About

Creating healthy vegetarian recipes using fresh, local, and often organic ingredients is both exciting as well as a meditative process for me. Cooking is a way for me to relax at the end of a busy day and a way to live in the moment. Creating and experimenting with recipes, as well as sharing and preparing food with those I love brings me great joy and a feeling of contentment. It is my hope that sharing these ideas with others will help me keep track of my new innovations in the kitchen and also will work as inspiration to keep my creative side growing. Enjoy!

How It All Began…

I have been a vegetarian for almost 9 years. It seems that people often question me as to why I have made the choice to stop eating meat. For me, becoming vegetarian was probably in the works for a long time.

My mom tells me when she was pregnant with me as part of her job, she had to tour a meat packing plant. Combining pregnancy with the conditions in the plant was a recipe for disaster, and she got terribly sick. Perhaps even then I was a vegetarian in the making.

As a young child I loved all animals, cows specifically. Apparently, one of my favourite activities as a toddler was to visit and moo at the cows near our home. Then we moved to a town where the main business was a feedlot. The smell greeted all visitors and passers by well before anyone came even close. This left me sad and confused as a child. I didn’t want to eat beef.

As I grew up these emotions stayed with me. I just didn’t like eating meat. However one summer, home from college a few pounds too heavy from eating cafeteria fare combined with plenty of beer, I decided I needed to lose some weight. I hopped on board, without much thought, to a high protein diet promising quick results. The diet consisted of mostly meat: sandwich meat, sausages, hot dogs and bacon being my picks. Unsurprisingly, after a few weeks I did not have the results I desired, and I was feeling quite sick. Tired, nauseous and lethargic were the results of me choosing to eat a highly processed meat centred diet. I swore off meat then and there.

No one really took much notice, or even really believed me. I must admit it seemed a bit insane to swing from one side of the spectrum to the other so hastily. However, this is a decision I have stuck with. At first I just felt better, and I knew it was a good decision for me and my body. As I continued to learn more however, I realized that a vegetarian lifestyle lined up with my values and beliefs as well. It just made sense. It feels good to know that I am doing what is healthy and right for me, as well as for the environment.