About Me:

I'm not your stereotypical vegan. I'm not a size two, I don't go around throwing red paint on people who wear fur, I don't spend my free time searching the Internet for something new to protest (this is the thing that bothers me most, by the way, no vegan I know does this), and my monthly bill for my local health supply store is not equal to my rent.

I do, however, love animals. I love my family, and I love the environment. Those are the main reasons why I chose to become a vegan. I've never been able to understand how a nation, who's number one killer is heart disease, goes on to consume as much meat as we do. As a vegan, your risk for heart disease drops by a considerable amount. You aren't ingesting cholesterol what-s0-ever. If you eat right, you significantly lower you intake of saturated fats, not to mention fat alone. And those are just the health benefits! (I'm sure I'll go into the other benefits at a later date) It just seemed like a no-brainer choice to me.

My goal with this blog is to show people that being a vegan (or vegetarian for that matter) is not as hard as some make it out to be. In fact, it's quite simple. It's very easy to put together a healthy and hearty meal by using just the ingredients in your (or at least my) local grocery store alone. I live in a small town. There is one super tiny health food chain here and to say they don't carry all that much would be an understatement. So, if I can do it, I know anyone can.

I'm also a busy mom with a hectic schedule and I don't have the time to devote hours upon hours worrying about my menu and hard to find ingredients. I don't know about you, but when I look over a recipe, my first criteria is easily obtainable ingredients. If the only way I can make that item is if I first scour the Internet looking for the supplies, then I move on. In my opinion, those kinds of recipes are usually a let down, anyway. In fact, my favorite thing to do is to look back and remember all the wonderful meals my mom used to make for me when I was a child. Many of my memories are based around the food she used to make for me and the wonderful smells that used to permeate from her kitchen.

My mom is an awesome cook. Cooking has always come natural to her. She makes it easy. One of the best pieces of advice she's ever given me is to cook to your tastes. Season the food to the way you like (obviously, if you're a spicy kind of person and the rest of your family is not, then this may not be a good idea). And of course, if you don't taste the food while you're making it, how can you expect it to turn out right? Unfortunately, she's no where close to being vegan. Hence the reason for this blog. I want to be able to pass down all those comfort foods that I enjoyed as a child, to my own children, but make everything vegan instead.

When I first started on this journey, I thought it was going to be a hard one. However, much to my surprise, it's been relatively simple. Through much experimenting, (and a very trusting family) I've been able to fill my home with the wonderful foods from my childhood, added with a lot of newcomers of my own. And best of all, I'm going to share them with all of you!