Intro

Hello- just to give some background and explain this blog in full, here's some info. My name's Lindy and I have been vegan more or less for over two years now. A while ago I jotted down some ideas for a quasi cookbook in a journal- one for each day of the year. I was hoping to maybe make it into a book but recently realized a blog would be much simpler. Besides I still have some days blank, which I hopefully will be inspired/ forced to finish by committing to this blog. Some of the recipes are very basic, some more complex, most with an eye towards frugality if only in the fact that there is no meat, dairy or other animal products. (Generally plants based foods are cheap whereas animal based ones are not. Hence why lentils are almost always cheaper than steak.) I wanted to show that there are tons of things out there that are vegan, that it's not some epic struggle to eat cruelty free and that it can be simple. So many people say "Oh I could never go vegan- what would I eat?" or "I could never give up cheese!". Well frankly it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation. Doing "Meatless Mondays" or not eatting meat on Fridays as so many people still do during Lent is a great start. Every little bit helps your health, your budget and the environment. I could go into so many tangents right now on the benefits and pleasures of eatting vegan, but I'll restrain myself, for now;)
Another motivating factor to create this blog is that I have been something of a "bad" vegan lately. While I hesitate to overmoralize my diet, I have been cheating more than I like, mostly because I have been eatting out more than I should and not being picky enough about what I order. About a year ago at this same time, just days before Christmas, I found out I was pregnant with my first child. My husband and I were already tired of eatting in so much due to a very tight budget. We were eatting split pea soup at least once a week in summer in Phoenix! All because split peas were cheap, even when organic, and that keep us going. We both love food and don't mind paying a little more for good organic groceries. In fact a large part of the decision to go vegan was that organic, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, free-range, humanely raised meat, dairy and eggs were so much that we naturally had to cut back on them unless we wanted to revert back to eatting the Frankstein beef so widely available in this country, and even that crap costs something! I could rationalize organic produce, grains, nuts, and whatnot when we also weren't trying to budget for organic chuck roast at $5+/lb. But a rough patch there did throw us for a loop, but ironically also forced me to get creative. (Organic homemade crackers with humus for dinner the night before payday, when we didn't have enough to spend on grocery shopping- ka ching! Delicious and we didn't strave!) True we could have bought more food by not getting organic but I figure if paying a dime more per pound of bananas helps lessen pollution, it's worth it. Even more so when you consider that almost everyone else in the world except us Americans pay more for their food and often get far superior nutrition. The EU has outlawed many of the things so commonly found in the same food here (pesticides, GMO's, HFCS, etc.) yet we eat them as if those things weren't the demise of creation- ugh! Of course most Europeans' consider food one of their top expenses, unlike us who often act like food, one of the most basic essentials to life, should be practically free. However when it comes to driving a nice new car, well that is OF COURSE a "necessity"- BLAH!
So anyways, as I was saying I found out I was pregnant about this time last year. That drove my already strained cooking habits down even further. Though I had practically no morning sickness, being able to stand over a skillet of browning onions wasn't exactly easy both due to nauseating smells and fatigue. So we started finding cheap places to get vegetarian meals, if not vegan. That led to some increased dairy consumption (no meat, except maybe some broth) still nothing I'm proud of as a self proclaimed vegan. Yet again, it doesn't have to be black and white (mmm- black and white like the NY cookies- yum). If you have some frozen yogurt one day, there's no reason why you can't eat vegan the next day. Besides in my case, descending from certified Green Bay, WI cheeseheads, dairy is a comfort food for me (one that ironically causes a lot of discomfort as well lol).
Well that's my introduction. Hope you stay tuned. Thanks!