Day 5 : Journal - Customize Your Vegan-ness

Hello there, Mosno here,
I just want to start by saying the vegan community here is Baltimore is amazing, they have a wealth of information, and they share it unconditionally.  This is beautiful,  but it can also be a problem if not used with care :)

One of the 1st things you learn when becoming a vegan for the first time, is that you will end up cooking and preparing most of your meals. I'm on day 5 right now, but from Day 1, the group email was buzzing with recipes for all sorts of delicious dishes. This is great, if your a person who cooks.

I did not cook pre-vegan pledge, so when all these recipes come flying at me, I get over whelmed. I'll be honest, it scared me a little, but I wanted to figure out a way to make it work. So I decided to customize this new life style to make it easier for me to adapt.

First thing I did, created a "label" in my gmail email, "labels" are like "folders". Any time I get a vegan recipe, I just move it into that folder.
This serves two purposes:
1. I get to accumulate some recipes for future use
2. It keeps it out of my field of vision, there for not reminding me that I can't cook, yet!

Second thing I did, started a Vegan folder in my Evernote account.
Evernote is great, its free, works on phones, tables, and their website. I use it all the time to take notes for ideas and lyrics for my music and personal life. And I have access to my notes at anytime, from any of my devices,  as long as they are connected to WiFi of course.

In this vegan folder, I started writting different notes, starting with observations and advice from the Saturday lecture/demo, to ideas of simple dishes I can make.
This is helping A LOT, you see, I was an assembler, I made sandwiches and heated things for my meals, so I started there, replacing the food choices with Vegan options to keep the process fairly similar,  for now.

The more I'm learning, the more I'm finding it comfortable to add more elements into dish ideas. Today I'm finding that my overwhelm-ness is slowly being replaced by excitement.  Simply because I shifted my thought from "having to learn to make fried chicken tofu" to instead "learning to veganize a dish I already know".

So to my new, non-cooking Vegans, take a deep breath, organize yourselves,  and start small. Take your favorite dish and use Vegan ingredients,  I believe that will make a world of difference.

Oh and have a fun Playlist or a favorite album playing in the background as you cook, it will help you un-stress, put you in a good mood,  and there for implanting the experience as a positive memory in your brain, encouraging you to do it again.
Trust me, it worked for me.
Never underestimate the power of music my peeps :)

I hope this was helpful
I'll blog you soon.

Much love,
Mosno

Day 3 : Journal

Mosno here,
I just wanted to share what was in my head, today is my 3rd day as Vegan, and the reality of the change is starting to settle in a bit. I woke up today for work, got dressed, and then thought "oh crap, I don't have lunch to take to work with me today" *sad trumpet sound*. I do have tofu & seiton, but they are in the freezer, which doesn't do me any good at this point.

Never the less, by the power of Vegan, I had found a solution.
First thing I did was pack a snack to take to work with me, the snacks are:
A couple of Apple Cinnamon rice cakes
A hand full of dates
An apple
I had bought all 3 from my local giant yesterday on my 1st Vegan shooping adventure.

There is tea at work, so I'll just snack and have tea for the next few hours until I get home. Luckily I also bought some ready made soups by Wolfgang, one is a potato soup and the other lentils I believe. Also from Giant.
At least that way when I get home I would be able to heat up a meal in a few mintues.

This is an adjustment for sure, but as demonstrated,  there are quick ways to make it work, until I get a handle on the cooking aspect of things.

I must confess,  I am a little worried about that side of things, I'm not a "cooker", and have NO idea how to make "portions" to last me for more than a couple of days :)
I'll be making a lot of phone calls the first few weeks for sure.

I think we should orgnize a Cook Out, in which people like myself would get together with people who know what their doing, we would all get ingredients and recipes for a meal we want to make and do a hands on cooking then we all sit together and enjoy the food we just learned to make.
I think that would be beneficial to those who also know how to cook, but aren't familiar with Vegan recipes.

What do you think peeps?

I hope my Baltimore folks are dry & warm on this Snow Day :)
Blog you soon
Much Love
Mosno