January 26th, 2025 – 8:12pm: CRACK-BOOM! It was like lightning had just struck our house. All the lights go out as we’re dropped into darkness. My wife, step-mother, and daughter scream as both the baby and dog come running terrified. I go to the window to check how many of our neighbors are affected by the blackout. Total darkness. It’s […]
As most of you already know, last year I embarked on a journey to increase my knowledge of vegetarian and vegan recipes and I truly learned a lot from making a whole new slew of dishes that I’ve never made before, from simple veggie pasta, to Indian chickpea masala. Some of you may be wondering…How many of those dishes am […]
In my last blog post, I covered some of my main goals I want to achieve in the sustainability/Verdant Growth side of my life, but I have a few smaller stretch goals that I’d like to try for as well. These are goals that I thought of as I tried to figure out what I want my goals to be […]
This is it. The final “first time ever” vegan recipe for this year! I’ve now made 12 vegetarian/vegan dishes that I never made before! That’s 12 more meals I can make that are healthier, kinder, and full of flavor than I could ever make before. My journey took me to different countries (middle east, India, Asia, Europe), to varying levels […]
With just a couple months left to go in order to complete my New Years’ Resolution challenge to myself to make one new vegan or vegetarian dish per month in 2024, and my success with trying something way outside of my comfort zone last month, I decided that for this month I wanted to do something still unlike anything I […]
Yes, I’m not kidding. For this month, I may have tried to do the most lazy vegetarian meal possible (short of just eating a stalk of raw broccoli and an apple or something…). What’s one quick and easy way to get lots of flavor and lots of nutrition in your face all at once? The sandwich. I wanted to see […]
In this episode, we dive deep into the environmental impact of our food systems with Mark Easter, a leading expert on the intersection of agriculture and climate change. His upcoming book, The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos, presents groundbreaking insights on the hidden carbon footprint embedded in the way we grow, transport, and consume our food. […]
After my semi-successful attempts at hummus and toum, I knew I had to try one more dip that I LOVE: baba ganoush. July 2024: Baba Ganoush Not to too far from where I live, there’s a Greek place, and not to say anything bad about anything else on their menu, but every now and then, I just NEED to get […]
Despite my recent blog posts about vegan/vegetarian cooking, I am not a chef. I don’t really try to push the boundaries of culinary tastes, flavors, and textures. For the most part, I want to make food that is simple, tasty, and healthy. So in my quest to find more things to make that are vegetarian and vegan, I found this […]
I already know what you’re thinking: “What the heck is toum?” That was exactly what I thought when I bought my first toum (or “Toom” as it was branded). It was being sold as a “delicious vegan sauce”, and I thought I’d give it a shot, and bought some pita bread to go with it. For those uninitiated, it’s a […]