New Cookbook!

Today was left-overs day at our house.  Neither myself or my husband were really feeling up to cooking and we still had some left overs in the house that we decided to eat up.  So instead of a meal, I'll give you a little info about the new cookbook I picked-up over the weekend and the week ahead.


On a quick trip for essentials at a major retailer, I came across Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.  I had previously heard of the Skinny Bitch line of books, but  I never looked into them or really have had any idea what they were about or, well, I had no clue, just knew it was something to do with diet.  When I picked up the cookbook and thumbed through it, I noticed right away that there seemed to me a very limited number of dishes with meat. Upon further discovery, I couldn't find any dishes with meat and then noticed that there were several recipes that included meat alternative items such as tofu and tempeh.  So I decided to roll with it and pick it up.

While standing in line at the checkout counter, I began scanning the back of the dustcover and reading through the praises of the cookbook; it wasn't until then that the actual word vegan popped up and then I was really excited about it.  While my husband and I have decided to adopt a vegetarian/pescetarian diet (I'm not sure if I'm ready to go with lifestyle), I didn't think that I would be so quickly interested in further diet restrictions such as full vegetarianism or even a vegan lifestyle.  I don't know if we will move forward (we're only on week 2), but the fact that the thought even crossed my mind is interesting, and surprising, to even me.  So yes, this is a fully vegan cookbook.

The following day, Sunday, yesterday, I sat down with the cookbook and skimmed through the recipes looking for some options during my weekly meal planning task.  I was a bit disappointed that nothing jumped out at me right away as something that sounded amazing or something easy enough to whip up quick.  But then I decided to read the introduction where Barnouin explains a bit about why she adopted a vegetarian and then vegan diet as well as clean eating as a whole.  It was then that I felt a connection.  It seemed to me that Barnouin was just a regular gal, like me, that was looking for a better way of life and eating.  She was looking to stop polluting her body with chemicals and other unnatural items and again, excited!

I've chose only one recipe from Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook for this week's menu but its one that includes tempeh, which is an ingredient that I have never used before - and didn't even know about until last week - so I'm looking forward to the challenge and seeing how this goes.  Also for this week, I've got some soy based "sausage" to include in a frittata recipe - another first for us.  It ought to be an interesting, and maybe challenging, week.