Our Breakfast (and consequential Lunch) Adventure!

I have been a busy little newbie vegan and newbie blogger! Today, not only did I whip up awesomeness in the kitchen, I started a new blog, Courtney's Vegan Kitchen, which is dedicated just to the recipes I dream up.

I decided to chronicle our breakfast adventure today, which sparked the need for the recipe blog... Today, we made a yummy, yummy breakfast of Hash Browns, Tofu scramble, and Homemade vegan sausage. The fruits of our efforts:

Apple Sage Sausage, Tofu "Egg" Scramble, and Overly-Healthy Hash Browns

Click on the links in the caption for the recipes, as well as some anecdotal hilariousness.

So in the last 24 hours, I have made homemade hummus, a batch of brown rice (like 10 cups worth- I freeze the majority, use some, and keep the rest in the fridge for the week), and Apple Sage sausage crumbles. All of which is vegan, meets all our nutritional needs, and was completely yummy :)

I have to note that this is not entirely different from how I had been cooking as a Vegetarian. Normally, I'd make a big pot of soup in the crockpot on the weekend, cook up a ton of rice and beans, and saute some meat-substitute for protein with a few veggies and slather the whole mess with cheese. This was very yummy, no doubt, and easy, but with all the research pointing towards the importance of getting all of your nutrition from WHOLE foods (i.e.- not a Boca burger like I had been), I'm revolutionizing the way I look at food. I can no longer rely on all the meat substitutes; one, because they often contain milk or eggs (by definition, vegans avoid all animal products-- for me that means I get to avoid all fat and cholesterol from another animal's body...), not to mention because they often have a ton of preservatives and other un-pronounable substances present. The simpler, the better. The more veggies, the more good nutrition you'll incorporate into your diet.

This has all been a bit overwhelming for me for the past day... I'm literally re-learning the way I have to cook. I've been reliant on eggs for binding agents and leavening, milk (of some sort) to make baked goods and Mac N Cheese (my serious all-time favorite), and cheese to flavor everything. Now that I've learned that to promote heart health (even reverse heart disease and prevent cancer), I need to cut out all the unneeded items from my diet- like milk, eggs, and cheese, I'm slowly changing my mental paradigm. These (unfortunately) are all known carcinogens... so they can stay the *you-know-what* off of my plate. :)

It's going to be a long process. I burnt hash browns today (my egg replacer stuck to the pan more than anticipated), I destroyed homemade fake sausage in a skillet but resurrected it in the microwave (thank goodness!), and I had a few trials and tribulations with tofu. But, it all turned out delicious in the end, and I learned a LOT!

For lunch today, I threw together a quickie meal from all the leftovers I'd been creating with all my crazy cooking. Bryan absolutely LOVED it- his first comment was, "Can I have this for lunch tomorrow?".. and I have to admit, it was a lot better than I really expected! Check out the recipe: Cheesy Chickpeas go Tex-Mex.

Quick and Yummy!!

It's been a long day of cooking, so I think I'll settle into painting a bathroom for the remainder of the day! Have a great week; I'll probably be on here tomorrow though, what am I saying? 

Happy eating :)

<3

Courtney