About
Easy plant-based recipes
Here I share my favorite plant-based recipes, all easy to make for all skill levels – even if you are not used to cooking plant-based ingredients and are super time-pressed, you can still find practical and easy-to-follow recipes to cook every day, lazy or busy weekends or that something special to take it up a notch for celebrations, social gatherings or fine dining.
From around the world
VeggieZing brings you a variety of authentic traditional recipes from around the world, some accidentally vegan, some veganized, passed down to me from my family and friends, and modern and multicultural recipes developed by me. All recipes are extensively tested and approved by my family, friends, and me.
Expect traditional and modern recipes from all over the world, including appetizers, entrées, breads, sides, snacks, desserts, and beverages. No plant ingredients are off-limits here, including faux meats, nuts, protein powders, and ethnic spices.
Cooking measurements and conversions
I include metric and English systems for all recipes, but I try to stick to measuring cups and measuring spoons as much as possible because they are the same worldwide, so we keep it straight and easy to follow no matter where you are. The cup is a cooking measure of volume, not to be confused with fun mugs, your gramma’s beautiful tea cups, or drinking glasses or cups. Measuring cups and spoons are low investments that will make your cooking easier, clean, and more accurate, especially when baking your goodies.
I am happy you are here!
Hello there! I am Ana-Paula, the recipe developer, the cook, and the voice and face behind VeggieZing. I have a passion for delicious food, animal welfare, healthy and ethical living, environmental protection, and technology –all of this goes together beautifully when sticking to a vegan lifestyle.
My journey
When I started my vegan journey in 2013, there was very little reliable material on the internet, wrong info, and broken recipes. It was pretty frustrating to spend much time in the kitchen following recipes that resulted in dull dishes that never panned out to expectations. Unfortunately, the internet is full of non-tested recipes, poor instructions, and misleading info that results in loss of ingredients, waste of time, and frustrated expectations. With that, I found myself researching new ingredients and multiple testing rounds in my kitchen to recreate my favorite recipes. I knew that if I could start with my comfort food dishes, the vegan journey would be rewarding. In that process, my goal was to keep it nutritious and create a similar taste and texture with no compromise in flavor.
With my Portuguese-Italian roots, I associate authentic Mediterranean food with warm fuzzy feelings and good memories from my childhood. It ties me to my family, holding a unique and personal value for me.
Growing up in São Paulo, Brazil’s rich ingredients and flavors greatly influenced my eating preferences and cooking style. The natural wealth of the country shapes Brazilian cuisine. The influx of immigrants from many foreign nations to São Paulo developed a rich diversity in food preparation that shows in its culinary traditions. I learned to cook with my Italian grandmother. Her contagious enthusiasm to learn how to incorporate local exotic ingredients (such as coconut, tapioca, cassava, guava, acerola, passion fruit, mangos, bananas, cashew fruit, soybeans, tamarind, avocados) into what we cooked and ate every day strongly influenced my cooking expression.
Living in California for 13 years profoundly influenced my cooking when I took so much interest in the cuisine of California with its diverse influence on Hispanic America, North Africa, Eastern Asian, and Indian influences. Although I have not been living in the New England area for a very long time, I notice how the seasonality and local ingredients shape my food interests and my inspiration for cooking.
Business and vacation travels have been taking me around the world, and I have been drawn to a variety of flavors I experienced while traveling, bringing me much inspiration to infuse global flavors into the dishes I create today.
My world expanded
As I transitioned to a vegan lifestyle, my little world expanded so much, and I discovered incredible ingredients, foods, seasoning, and spices – I found myself trying so many different types of ingredients, cooking techniques, and other ways to use familiar ingredients. My vegan journey has taken me on an unexpected, enjoyable, and fascinating path toward global cooking.
Throughout this journey, I learned a lot, and still learning and becoming vegan marked a new beginning when I rekindled my passion for cooking and felt inspired to share my findings along the journey. I aim to share with you all I have learned (and still learning) in my vegan journey that I wish I could have found when I decided to stick to a plant-based diet.
Food is nutrition, love, and culture
Our food preferences and cooking styles map who we are, where we came from, and a collection of our life experiences – comfort foods, our roots, where we grew up, friends we met, places we traveled to, and influential people that influenced our lives. What we grew up eating and all the cultures we connected with become a part of who we are. We eat what we are. Food helps to define us.
What we eat daily can tell where we come from; it is one strong expression form of cultural identity. And this process makes each one of us very unique. My own personal journey is translated into the unique cooking expression that I share here with you.