Growing and changing: less salad, more life

So I haven't posted in a while and the reason is that I was just too flat out doing other things and something had to give! I did my final student teaching placement, finished my university degree, loved and lost, and started my career as an actual qualified teacher (finally!).

Also, I wanted a little break because I wanted some time and space to think, and I have been thinking a lot. Because increasingly I was wanting to post about things that weren't necessarily about veganism, they were just about my own life and things that I was doing that I wanted to share. But this didn't really fit with the focus of 'So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad?'

I feel that it is time for a direction change, and as as I said, this is something I have been mulling over for a long time. Over time, I have been growing and changing and the things I want to share have been moving beyond 'So You You Just, Like, Eat Salad?', and something else has been taking shape in my head. Something called Little Vegan Life.

Now don't fret lovers of 'So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad?', because Salad will still be here in spirit! All of the yummy recipes, the food product reviews, the reporting on what I ate at various events, and the thoughts and ponderings will continue, there will just be more... other stuff! Also, all of the old posts are still here to rummage through. I've even kept the URL the same so that links to this blog on other sites will still work.

Things grow and change, people grow and change, ideas grow and change, that is nature and that is wonderful. Think of this as 'So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad?' growing and changing, dying its hair, listening to different music and wearing different clothes, but still being the same blog underneath.

I am really excited to be sharing more of my little vegan life with you, and as always I would love for you to share your life and thoughts with me as well as we go. Here's to a new chapter!

Happy reading! :)

A big apology to everyone who has commented on this blog!

Oh dear, I've made a boo-boo. I've accidentally deleted every comment on this blog! I thought I was just deleting them from the list, not actually DELETING them. I am so sorry to everyone who has left comments for me! It wasn't personal, I loved hearing from you all very much.

Please do comment again, I promise I won't delete it next time!

*sigh* Oh well, live and learn...

New addition - 'What I'm Eating'

I was looking through all the blog posts, doing some renovating, and I noticed that the food diary entries were suprisingly popular. Maybe people were finding them a good way to get some cooking inspiration, or maybe they were just nosy.

Either way, they were popular and this got me thinking, now that I have ended the food diaries, is the blog failing to satisfy this need in my readers? Maybe recipes aren't enough, they're not as frequent as the food diary entries were because I just simply don't make new food that often. Recipes for most of the food I make has already been posted. However, I just don't have the time for food diaries at the moment; I currently work over 50 hours a week with two jobs and university study. Plus, there's only so many times you can be interested in vegemite on toast isn't there?

For these reasons, I have decided to start a new post label (or tag), 'What I'm Eating'. Posts under this label will show food that I'm currently making, eating, and enjoying, but won't show every single thing I eat in a day. Posts will not be daily but should be more frequent than new recipe posts. I'll also be able to post the same food more than once, unlike in the recipe section where each meal is only posted once.

So, dear readers, I hope that this addition satisfies your inspiration/nosiness yearning. I'm sure that it will satisfy my yearning to share with you all.

Happy eating! :)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Hi everyone!

I have decided to take this blog in a new direction. Mostly due to the fact that I work full-time and study part-time (work that one out!) I am finding it increasingly difficult to make a post each day.

After some time away from the blog to think, I have decided that instead of posting photos of everything I eat (there's only so many times you can show vegemite on toast before it gets REALLY boring) I will instead only blog about interesting/new things that I eat. I know that the recipe posts are always a big hit so I'm going to focus more on tasty recipes as well as discussing vegan living in general.

I am sad to see the old So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad? go though :( I think it was a great way to show people that being vegan doesn't mean eating freaky foods like tofu on toast for breakfast. I really wanted to show that being vegan is such an easy lifestyle to maintain and absolutely doesn't mean 'missing out'! If anything, I think I have gained more through my journey towards being vegan than I have lost.

However, at the moment it's just not practical as I don't have the time to make daily posts. I don't want to let readers down by having them visit the blog only to find that nothing has changed or the posts are late, etc. Maybe in the future a sister blog will be born where I can share the day to day reality of living vegan, I hope so.

For now though, be prepared for some delicious recipes; and the great thing about vegan recipes is that you can enjoy them even if you're not vegan! Hey, you might even realise that vegans have great taste and... become one of us *spooky staring eyes*. Of course there will also still be lots of food for thought postings as well!

So, happy reading and, as always, happy eating! :)

NEW! Introducing the blog search!

