Introduction: The Face Behind the Name

Growing up I did very little cooking. I mostly steered clear of the kitchen. My mother and grandmother would always ask me to help out with cooking. I wouldn't do it. They never asked my brother, who was a year older than me because "he is a boy". That pissed me off so hard. From then on whenever I did nothing, it was a protest to the sexism that was being practised in my house.

Now, I said earlier that I mostly steered clear of the kitchen, well, there were times that I baked and cooked things on my own, when no one was really around. I used to make candy apples from scratch. Gingerbreadhouses too. Basically, delicious things where the ends justified the means. But I got older and could afford to buy the pre-fab Gingerbreadhouses, so I quit that.

I was also a disgusting meat-eater until I was eighteen. Okay, I would go to McDonalds and eat two Big Macs in a sitting. It was my favourite. When I became a vegetarian it was my "aha" moment. (Oprah, that one's for you!) It was a World Issues class in high school. Talking about land and cows and stuff. From then on meat was off the menu. I gradually cut out seafood though, as it was harder to give up. I love seafood. But we're not here to talk about why I'm a vegetarian, it's more or less about why I still am: my delicious diet.

I never cooked my own vegetarian meals. My entire family eats meat. My parents are vegetarian on Tuesdays and my cousin, Shalini, is a part-time vegetarian. My dear mother mostly cooked for me, until I moved out at age twenty-four.

That gives me three years so far of doing it on my own. I am a lazy person and I don't want to sound like I take pride in that, but I've come up with some awesome recipes and meal solutions that are founded upon three essential factors. They have to be:

a)Somewhat Healthy,
b)Easy (short prep. time/few ingredients), and;
c)Cheap.

Let my recipes and ideas stimulate you. That or, you know, allow you to save a couple minutes. Ah, the art of cooking.