I Got A New Cookbook!

A new cookbook is always a fun thing. Today I made my husband take me to the bookstore. I knew I needed some fresh ideas for the coming year and this has some good ones... or so I hope.

As I was scouring the many vegan options, I quickly began to see a trend. 50 recipes for chutney or dressings or sauces. So of the 1000 recipes your book boasts I can really only use about 50. The others seemed to be filler recipes.

After looking for about 20 minutes I began to put away all of the 1000 recipe books and just started looking for things I would actually enjoy eating. Isa Does It has simple recipes that don't take a trip to the health food store. I can run down to the corner Piggly Wiggly (a real grocery chain) and find most of what I need for any given recipe. I will post my reviews if the recipes in a later post.

Happy Eating,
Trinity

Let's Talk Basics

As with any foodie journey, we need to begin with the basics. Without the foundational recipes to get you started you may live the bland, boring food experiences most people think of when they think vegan/vegetarian. We can steam all the veggies we want and eat pasta until our pants pop but it's no fun unless it tastes good.

I will point you towards the best basic recipes I know. This means I am pointing you towards non-vegan/non-vegetarian websites but the recipes will be vegan/vegetarian or I will show you how to make them that way.

Basic #1
Tomato Sauce

Everyone always asks me "what is the secret to your pizza/spaghetti/insert tomato based sauce here" and I always tell them Giada's Marinara Sauce. This sauce is thick, a little tangy, a little sweet. It is the PERFECT base for almost any tomato sauce you need to make. From this sauce you can work in peppers, olives, gnocchi, really anything. If you want tomato sauce, this is your go to.

Basic #2
Sweet Potatoes/Butternut Squash

Do me a favor. Google "sweet potato recipes". Did you do it? No... I'll wait..........
Okay, now tell me how many of those recipes call for butter.........
If you said all of them... you are lying... you didn't look. A good 80% of sweet potato recipes don't call for butter at all. Why? Because they are creamy all on their own. Just think back to the best sweet potato you've had. Did it need anything else to be good?
Moving on. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash are a good way to bulk up soup and pasta recipes. They add a rich flavor and they make a killer Mac-N-"Cheese". I have fooled my family so many times with this recipe. They eventually caught on but it never bothered them once they found out.
So, I am encouraging you to slowly add these two things into recipes you already have. See what a difference they make. Or add a couple recipes from that Google search you just did.

Basic #3
Canned Beans

Do not waste your time trying to make giant pots of beans only to have them spoil on you. Yes, you are vegan and it's your source of protein. So you are concerned about BPA, there are plenty of BPA free products out there. This may mean a trip to Whole Foods is in your future but if you are serious about your health why is another trip an inconvenience?

Here is a recipe my mom gave me:
Taco Soup
1 15oz can of corn
1 15oz can of black beans
1 15oz can of kidney beans
1 15oz can hominy
1 15oz can Rotel
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 packet of ranch seasoning
-bring to a boil and serve (She adds beef and garlic salt)

This recipe takes only as long as it takes to open a few cans and bring them to a boil. Now if sodium is a concern, drain and rinse corn, beans and hominy and add low-sodium vegetable stock. The soup will not be as thick but it will still be just as yummy. Also, feel free to add other vegetables to this. This is just a basic recipe, make it your own.

Basic #4
Vegenaise

Let's face it. You probably made this decision to be healthier. Making this switch is easy... it tastes THE SAME. Even the texture is the same. It's not quite as thick as regular mayo but I promise you will not miss your mayo.

Basic #5
Marinade

So you don't like Tofu. Did you know there is more than one type of tofu? There are different textures and different consistencies. Did you know they now make tofu products that taste like meat? Well, I like tofu. Mainly because I don't want my tofu to taste like meat. Whatever you cook tofu in... that's what it's going to taste like. This is not just a thing vegans try to convince themselves of. It's true. So, it only stands to reason, whatever you marinate your tofu in... that's what it's going to taste like. The book I mentioned in my first post has some great marinades in it that I still use today. Try some firm tofu that has been marinated in an orange juice based marinade and you can have yourself some orange "chicken", just don't get it in your head that it will actually taste like chicken. It's going to taste like your marinade.

