EasyVeg

I found this ‘meaty’ Shepherd’s Pie recipe from the VegCooking.com website. It’s a wonderful alternative to a regular Shepherd’s Pie that will satisfy the staunchest meat-eater - like my father-in-law. He’s a meat n’ potatoes kind of guy if ever you’ve met one, but he still requests this dish from me just about every time I see him. Enjoy!

Ingredients
4 medium potatoes, diced
2 Tbsp. margarine
1/4 cup soy milk or liquid nondairy creamer
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
12 oz. faux ground beef-style crumbles (try Yves® Veggie Ground Round)
1 10.5-oz. can Campbells mushroom gravy (or 1 1/4 cups prepared vegetarian gravy of your choice)
1 6-oz. can mixed peas and carrots, drained
Salt, garlic powder, pepper, and cayenne, to taste

Directions
• Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain and mash with the margarine and soy milk or nondairy creamer. Season with salt and pepper.
• In a medium pan, sauté the onion in the oil until translucent.
• In a medium bowl, mix the cooked onions, faux beef crumbles, mushroom gravy, peas and carrots, and spices. Pour into a pie pan. Top the crumble mixture with the potatoes, spreading to the edges.
• Bake in a 350°F oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the potatoes are browned and the crumble mixture bubbles out the edges.

Tip
Make the whole recipe even if you’re just feeding a few, or just yourself! Leftovers are just as good, and you’ll be glad you have some the next day.

I have yet another awesomely helpful website that is teeming with veggie goodness to share with you. You’ve probably already guess what it is from the title. If not, it’s VegWeb.com!

VegWeb is especially helpful for vegans, as it offers just about a billion yummy vegan recipes. The site also includes Veg shopping tips, links, and the like. Also, if you’re looking to read up on other vegan related issues, there are tons of reader submitted articles to browse, through. Likewise, if you’ve got something to say on the subject, you can submit articles to VegWeb too.

VegWeb is also a community type website, so you can join, make a profile for yourself, and search for and chat with other like-minded vegans.

What are you waiting for? Check it out.

If you’re at all familiar with PETA, you know that they’re pretty serious about vegetarianism and veganism, and that they’d like to encourage everyone to go completely vegan. You may also know that PETA uses some of the most horrifying animal cruelty videos that would bring even the most hardened meat-eaters to tears as their encouragement.

That being said, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find practical, reasonable advice on their vegcooking.com site.

Basically, their advice is “don’t sweat the small stuff.” The small stuff being trace amounts of animal products that may be in your food. If you are changing your diet primarily for the sake of animals, you may find this advice a little confusing. Especially coming from PETA! Their point, though, is that eliminating animal flesh from your diet has a great enough impact. Also, if you go CRAZY sorting out trace animal products from your diet, your diet will be harder to maintain, and others who may otherwise consider going vegetarian, may be turned off by your dogmatic practices.

Sage advice from the folks at PETA. I can’t believe it either.

If you’ve been looking for a place to look up vegetarian or vegan friendly restaurants, grocery stores, or any other veg-friendly businesses, you’re in luck. VegGuide.Org is here to help. VegGuide is a community maintained and updated site that lists and rates veg-friendly businesses. In addition to listing and rating these places, VegGuide also lets you know just how veg each place is. It ranges from “not veg-friendly” all the way up to “vegan” with ratings in between of “vegetarian friendly,” “vegan friendly,” and “vegetarian.” The site also offers approximate price range, maps, hours of operation, whether or not the restaurant is smoke free, reviews, and sometimes even pictures of the place. VegGuide.Org arms its readers with a wealth of information.

You can also log in to the site to list or add your own favorite veg-friendly places, or rate and review a place already listed. Add VegGuide to your bookmarks, and never wonder where you can go out to eat again!

When I first decided to change my diet to vegetarianism I went on a cookbook shopping spree. If it had “vegetarian” or “vegan” in the title, I had to have it. Unfortunately, many of those cookbooks went largely unused. I found quite a few of them to be just a little too much for a veggie newbie, like myself. If I didn’t know what half the ingredients in a particular recipe were, how the hell was I going to make it?! Another issue I ran into because of my ignorance regarding the ingredients was none of the recipes sounded very good. They may have been wonderful, but not knowing what went into the dishes left me cold and indifferent about trying them.

To avoid this unpleasant situation, I recommend browsing a few vegetarian recipe websites, which will allow you to pick and choose the recipes that sound best to you, using new ingredients that you actually want to try. You can start assembling a (FREE!) “cookbook” of your own online. Vegetarian Lunchbox is a great place to start. They’ve got it all, from soups and salads, to great kids’ meals, to smoothies! There’s a wealth of information available, and it’s a great place to get your feet wet without having to purchase a cookbook you may end up not liking much.