Economy Blues? 8 How-To Cope Tips For Vegetarians
New Here? If so, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.
Would you like to contribute a guest article? If so, shoot Missy an email. Thanxs!We hear about it all day — the trouble the automotive companies are in, the mess the banking and real estate business are in, not to mention the sharp declines in the stock market.
tofurky coupon below
So I thought I’d share a short list of how to maintain your healthy eating without breaking your budget. Whether you’re a vegetarian college student, searching for a job, or down on the dumps, the 8 tips below are for you. Share how you’re coping in the comments?
1. Grow a garden
It sounds cheesy, but one of the biggest ways to save money is to simply grow a garden. Organic produce doesn’t come cheap, but its relatively easy to grow. If you can’t handle an outdoor garden, grow a couple tomato plants indoors. If you’re willing to grow an outdoor garden consider beans, hot peppers, lettuce, basil, and cucumbers as just a few potential crops.
2. Look for health food brands and chain grocery stores
Kroger, Meijer and others have started to carry organic produce and some familiar health food brands, such Morningstar and Annie’s. Regional availability is still an issue, but you can find a lot of good deals at these places.
3. Shop Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s (if you’re lucky enough to have one by you) is an awesome asset to vegetarians. While the selection can be somewhat lacking, the prices are unbeatable. I often find the EXACT same item for 2-3 dollars cheaper than at Whole Paycheck… er I mean Whole Foods Market, the other health food chain by me (DISCLOSURE: I have several friends at WFM, and I definitely support what they’re doing, despite the high prices.)
4. Shop local health food joints
Many areas have local health food stores that can be very competitive in pricing with retail chains like Whole Foods Market. While not as cheap as some places (Trader Joe’s), these places often have a broad selection, such as a variety of organic cheeses or entrees, which a place like Trader Joe’s does not.
5. Eat in
Eating in — it’s romantic, it’s tasty, and it’s affordable. If your cash is tight eat in, it’s just common sense. Besides, there’s a shortage of good vegetarian restaurants and they typically charge a premium. Even if you are willing to make due with less-than-health food like Italian joints, you can still cook a premium organic vegetarian meal for the price that it would take to buy a run-of-the-mill dinner.
6. Check out the co-ops
Afraid to garden on your own? Want to meet other vegetarians? Do some research on co-ops in your area. Most parts of the country have these groups and they can be great and provide a lot of savings over the course of the year. Besides being part of a co-op makes you feel pretty darn groovy.
7. Clip coupons
This is another seemingly common sense tip, but many don’t know how many coupons there are out there for health food. Check out Whole Foods Market if there’s one by you — they put out really nice books of coupons, which can often be used at competitors. Vegetarian magazines also are another good source, and sometimes you can go directly to retailers website or try writing your favorite retailer to receive more special offers. Visit a frugal forum or get some tofurky coupons?
8. Buy in bulk
The last tip of the day is to buy in bulk. Sounds obvious, right? Well actually a lot of organic and vegetarian food items aren’t available in bulk or are just becoming available. Case and point — my favorite smoothy maker Sambazon just recently released a jumbo bottle of the Acai drink, which delivers about 3 little bottles worth for 2/3’s of the price. Keep your eyes peeled and take advantage of these opportunities when you find them!
Want A Free Sample Of Dunkin Donuts Coffee?
Sure you do. The freebie this week is a sample of Dunkin Donuts coffee. I spotted the offer via the fantastic Bargainist blog.
As with all the other freebies, simply fill out your name and address and the free sample will be mailed to you in a few weeks.
There isn’t a Dunkin Donuts anywhere in sight in the South, but i do love a hot cup of DD java when i visit my stomping grounds in Chicago. No need to bring five bucks either, you can walk away with a large for like less than $1.50
Nice!
All Natural Protein Shake Video Recipe
The hunky dude you see in the video above is vegan NFL player Tony Gonzalez. He runs down a quick all natural shake recipe for you.
Watch the video for all the ingredients. I will give you a clue though, loads and loads of fruits are used. Enjoy!
10 Good Sites To Find Vegetarian Recipes
Want some great vegetarian recipes but don’t know where to go? Maybe you’re looking for vegetarian Thanksgiving ideas? Well check out the 10 recipe sites below — their wealth of ideas won’t leave you disappointed!
1. Vegetarian Times
Vegetarian Times magazine is a fun read, and a terrific resource for everyone from starting vegetarians, to long time healthy-eaters. The recipes section of their website is quite spectacular.
They have so many recipes they had to include a full featured, intuitive search which includes categories such as your diet type (vegetarian, vegan, etc.), the appliance you’re cooking with, the season, and even special categories to select a holiday. If that’s not enough to get you drooling, users can rate recipes, so you’re sure to find good ones.