Great news everyone, I've added a search button on the top of the right sidebar of the blog. Now you can search for things! Like say, recipes, issues, or companies. Really, the possibilities are endless, you are only bound by your imagination (and what I have written). Enjoy!

Happy eating! :)

No they do not just eat salad...and tofu.

Doing a google search for "vegan recipes" and everything either has tofu in it or is a salad. Or a salad with tofu. Back to the reason I made this blog in the first place...

Vegan lent challenge

So I have been doing a lot of thinking about veganism, how I want to go vegan, and the barriers to me doing that. The main thing holding me back is dairy. I eat a lot of it, it's in most of the main meals we cook, and I don't like vegan alternatives. Also, Jeff not even being vegetarian makes me going vegan difficult. What will we eat? Will we have to make separate meals? I don't want him to miss out on anything.

When I went vegetarian in 2007, I knew it was something I personally would be able to do. The question was, how would it work within my non-vegetarian household? After talking to my family, I decided I would go vegetarian over lent. At the end of lent we would sit down and review how the past 46 days (there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, weirdly) had gone and whether we thought my being vegetarian would be workable. We decided it was all working fine so I stayed vegetarian. However, my mum said once that if I wanted to be vegan I'd have to wait until I left home. I have left home now but that still doesn't make it any easier because now I live with Jeff.

After a night of barely any sleep, worrying all night about dairy cows, chickens, and queen bees, I was racked with guilt. I looked up the dates for lent 2012 to show myself that I'd already missed the boat but... lent starts this Wednesday! Now I'm faced with a whole new set of problems and worries. Do I trial being vegan over lent to show myself that I can do it? What will I do then? Stay vegan? Aim to do lots of research, collect recipes, etc and then do it again next year with the aim of staying vegan? How will this work living with Jeff? What about parties, dinners, etc that are already organised for the lent period? Where will I go out for dinner? What about on holidays and stuff? It's hard enough to find vegetarian food in some places, let alone vegan. What about family members who cook for me? What about Jeff's poor mum who, bless her, tries so hard to cook vegetarian food. She'll die if I say I'm vegan. How, oh how, can I live without dairy? And mead! I love mead! And crunchy nut cornflakes,and milo, and nutella, and porridge! The honey porridge with the bear on it that I've been eating my whole life! I feel very sad but at the same time I know that I can't keep supporting the cruelty I am supporting.

So I'm thinking I'm going to try it and play it by ear. I'll start on Thursday though because dinner for Wednesday is already planned and has cheese in it. I'm worried I don't know enough recipes off the top of my head to stop me from becoming vitamin and mineral deficient. It's far too easy to eat a crappy diet when you first become vegetarian or vegan. I'm also not a big fan of tofu.

Welcome to So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad? !!

So what's the story behind this blog? Well, So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad? is an idea that I've been nursing for a while. After becoming vegetarian in early 2007, I was constantly annoyed by questions such as these that I received from ignorant people.

Try as I might, I just could not make people see that being vegetarian really doesn't mean a restriction of your diet! I've found that people seem to focus on what you don't eat rather than what you do (I choose the word don't rather than can't because vegetarianism is a choice. I choose not to eat flesh or animal products that are obtained by killing the animal, I'm not allergic to them). So many times I've had people say "Oh, you're vegetarian? I'll make a salad then" or "Well what can I cook then?". I find a similar problem in many restaurants where the 'vegetarian menu' consists of two choices which are invariably lasagna, quiche, risotto, or something involving antipasto. However, at least they are making an effort and things are slowly changing!

Luckily my mum was always very supportive of my choice and knew that no meat doesn't mean no life! Because of her and a few valuable cookbooks, I now have so many meal ideas that it's sometimes hard to decide what to make! Through So Do You Just, Like, Eat Salad? I hope to share some of my favourite recipes for fellow vegetarians and vegans, people thinking of becoming vegetarian or vegan, and people who want to cook for a vegetarian or vegan but don't know what to make. Most of the things I eat are quick, easy, and cheap, and most of them are pretty obvious once you think about it, beans on toast anyone?

Also, I want to post photographs of everything I eat. This will be somewhat of an art project for me as well as being a great way to share ideas with others! I'm really excited by this project and was pretty greatly inspired by the work of Dawn Tan, who weighed and painted everything she ate. The catalyst for this blog's creation, however, was my friend Kahla who said I want to be vegetarian but I don't know what to eat!

This blog will provide ideas, food for thought, information, discussion, and help to dispel some of the myths out there! So tune in, enjoy, learn, and most importantly, eat!