More Recipe Resources for Week One

Some think eating vegetarian cuisine is going to deliver lacking flavor, sense of less-than-full stomach, and little variety to meal plans. This is only true if you take a lazy approach to cooking & baking. Each year I have friends over during the holiday season, and continually hear positive feedback about the meat-free meal I've shared (they even ask me for the recipes!). I enjoy sharing vegetarian recipes because I'm proud of the delicious food lifestyle I've chosen, and am confident if I can do it, so can anyone. With exciting resources abound on the internet, cooking tasty vegetable-based meals should be in everyone's weekly meal plan. The purpose of this post is to provide you with some alternative recipe resources for this cleanse (especially during Week One), while helping you build your recipe box for a healthy lifestyle change to utilize long after this cleansing month.

101 Cookbooks is a site that I've been following for years. Heidi provides sophisticated vegan & vegetarian recipes alongside beautiful food photography. Her cookbook, Super Natural Everyday, can be bought on Amazon.

The Chubby Vegetarian is a blog that I recently was turned on to after watching The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. These recipes are hearty & southern-inspired. (BTWs, a vegan food truck was featured this season! And made it pretty far in the competition!)

Though VeganYumYum doesn't really post any longer, their archives are full of meat free cooking & dairy free baking.

These boys at The Bitten Word are blogging as a result of all the food magazines they've compiled over the years. What a great idea! Add some color to your plates by making this creamy cauliflower soup with greens from Martha Stewart.

If you have a meat-based recipe you really love, transform it into a vegetarian dish. Simply substitute vegetable stock for chicken and beef stock, extra-firm, marinated tofu for chicken, and large, portobello mushrooms for steak. Search for other alternatives by using keywords on websites like Epicurious, Cooking Light, and Weight Watchers. This is how I've found great suggestions on how to create textures in veggie tacos, bulk up burgers, add color for fries, and build a hearty curry.

I'm sure you've seen the commercials to take the Least Challenging Challenge from Silk soymilk! ::::::::Doooo ittttt::::::: Start slow, substitute it for dairy in your baking, and work up to drinking it out of a glass (if that's your thang).

After this month is said & done, I hope you'll consider a meat-free lifestyle. Meatout Mondays is a wise first-step. Consider small changes at first, like picking one day a week to eat a vegetarian-based diet. On this site, you can sign-up to receive a weekly e-mail that delivers new, meatless recipes to your inbox. Easy. Peasy. And after all, research has proven that a diet rich with fruits & vegetables will make you a better person*.

Jennifer

*Well, not in so many words, but check out Vegetarian Times for some facts about why to go meatless.