Check it out here:
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/
2. VegCooking.com
What better place to find vegetarian recipes than a site entirely devoted to it? While Vegetarian Times may be slightly quicker and more intuitive for quick recipes, VegCooking is more full featured, with shopping and dining guides, and more.
When it comes to recipes, the site has some delicious ones. Check out their seasonal article on making a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. You won’t be disappointed!!
http://www.vegcooking.com/
3. VegWeb
VegWeb is much more organic in format to most other recipe locations. Users submit recipes and photos and other users submit reviews. The recipes here include delicious entries like “Double Chocolate Oatmeal Banana Cookies” and “Vegan Banana Pancakes”. Strengths are its grassroots nature and the fact that it caters to a variety of diet types.
4. Savvy Vegetarian
This site has a lot of recipes. If you can get past a garrish color scheme (at least on my browser) and are willing to dig into the less-intuitive (or at least less graphically pleasing) menus, you should find some good stuff here.
Categories of recipes include bread, beverages, vegan desserts, pastas, salads, soups, and tofu recipes.
http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/vegetarian-recipes/index.php
5. Simply Recipes
Simply recipes is a blog headed by Elise Bauer. It has a massive list of neatly laid out recipes. When looking for a random recipes the layout works very well. Looking for a specific recipe might be slightly harder. Still, there’s just so many good recipes here, with attractive pictures, that its hard not to love this site.
The site employs several culinary bloggers, so there’s lots of fresh creativity as well.
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/vegetarian/
6. BBC Good Kitchen’s Vegetarian Section
BBC? Like the British news station? Yep! The British Broadcasting Company, interestingly has a massive culinary page filled with recipes of all kinds. To go along with Europe’s Vegetarian-friendliness, BBC Good Food indeed has a full page of vegetarian recipes filled with beautiful pictures.
The recipes are split into Dessert, Dinner Party, Main Course, Starter, and Vegan dishes. More recipes can also be found under Occasions and Cuisines, but these are not purely Vegetarian, so beware.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/vegetarian/
7. The Food Network
I admit, I’ve been a bit of an addict of The Food Network at times. Even if you don’t find cooking TV shows fun, its hard to deny their eye-catching website’s appeal. Why do I rank it this low? Well there’s pictures of meat entrees everywhere, which may turn off some. And while there’s many vegetarian recipes, including a large soy section, there’s less than some places and they’re less sensitive to special diets like veganism.
Still it’s worth checking out, in my opinion:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/healthy-eating/index.html#tab3
8. Veg Kitchen
Veg Kitchen has an attractive website, easy to follow recipes and a lot of them. The only thing that I was not a big fan of, and this is pretty subjective, is the lack of images to accompany the dishes. I liked how some of the sites included tempting pictures to motivate you to embark on your culinary adventure.
Still this site is a treasure trove of some great vegetarian (and vegan) recipes.
9. 101 Vegetarian Recipes
The site “101 Vegetarian Recipes” is slightly deceptively named as it actually has more than 101 vegetarian recipes. The site has no pictures, but has many good recipes, most of which are Vegan.
One minor note is the site pops up recipes in a new tab, which I suppose can be good or bad depending on your browsing preferences.
http://www.101vegetarianrecipes.com/
10. VegNews
This site wins points for creative appetizing recipes with beautiful color images. Navigation is easy as well. The only drawback that makes it less than tantalizing, is that there’s only a small rotating selection of recipes and it’s hard to navigate to past recipes.
2 Quick Protein Rich Recipes For Vegetarian Athletes
I’m an avid runner. I also hike and do a lot of other sports. For some reason, people often mistakenly equate vegetarian food with not providing adequate protein and nutrition. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. One need only look to world class vegetarian athletes, such as Olympic champion Carl Lewis to see that a vegetarian diet can power your sporting.
However, I know you also probably don’t have all the time in the world. Below are two quick protein rich vegetarian recipes packed with carbs and other essential nutrients. Enjoy!
Super Black Bean and Corn Burritos
Ingredients:
Organic Corn (1 small bag or a can)
2 cans Black Beans
2 small jars organic salsa (or I sometimes use Trader Joe’s)
Organic Cheese or Vegan Cheddar, shredded
Spices (beach salt, chili powder, cayenne pepper are my favorites!)
2 packs Organic Tortillas
Cooking Spray
Instructions:
Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl. First add the corn. Drain and add the black beans and then stir in the salsa and cheese. Lastly add spices and stir well.
Preheat oven to 375 deg. F.
