Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with all your loved ones. 🙂

I took a brief blogging hiatus while vacationing over the holidays in Naples and Miami, Florida. It was a wonderful break, during which I completely unplugged and relaxed. The R&R was much needed, but now I’m back and ready to begin 2013 with a bang!

Over the break, the manfriend and I watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives. Have you heard of it? If you haven’t see it, I highly recommend watching it. It is a very interesting study of how food impacts our health, and it will make you think twice about what you’re digesting. We were both very moved by the scientific evidence stacked in this film, and decided that it was time to reconsider what we eat.

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So, together we decided to start 2013 with a three week trial of the “whole foods, plant-based” diet that this film encourages. Essentially, they advocate a vegan diet, with whole grains, legumes, and plants as primary nutrition. Processed foods and animal-based products (meat and dairy) are to be consumed minimally or not at all.

Now, for a foodie like me, this diet is T-O-U-G-H. It means no steaks, no burgers, no salmon puff pastry, no CHEESE!? I knew this was going to be a major challenge for me. But, the only way to improve is to constantly challenge ourselves, so I was up for the adventure.

So, when I woke up on January 1st, I cleaned out my refrigerator of all the leftover cheese and milk products (having been out of town, this was not too difficult, fortunately), and trekked to the grocery store to stock up on veggies, whole grains, and fruit.

As part of this journey, Recetterie will become focused on vegan noshing for the next three weeks, and I invite you to join! I’ll be sharing a few vegan recipes, attempt to cook with tofu, as well as relay any bumps we discover along the way (I’m sure there will be plenty! Life without cheese?! Seriously?).

Wishing you a happy and healthy new year in 2013! 🙂