KnittingOpera

AKA 5 ways to make the vegan transition easier. So, you have decided to go vegan for New Years and you have no idea what to do? Or you are a little intimidated by thousands of #smoothiebowl pics on Instagram? Here are some ways to make the vegan transition simple and stress free: 1. Eat foods you normally eat, just leave out the animal products. If you eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast every day, a sandwich for lunch, and a microwave dinner every evening, don't try all new recipes every meal every day. That's really exhausting and time consuming. Just switch out dairy milk with soy/ almond/ coconut milk, make a hummus and veggie sandwich instead of ham and cheese, and get an Amy's Kitchen tofu Pad Thai dinner instead of PF Chang's. If you always eat certain things, stick to things you like. If you want to try new recipes, that's great! But only do one or  two new foods per week. Otherwise it can get overwhelming. 2. Don't go crazy with the vegan...

Hello everyone! It's almost Christmas and then comes that time of year again: New Years Resolutions!!! I've decided that this is the year I'm going to simplify and downsize my life. Over the past few years I've lost about 90 lbs (hurrah!) and as a result my clothes no longer fit. I've been slowly going through my closet and giving away the nice clothes and turning the hole-filled ones into rags. But recently I realized I need to go through more than just my clothing. I was going through my food-stash (what I call my vegan section of the family pantry) and I realized that I have a ton of food I really need to eat before it expires and a lot of duplicate items (I guess I went overboard with hurricane preparations this year). So, starting this January, I'm going to try "shopping my pantry" AKA not buying stuff at the store unless I really really really need it. I've given myself a food budget for the month of $60 to cover the cost of fresh f...

Coconut Curry Rice! Hello everyone! Long time no post, I know! It has been a super crazy fall and the year is startlingly almost over. I have a super crazy week coming up, and I'm currently under the weather, so I decided to do some cooking since I didn't want to go out in the rain. I had some coconut milk I needed to use in the fridge, I've been craving curry, and I needed to use up some things in the freezer, so I decided to meal prep for this week since I'm going to be super busy. This is the end result! Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 1/2 large white onion 1 cup frozen peas 1 cup frozen corn 1 can bamboo shoots 1 package of extra firm tofu, diced 3 green onions 1 cup coconut milk 2 @edwardandsons curry cubes 2 cups dry basmati rice Garlic powder to taste Salt to taste Directions: I basically cooked the onions in olive oil, threw everything else into the pot with a bunch of water, brought it to a boil, then simmered for 20 minutes. Really super ea...