make everything from scratch all the time (including me!). I find new vegan products exciting and love sharing my finds with you and letting you know what I think about products, so that you can make more informed decisions when shopping on your own. I recognize that making vegan options easy and convenient will help introduce more people to vegan options and make it easier for them to give it a try. Many vegan products are also very helpful for transitioning to a vegan diet and learning what new kinds are foods are out there. Let me know what you think of any of the products I've featured or if you have any other recommendations!
What about the ads? Are you getting paid for those?
Those ads are created through Google Adsense. I get a nominal fee every time you open one of my pages or click on a link. The content of the ad is produced by Google and is based on what Google thinks you would be interested in, so I have no control over what the ads are.
