Surprisingly enough, Brian and I really haven’t had that many issues with cooking since we’ve stopped eating animal products. We generally cook meals that are veggie heavy anyway, so the biggest thing we’ve had to change is not using butter or cream. Instead of trying to use a substitute for meat, we just don’t include it in our normal recipes and so far it’s been fine. I’m trying to be better about using beans and grains in our meals since they’re so protein-packed, but lately I’ve been using canned beans while I get more comfortable cooking them from dry.

A few of the meals we’ve really liked are…

Butternut squash soup
Soba noodles with Chinese broccoli
Veggie enchiladas
Veggie quesadillas
Whole Foods fried tofu with mashed potatoes
Thai Curry

Some things we have not at all liked even a little bit are…

Homemade fried tofu. Gross. It’s totally worth it to just buy the pre-cooked stuff at the Whole Foods hot bar.
Fake sausages. They taste like cardboard.
Fish sauce broth. Don’t ask, it was a failed attempt.

We’re still meal planning too, and it is an absolute godsend since it forces us to be proactive about finding recipes. I currently have about 8 cookbooks checked out from the library and I’m just going through and stealing recipes I like. We also did a giant (like 3 whole bags) Trader Joes run and bought pretty much every frozen vegan dinner they have so that we have some last minute options.

Our fridge/freezer are mostly cleared out of animal products, except for like one lonely stick of butter and some frozen meat. Brian is “reducing his intake” instead of cutting out like me, so these will probably still get eaten 😉

I’m going to start posting some recipes on here… NOT FOR YOU, OKAY? I’m not a food blogger. The posts are 100% for me, because I find myself referencing my OWN blog fairly often, trying to remember the great ideas I once had. But…. feel free to give some of them a try.

I DONT MISS MEAT. OR DAIRY. I KIND OF MISS CHEESE A LITTLE BIT, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS I THOUGHT I WOULD.
Just because I’m sure you’re all dying to know how I really feel.