One of my favorite things to do is cook, wether it be after a long day of work or on a Sunday afternoon. My love affair of food has been a long time in the making, developed over years of budding tastes, refined palette, and branching out of my comfort zone. Food has always interested me, especially the eating part of it. When I was young, the four main food groups came into play in almost every meal and eating my fruits and vegetables wasn’t negotiable. In fact, my love and appreciation for fresh, healthy food began at a tender age and has only grown throughout the years, especially now that the grocery shopping happens when I write out the list and round up Mike.

Lately, I’ve been even more conscious of what I’m consuming, making healthier choices as I’ve started to think of my body as a machine. Why wouldn’t you want to put only the best fuel in, especially if you want the best performance? Makes sense. And with very little effort, I wove in 3 -4 vegetarian meals throughout the week. With Pinterest, my Cooking Light subscription, and the Internet, finding meatless dishes is fun, a challenge even and so much healthier.

So, after a night in, after we ate homemade chicken kiev, we settled in to watch the movie Vegucated, a documentary of a New York Vegan who recruits three other New Yorkers to take a 6 week Vegan challenge. No meat, dairy, animal bi-products. Plus, an education on the cruelty of animals used in the meat and dairy industry. Needless to say, I had to watch in installments, as the documentary is quite upsetting. Once the movie ended, I knew I wanted to increase the plant based foods we were cooking and eating and decrease if not eliminate the animals I consume. Mike let me know that no one turns Vegan in a matter of moments and realistically he was right, but something had to change. And that brings us to the 30 day challenge.

30 days. No meat. All vegetarian, with the exception of fish. I mean, I’m just trying to be realistic here, so figured it was a start to cut out meat. It’s going to be a challenge for us both, Mike even more so, but think we can definitely do it.

Day 1 Dinner: Tofu parmesan with a side of Mushroom & Shallot Orzo in a tomato basil sauce.