Happy Monday!

Hi Everyone, Samm here!

I hope you all had a great New Year celebration. I know I did! I have to say that I'm deeply touched with how my friends have embraced my switch to a vegan diet. While the Kickstart is only 21 days, if all goes well and I find that I enjoy it, I plan on sticking with a primarily vegan diet.

New Years was fantastic! I celebrated with my husband and several of our close friends at our friends' new house. This friend is an amazing chef and her parties are legendary for her food. I admit I was worried that I would be putting her out if I requested vegan fare so I kept my mouth shut. I figured I would simply not eat anything else or just consume the customary veggie tray after midnight. Boy was I wrong!

My friend was sweet enough to give me quite a few vegan options including her homemade hummus that was nothing short of amazing! Without realizing it, I ended up snacking on most of the vegan food all night!

To make the night even better my bestie gave me a plate of vegan banana bread and a tin of AMAZING vegan snickerdoodles. These cookies are fantastic! She couldn't find an egg substitute so she looked online and used something else. (I forget what she said). So the cookies didn't rise but that's okay! They were crispy and even more flavorful. I have to get that recipe from her.

On New Years Day my husband and I made a trip to Tony's Finer Foods to supplement the food I bought at Whole Foods the previous day. He's trying the Caveman Diet as a challenge so our cart looked pretty weird. He can only eat fruits, vegetables and meat while I can't eat any animal products. Our bill was more expensive than usual but I was proud of our lack of processed food. Looking at other carts, ours was by far the healthiest!

RECIPES AND COOKING

Cooking has been interesting. I like to cook but I rarely do it. Being vegan is forcing me to actually cook dinner and not just order out. This is going to be a good thing. The recipes on the 21 Day Kickstart are interesting but they aren't perfect. For instance, I made their Couscous Confetti Salad and nearly spit it out. They recommend using rice vinegar, lemon and olive oil as a dressing. I found that it was way too tart and tasted more like vinegar than anything else. It wasn't for me. However, the rest of the salad should be good with a different dressing. I'm going to have to experiment.

Their Fantastic Fruit Smoothie, on the other hand, was AMAZING! It just makes way too much smoothie! So I took my extra smoothie and stuck it in the freezer. I pulled it out later last night as a sorbet-like treat! What was left I put in my blender this morning and added more orange juice. The nice feature about the Kickstart recipes is that you make enough for more than one meal.

Another great place I've found for recipes is Alicia Silverstone's TheKindLife.com. Her site has TONS of recipes and they include pictures! I'm not going to lie, they all look yummy but many have strange ingredients that I've never heard of before. Once I make a few I'll let you know and will post the results.

EATING OUT

I had my first experience with eating out yesterday. A friend and I went to a local diner after our riding lesson, so obviously, it wasn't a vegan restaurant. To make anything on the menu vegan required some substitution and creative thinking. Not wanting to be the jerk who asks them to rework their entire menu to accommodate my diet, I ordered a simple salad minus the hard-boiled egg, cheese and sliced chicken. It worked out great! There was some miscommunication with the vinaigrette I ordered (it had Parmesan cheese in it) and I had to send it back. Thankfully it was served on the side so I was able to easily switch out that for vinegar and oil.

Tomorrow is my father's birthday and we're supposed to meet up with him and my mom at a local Irish pub for dinner. As you can imagine there is nothing on the menu that is vegetarian let alone vegan. My plan remains the same, order a salad minus the animal products with oil and vinegar on the side. It's a simple solution and it doesn't put the restaurant too much out of its way.

I've read vegan sites that say restaurants should accommodate you and your diet. While that is true, it's only true to some degree. If you're a vegan going to a non-vegan restaurant keep in mind that the restaurant probably isn't going to have vegan substitutions (sometimes they might depending on the type of restaurant). Don't be a jerk about it. Remember, you choose to eat there. Instead, try your best to find something on the menu that can be easily made vegan. If you have trouble ask your waitress. They will have a better idea what's in the kitchen and they can help you come up with a great solution.

IS IT HARD?

I think the biggest thing people keep asking me about becoming vegan is if it's hard. Of course it's hard! It's a huge change in lifestyle. However, it doesn't have to be daunting. Lynette and I have done our research and we've made lists, gathered recipes, and determined what we're going to eat before we even go to the store. This has helped a LOT. But be prepared to set aside more time to go to the store because now you've got to read labels...ALL of the labels! Things that look like they're vegan sometimes aren't and vice versa. You need to read the labels to find out and that takes time and patience.

Cravings are another thing people keep talking about. Honestly, the only craving I had was for sausage and that's because I was cutting some up for my husband. I resisted and when the sausage was out of sight I forgot about the craving. I haven't had any other cravings, which has surprised me since I LOVE candy and sweets. Sure, a lot of candy can be vegan but it depends on your views on refined sugar. Some sugar is refined using charred animal bones. To be safe, I'm attempting to weed that out as well.

It's been a huge change but so far not that hard of one, at least for me. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I'm still excited about the challenge. Remember, today is the first offical day of the 21 Day Kickstart Challenge so if you haven't signed up and you want to give it a shot, do it soon!