By Heather Nicholds
A vegan diet plan is often associated with feeling peaceful and loving. However, last week I wasn’t feeling so peaceful and had what I would call a kitchen breakdown. The vegetables I was trying to cook for dinner just wouldn’t cook the way I wanted them to.
And I totally underestimated the amount of food needed to fill 4 people, since I normally cook for 2. It’s usually easy to multiply, but for some reason my mental processes just weren’t functioning properly.
Anyway, the end result was that I got really frustrated and felt a strong urge to fling my parsnip across the street into the trees. Do you ever have kitchen breakdowns? I used to have them more often, but they’re pretty rare now. Shifting to a vegan diet plan was like the lifting of a huge burden in the kitchen for me.
My frustration always used to be because of trying to cook animal foods. It might sound crazy to some, but I was just never very good at making scrambled eggs. Any type of meat, poultry or fish would totally frustrate me.
Phil stepped up as our chef for quite a few years, when I was working at an office and he was working from home. He was also much better at making meals when they involved animal food. But like I said, when we started on a vegan diet plan, I felt a huge release and actually started having fun in the kitchen.
Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way I imagine. They can usually be re-jigged slightly, and I tend to be able to go with the flow. But every so often the frustration takes over and I find myself in a parsnip-flinging mood. So for those of you who find yourself there sometimes, you’re not alone.
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I’d also guess that there are some of you who are opposite to me – who were always great at cooking animal foods and find a vegan diet plan making them more frustrated in the kitchen. For those people, remember that vegetables are awesome on their own but beans and grains need flavor to make them exciting.
Beans are so often swapped for meat, but they’ll definitely be a let down unless you treat them properly. Coming out of a can, or after being fully cooked, beans need some time to marinate in flavor. A pinch of salt will help the flavor get right into the beans. Try seasoning them with your favorite flavors for meat – sometimes it’s the seasoning that you miss more than the meat itself.
If you get frustrated making meals, try to remember that it’s just food and even if you wind up with a pile of ash it’s not the end of the world. I have to remind myself of that sometimes, too.
Do you find a vegan diet plan – or just making the occasional healthy vegan recipe – the release or cause of frustration in the kitchen for you? Let me know below.