Okie Dokie, that's it for today. If you have any questions there is a comment section below.

Thanks,
Trinity

An Introduction

Hello,

My name is Trinity. I am a self-proclaimed foodie and have been for the past 10 years. I developed a love for food when I was able to cook what I liked. Growing up, my mother and father always cooked from a box and so I never fully appreciated food. Meals were always things that happened at regular intervals throughout the day, nothing special.

When I moved out at 21 I didn't have a cooking background to fall back on, so I went and bought four or five cookbooks. I figured it couldn't be that hard. My first was Betty Crocker's Cooking Basics . This book started my foodie journey. I made every recipe cover to cover. I learned, quickly, what I liked and what I didn't.

After discovering food could actually be good I began questioning my restaurant choices. Surely there was something better out there than the fast food and all-you-can-eat buffets my parents were so fond of. And sure enough I began trying every new hole-in-the-wall and corporate chain I could find. I came to realize some still sucked but some were absolutely fantastic. I developed a true love for food and in doing so my cooking improved.

Now, if someone wants to try something new but they are unsure about it, they call me. I can point them in the right direction and I can generally tell them what to order at said place. I am addicted to Urbanspoon . On this website you can see what the foodies in your town are raving over and what has become a total waste of money. I always say, if a restaurant has an 80% approval rating or above, it's worth trying.

Okay, so by now you are saying to yourself, "Umm, you deemed this blog 'The Vegetarian Foodie' and I've seen nothing saying you are Vegetarian...". That is correct. I decided about a month ago to change my eating habits. Let me preface what I am about to say with this; I have always been in excellent health. Every time I go in to the doctor to have blood work done the doctor is shocked at how healthy I am. However, I have been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Unfortunately, not a lot is known about PCOS or why it occurs. This leads to other problems I have, such as, PMDD and IBS . I have spent nearly six years trying to find something to help me rid myself of these cysts but to no avail. The doctors have prescribed many different medications but none of them have really helped. Metformin is one drug that they gave me that just made me insanely sick and the other medication (can't remember the name) just made me insane. So, I have been looking for alternate routes.

I was in my favorite little used book store one day and I ran across a book I had seen a million times but never paid much mind to. Since I had heard so much about it I decided to pick it up and read the first chapter. I am hit with these opening lines "Okay. Use your head. You need to get healthy if you want to get skinny. Healthy = skinny. Unhealthy = fat. The first thing you need to give up is your gross vices. Don't act surprised... So don't use some pathetic excuse... no one wants to hear it. Cigarettes are for losers. They are so 1989 and totally uncool." I was dying. Rolling on the floor cracking up. It was so unexpected. I kept reading and I was in love with this book. Especially when I noticed there was an entire chapter dedicated to pooping. Crude, I know, but sometimes we need to break the monotony of all of these health lectures and find something we can connect with.

Skinny Bitch (yes, be prepared for cussing, it happens, a lot) is the name of the book and it opened my eyes to what I was putting in my body. It made me realize that my body was rejecting these things (meat and dairy) every single time I consumed them. Then, low and behold... they begin naming off all of the illness and disease associated with consuming too much meat and I am shocked to see the very things that I have been fighting for six years. Now, explain to me, how am I supposed to react? I eat "healthy" and I exercise. I have always followed the golden rule of dieting "All things in moderation." So why have I been plagued with this condition? The doctor can't explain it.

I took the steps I needed to take to get my body back. As I said before I have always been healthy so this wasn't to lose weigh, which I have, but a way to say enough is enough and I'm tired of battling infertility and PMDD. I will keep you posted on those results as they come.

Back to food! I am committing myself to sharing my journey with others. I am going to post reviews, remakes and original recipes on here that I hope you will all love.

Thanks for the support,
Trinity