EasyVeg

It’s amazing what you can find at your local supermarket if you really look. When I first decided to go vegetarian, I was a little intimidated by some recipe ingredients. I figured I’d have to start shopping at some expensive specialty food store to make my meals. After all, I’d never seen those weird items in my store.

But I, like many people I think, had never really looked for any new ingredients at the grocery store. I bought what I always bought, which was essentially the same as what my mom had always bought, and that was the end of it. However, when I changed my diet, those same old items no longer sufficed, and I was pretty much forced to broaden my horizons.

And did I ever. There were so many fruits and veggies, I was practically blind to before I had to find them for a particular recipe. So many spices and beans and grains. So much STUFF! And it was all at my local supermarket.

So if you’re considering going vegetarian, but think it’ll be too expensive or confusing, you can rest assured that you can do it, and you won’t have to drive far away to a special store or pay an arm and a leg for weird food. I maintain a healthy, well-rounded, and balanced vegetarian diet, and I have for quite some time now, and I do it all with products from my regular old grocery store. You can too.

Going out to eat as a vegetarian can be a little tricky sometimes. Scanning the menu not only for things that sound good to eat, but also don’t have any meat products in them can be time consuming and frustrating. There’s really no need to worry, though.

First of all, as with most things, the more you do it, the easier it will become. After a while, you’ll be an old pro at knowing what items or entire sections of menus to avoid.

Secondly, most restaurants have vegetarian items clearly marked or have entire sections of their menus devoted to vegetarian meals. Chili’s is one such restaurant. They have on their ‘Guiltless Grill’ section of the menu a ‘Guiltless Black Bean Burger’ that is HUGE, satisfying, tasty, and of course, meatless. Also at Chili’s, you can custom order any of their regular hamburgers with a black bean burger patty instead. Obviously ordering a ‘Big Mouth Bacon Burger’ with a black bean patty is defeating the purpose, but if you’ve been missing the ‘Mushroom-Swiss’ burger, have at it!

Today I finally got the three new cookbooks I ordered via Amazon. They are One-Dish Vegetarian Meals by Robin Robertson, Quick-Fix Vegetarian by Robin Robertson, and Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

I’ll be poring over these books during the next few days, determining how accessible they are to the ‘average’ home cook, and of course, trying out a few recipes. I’m very excited about these new books, especially the ones by Robertson, because I think, and hope, that they’ll be right up my alley. Meaning easy.

What you can expect to find here at EasyVeg:
Recipes to quick, easy, and delicious vegetarian food
Cookbook reviews
Heads-up on great food products
Helpful websites
Other vegetarian food related stuff

What you can expect NOT to see at EasyVeg:
Photos and/or videos of mistreated farm animals
Photos and/or videos of slaughterhouse practices
Long, rambling blog posts about why I decided to go vegetarian and why you should too.
Meat-eater or non-vegan bashing

My intention with EasyVeg is to help those, who like me, had no idea what they were doing when they first took the plunge into vegetarianism. I wanted to to make a friendly, non-intimidating place for new vegetarians or those just thinking about it to come test the waters, and see that healthful vegetarianism isn’t so tough. And that it’s not all tofu and bean sprouts!

With that said, you can rest assured that when you visit EasyVeg, you won’t leave feeling guilty or picked on because you had a turkey sandwich.

I thought about becoming a vegetarian for a long time before I finally decided to take the plunge. It wasn’t a question of whether or not I really wanted to do it. I did. It was a question of how I was going to do it. I didn’t grow up in a vegetarian home. I’d had limited experience with tofu and bean sprouts, and quite frankly, wasn’t very impressed with either. (I’d learn later that this was not the fault of the food, but that of the person who prepared the food.) I was intimidated by the prospect of cooking foods with names I couldn’t pronounce for hours on end, only to end up with a bland, unpalatable dish. Who wants boring food? Not me!

Easy Veg is here to assist those transitioning into vegetarianism. Or meat-eaters who occasionally want to have a vegetarian meal. Or anyone who like delicious, easy-to-prepare food. We don’t discriminate here.

Please visit often for new, delicious recipes, links to helpful websites, vegetarian cookbook reviews, and other vegetarian related news, tips, and the like.