About Me

Want to learn a little bit about me and my motivations for starting this blog? This is the place for you!

Who are you?

• Hi! I’m Cooper and I live in Manchester, England. I have been vegetarian for over 5 years and I was vegan for a year in 2016.
• I am a food enthusiast – I love cooking and eating out. I adore sharing recipe ideas with friends and family and generally talking about food.
• I am a new blogger still learning the ropes, so please do bear with me!

Why have you started a blog?

• Since I decided to stop eating meat for good, I have been on a huge learning curve of learning to cook and meal plan veggie food. Living as the only veggie in a household with meat eaters and pescatarians, this has come with it’s own challenges. As a Northerner, the default meal is meat, potatoes, and veg, so altering my mindset around food was a struggle.
• However, I have found some amazing recipes and good tips and tricks that allow me to live my veggie life without breaking the bank, jeopardising my health, or compromising on my social life.
• I want to share what I have learnt with others and, hopefully, pick up some tips from other members of the food blogging community too!

What? Another food blog?!

• I know, right! Indeed, there are already so many fabulous food blogs, YouTube channels, and recipe websites out there. My blog contributes to this amazing wealth of recipes, meal planning tips, and general sharing of my veggie life!
• I want to share my own system of organising my recipes, planning my meals within a tight budget, creating tasty food, and even eating out and socialising as a vegetarian.
• I hope that it will be a helpful resource for all, including those trying to eat less meat, those considering becoming vegetarian, new veggies, or seasoned herbivores.

What’s different about your blog?

• As well as contributing lots of different recipe ideas for veggies, one of the more unique features of my blog will be my system of meal planning.
• I am health conscious, yet keen to enjoy food and indulge when I want to. With this in mind, I generally adhere to a 5:2 approach to meal planning.

Doesn’t that mean fasting?!

• No- I love my food far too much for that!
• Rather than fasting, I plan my meals according to if it is a weekday or a weekend. Alongside regular exercise, I find that this way of eating allows me to maintain a healthy weight while enjoying all of the glorious veggie food I want to eat!

So how does it work?

• During weekdays (5), I consciously eat more healthy foods and loosely follow a Weight Watchers diet using their app. I often batch cook and eat leftovers during the week to minimise waste and keep my points down.
• At the weekend (2), everything is fair game- eating out, takeaways, and treats. If I fancy something naughty, I won’t stop myself from indulging. However, I don’t exclusively eat junk at weekends, but wouldn’t deny myself a takeaway if I want it and can afford it!

What should we expect?

• Veggie Recipes – simple, inexpensive, tasty food
• Weekly Meal Plans (health-conscious, budget-friendly, and low waste)
• Restaurant Reviews
• Musings on Veggie Life
• Memes

What shouldn’t we expect?

• Extravagant recipes with expensive, difficult to find ingredients
• Designer kitchen and posh utensils
• A life story before each recipe – on this blog you won’t have to scroll to the end of time to get the recipe- it will be up front and any notes or comments I have will be secondary.
• A lot of dessert recipes (we don’t have a sweet tooth in my household but we love savoury snacks).

Anything else?

I want to show that it is possible to eat crazy tasty food as a vegetarian- both in and out of the house- while sticking to a budget and being mindful of your health.

I want to share my ideas with like-minded people by showing some of the recipes I have collected during the last few years and getting some ideas off others too!

Please do comment with your tips, suggestions, and criticisms (but always with kindness and courtesy please!).