Next Phase

Once I have prepared, served and adjusted my four weeks from the meal plans of the upcoming Sneaky Vegetarian, it is time for the next phase. As I complete each week I pass along the recipes to another team of volunteers who prepare the meals themselves. I want to know if the instructions are easy to follow and accurate from other people's perspective too. I believe this will help make my book more accurate.

If anyone had any comments on how else I could improve my book, that would be wonderful.

Week 3 Testing Begins Tomorrow

Just finished preparing the meals for tomorrow's 4 new testers. I've prepared the following meals:

Day 1- Sundried Tomato Fettuccine with Ceasars Salad
Day 2- Tofu Steaks With Sweet Potato Fries and Peas
Day 3- Stir Fry With Veggie Beef
Day 4- Spaghetti and Veggie Meatballs
Day 5- Sloppy Joes on Biscuits with Coleslaw

So far the comments from weeks 1-2 are really helping me perfect the recipes. Many are immediately okayed when they get a all around 10/10 rating. Others are now revised. The altered recipes are sent out to our recipe testers for them to cook and taste. Slowly but surely , the Sneaky Vegetarian cookbook is taking shape and becoming real and closer with every new taste from the tasters.

The crockpot question

So far, in my book Sneaky Vegetarian once a week in the weekly meal plans, I include a recipe to be made in a crockpot. I wanted to double-check that home cooks do indeed own crockpots and know how to use them. I posted the question on my Facebook page and I got wonderful comments that confirmed my premonition that lots of folks love their crockpot. The most popular recipes people make in their crockpots are: stew, spaghetti sauce and chili. I will indeed keep the crockpot recipes in Sneaky Veg.

Taste Test On For Week 2 Testers

Ok so I delivered week 2 meals yesterday and everyone seemed very excited to receive their box of food for the week. This week's menu goes like this:
day 1- Manicotti and Chef Salad
Day 2- Tropical Tofu on a bed of Rice with broccoli
Day 3- Creamy Chyken casserole with dumplings
Day 4- Fajitas with Mexican Salad
Day 5- Hamburger Macaroni

All vegetarian, all vegan.
Looking forward to hearing back comments. So far, I'm getting conflicting opinions on the tacos and especially with the vegetarian roast. Now it will be up to the recipe testers to help me make final decisions about switching up these recipes.

Week 2 Recipe Production Continues

Tomorrow just before supper,I will be delivering week 2 meals to this week's eager taste testers . First on my list of meals to make today was this Tropical Sesame Tofu. Got a stamp of approval from my flexitarian hubby and I couln't find any way to improve it. I think it's a winning recipe so now it will be up to the team to confirm this meal so I can check it off my list.

The Cannelloni Experiment

Week 2 Meal Preparation has started at Hoodoo Lake. Today I made up a batch of cannelloni and already, the lessons learned will serve to make the recipe better in my Sneaky Vegetarian cookbook. I wanted to see which would be easier to prepare and which would taste better: pre-cooked cannelloni noodles or uncooked cannelloni shells. Well the conclusion is: the uncooked shells are way easier and much more pleasant to prepare. It`s less messy and it`s easier to get the filling into the shells with but a small spoon as a tool. On the other hand, the pre-cooked shells are floppy, take 14 minutes to pre-cook and use up more filling. As for taste, the first tester`s opinion is that they are both equally good. So, to avoid the PIA factor associated with pre-cooking the shells and the messiness in filling them, the uncooked shells are the winner. We shall see what the remaining testers will decide this week!!

The Veggie Roast Flop

So, the veggie roast did not turn out the first time. Day 4 meal was supposed to be veggie roast with mini red potatoes, carrots and peas. One of the testers was supposed to cook the roast as per instructions and then deliver to the others. However, the cooking instructions were obviously wrong because it was all mushy and inedible. Luckily, she reported the problem and today, I tried a different method for cooking the roast. I cooked it in a crockpot instead of the oven and this time it turned out perfectly. Note that I had attempted this roast a few times before successfully but since I want everyone to experience success with Sneaky Vegetarian recipes, I had to try it again. Already got a report from one of the testers who rated this veggie roast a 10 on 10!! So, I think we may have it this time....we`ll keep our fingers crossed until I get all the ratings back from our testers!

The Sneaky Vegetarian Taste Testers Hard At Work

And so the adventure begins... Let me tell you the story of how The Sneaky Vegetarian be. You see I'm a passionnante vegetarian and I love sharing my cooking with others. I try not to preach about going veg to others although I do encourage anyone who shows interest in trying vegetarian meals or who wants to become vegetarian.

I've never cooked any other way so to me, preparing food the vegetarian way is second nature. Mix that in with the fact that I'm the type that loves cooking and loves to be prepared and organized, Sneaky Vegetarian was an inevitable product of my cataloguing nature. I have always composed a menu, usually on Sunday for the week of the meals I will prepare and then a grocery list to go with it. I thought everybody did this since my Mom raised me to always plan nutritious meals and to avoid take out except for special occasions.

In talking to friends and family, I realized a few years back that not everyone plans their meals in this way. Many people decide the day of or just a few hours before supper what they will eat that night. Talk about stress and pressure which often leads to take out and a less than nutritious mealtime. Being a vegetarian, take out is not much fun. What is there besides salad, fries and veggie burgers(if you are lucky).

I found out a few years back that to many people, eating vegetarian is strange, unknown but interesting. More and more, as vegetarianism is becoming mainstream, people are itching to try a vegetarian menu but have no idea how to start and are not sure if they dared how other people in the family would react.

The natural solution of course was for me to write a cookbook that would include lots of good recipes, meal plans with grocery lists, vegetarian resources, info and do it in a way that would not be scary and strange even though it would be completely vegetarian ( and actually pretty much vegan). No problem, right? Well, what is not strange is not always obvious to me since I have been vegetarian since the age of 10! Therefore so far, only my husband, who is a flexitarian, had tried my vegetarian meal recipes.

And so, The Sneaky Vegetarian Taste Tester Analysts were summoned. I put a post on my Facebook page and I now have my 8 testers for the 4 week Supper Menu Plans section of my book. The first week is going on right now. On Wednesday, I will gather up the food diaries of these first analysts and make any improvements necessary on that week's recipes. Once the recipes have been well taste tested by veg and non veg ( mostly) families, I will send the perfected recipes to my growing list of recipe and taste tester analysts. They will follow the grocery list and then go through the motions of preparing these meals for their family for a week. Soon enough, my recipes and supper plan will be perfected and tested on real families and on real people who want to flex in their diet to include veg meals in their real every day life ! I'm so excited! Can't wait to see the first comments in the diaries this week! I'll keep you posted;)