As a kid I wasn’t even allowed near the microwave without supervision, mostly because my family was scared of it. I didn’t learn how to cook much until my late 20s. I had a baby and it dawned on me that I couldn’t feed my kids the same junk I was used to eating. So I had to learn how to cook actual food. Crazy, right? Thankfully this was about the same time that cooking blogs were becoming a big thing. I credit their hard work for showing me that I could cook meals without getting totally overwhelmed.
Fast forward a few years and I have developed some, okay a lot of food allergies. And I went vegan almost 4 years ago. In 2021 I learned my kidneys are in full mutiny and am on a low-oxalate diet as well. Now I want to share what I’ve learned and hopefully help people feed themselves and their families a healthy (and tasty!) plant-based diet without emptying their bank accounts.
Since covid has been a major factor in our daily lives and I am high-risk thanks to aforementioned kidney mutiny, we order our groceries online. That means more meal planning around what’s available each week. I no longer have the option of popping into stores for specialized ingredients so we work with what we have.
Outside of cooking, I have 2 teenagers (who are constantly eating!) and am married. We homeschool/unschool and believe learning is a lifelong goal. We have a large and sometimes cranky orange cat named Lulu. I also enjoy knitting, reading, sewing, and trying to keep plants alive.
I have an MA in Sociology so I’m not a dietician or anything remotely medical (insert the standard tag line here about not taking anything I say as medical advice).
Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate, Completed
October 2019, eCornell and T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies