Trust the Vegetarian

Do you like my new blog name?!  I was so excited about it today that it was almost hard to focus on teaching.  I was walking into school with two coworkers who were telling me there's another coworker of ours who is a fairly new vegetarian; she's having trouble finding good ways to get protein into her diet without meat.  "She hates tofu," they said, "and hasn't tried tempeh but doesn't think she will like that either."  I replied, "oh, she'll like it if she gets her recipes from me!  Trust the vegetarian!"  As soon as I said it, I loved it and announced it would be my new blog name!

Trust the vegetarian. I think it shows the changes that my blog (and life) have undergone since I started writing in 2011 (is that crazy or what?!).  Since I started writing this blog, I have become a vegetarian again.  Yes, I said again: I was meatless from age 2 - 14, for those of you who don't know; as soon as I had a dinner conversation with my mom about why chicken is called chicken, I gave it up until I was a very hungry high schooler. My parents did not condone this lifestyle, and I lived on side dishes for 12 years.  I was also very picky, and was what a nutritionist called a pasta-terian.  In short, I had a lot to learn about living a healthy vegetarian life.  I think that's partly why I gave it up when I was 14 (I still remember my first McDonald's burger on a chorus field trip - it made me sick).  Once I started cooking a lot, touching raw meat became more and more horrific, and slowly but surely, I weaned out all meat from my diet.

No, I don't miss it.  No, not even bacon.  No, it's not just because I love animals, but it is certainly part of it.  These are the questions vegetarians get all the time :)  I don't mind them.  I have plenty of vegetarian knowledge to impart, so ask away; just promise me you will try my meatless meals.

Besides changing my diet over the past 4 years, I have gotten quite adept at sneaking protein into my life without resorting to chicken or steak. I could be a good resource for new veggie eaters, or even just people who want to try to go meatless every now and then (Meatless Mondays, anyone?)  Yes, I may make weird things every now and then, but trust the vegetarian, will you?  Even my weirdest dishes can pleasantly surprise you.  Just ask my family to discuss pulled cauliflower sandwiches.

I promise to get back to the recipes real soon; I just could not wait to share this new name change with you any longer!