About Cooking Carrots

My husband and I went vegan in October 2013.  I found the change exciting, since I love to cook and I adored the challenge of making tasty food without meat.  This transition was not as hard as I expected.  It probably helped that I've been cooking dairy-free for the past 10 years, and I usually made at least one meat-free dinner each week.

One thing I discovered is that friends and family wanted to know what I was eating.  If you come from a meat and cheese culture, vegan food is kind of mysterious.  I mean, what do vegans eat?  Carrots?  At least that is my dad's theory.  Our first conversation about what we were having for thanksgiving dinner:

Lynn: We just got back from Thanksgiving dinner with the inlaws.  I'm stuffed and ready for a nap!

Dad: What did you have?  A carrot?

Since my family is awesome like that, this spawned an ongoing joke about carrots.  Leading to my dad asking, "What are you going to call your cooking blog?  How to cook a carrot?" Little did he know that he just came up with a great name.  Thanks Dad!.
 
My cooking philosophy is that food should be flavorful and delicious, but not too complex to make.  Sure, if its a casserole that will feed an army for a week, its going to take a little work.  But otherwise, during the week I want to be able to cook a meal without too much trouble so I can hurry up and relax.  Since the cook often does the dishes in my house, I am totally in favor of one-pot meals.

Though I happen to love a lot of the meat and cheese substitutes out there, I know a lot of family live in the veggie-barren lands of Texas and Alaska, which are places that seem to rarely carry these products.  So I will try to list alternatives wherever possible.

Please enjoy, try a few plant-based recipes, and have a carrot on me.