Take out a fry pan and spray it light with cooking spray or spread some olive oil on it. Place tortillas on the pan for a couple of seconds, until they are lightly browned. Flip and brown other side. Take off frying pan, fill with about 2 spoons of bean, corn, and cheese mix. Finish wrapping the burrito and place it in an oiled baking dish.
Once all the burritos are ready, cover in foil, then put dish in oven. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, or until burritos become lightly browned.
Super Refried Bean Burritos
Ingredients:
1 Avocado (great for good fats)
1 can of Garbanzo beans
1 can of Refried Beans
1 can of Salsa
1 pack Organic Cheese or Vegan Cheese
2 packs of Tortillas
Spices (cayenne pepper!)
Instructions:
Coating pan with olive oil and place refried beans in it, at medium heat. Once beans begin to heat, stir gently and lower hear to med-high.
Drain the garbanzo beans and add them to beans. Chop the avocado and add to the beans. Take the mix off the burner. Place a second fry pan on the burner, coat with oil. Heat on medium high.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Gently brown tortillas on both sides. Place two generous spoons of bean mix in tortilla. Add a bit of salsa and cheese. Wrap and place in a baking sheet.
Once all beans are used up or you run out of tortillas, cover burrito dish in foil and bake in oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
Serving suggestion: Serve with some delicious organic blue corn tortilla chips and salsa — yum!
I hope these dishes help to fuel your adventures. Please sharing your own burrito suggestions with us, if you have good ones, or if there’s other sporting foods you’d like to see.
Bon Appetite!
Have Questions, Ask At The Vegetarian Forums
Hi, guys. I created a forum for vegetarians on Ning tonite. If you have any questions on vegetarianism, this is the place to do it. Any good discussions will also show up here on the blog.
I always wanted a forum on Groovy Veg for those who come here with questions and as such, it is aimed at Vegetarian Newbies. Please visit, join, and feel free to start a thread. You can introduce yourself, ask a question, post a review, share the link to your blogs, etc.
To tell me what you think of the vegetarian forums, leave a comment below. Thanxs!
15 Halloween Food Costume Ideas For Vegetarians
Here are some fun food costume ideas for Halloween 2008. For convenience the costumes have been split into solo ideas and then ideas for coupled costumes. Plus 8 misc food costumes added in for variety.
For the solo Halloween enthusiast:
1. The Jolly Green Giant
While you may prefer organic offerings to the Jolly Giant, this will always be THE poster boy of veggies. Also makes a great family costume as you can dress the kid up as Giant Jr.
The Jolly Green Giant (and kid)
2. Blueberry Muffin
There’s no denying this costume’s appeal. The only hangup might be the price — it comes in at a cool $659. Maybe some homemade crafting is in order.
Available here, for an arm and a leg:
Blueberry Mascot
3. Vegetarian Sushi (eco friendly)
This costume is not available at any outlet, so you’ll have to craft it yourself. Use packaging peanuts for rice and felt or other materials for the roll. For a rough idea, check this kids’ version out.
Via: Coolest Homemade Costumes
4. Ramen Noodles
Perfect for starving college types (or starving writers). The costume will have to be homemade… so quality might be an issue depending on your talent and high-quality color-printing resources.
Via: WTF Costumes
Here’s some creative Halloween food costumes for couples:
5. The Grim Reaper and a Carton of McDonald’s Fries
Greasy fast food and death — they just seem to go hand on hand. This costume works on many levels. The fries can either be handmade from red and yellow felt or be ordered online. The grim reaper can also be handmade or bought at major Halloween shops.
6. Mr. Potato Head
Many of us vegetarians love ‘taters. For a fun costume and a trip back down memory lane check these out.
Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head Costumes
7. Gingerbread Man
With some quick alterations, you should be able to make a second one look woman-ish, and you’ll be set to impress.
BONUS ENTRY: Dirty Martini (on the rocks)
Who says you have to go as food. Not us. No way.
Want More? We have more.
Child Banana Costume - Funny Food Costumes
Child Banana Costume - Funny Food Costumes - Child Halloween Costumes - This funny banana costume is a one-piece, thin, foam-like material.
Adult Ice Cream Cone Costume - Funny Food Costumes
Adult Ice Cream Cone Costume - Funny Food Costumes - This funny ice cream costume includes the tunic with hood.
Adult Super Caffeine Coffee Costume - Funny Food Costumes
Adult Super Caffeine Coffee Costume - Funny Food Costumes - This funny food Super Caffeine Coffee costume includes the coffee cup tunic only.
Adult Wonder Bread Costume - Funny Food Costumes
Adult Blow Pop Candy Costume - Food Costumes
Adult Tootsie Roll Candy Costume - Food Costumes
Adult Sugar Daddy Candy Costume - Food Costumes
