I grew up in Ireland, living mainly in Dublin but also in Louth and Meath (hello beautiful beaches). I then moved to Valencia, Spain, after finishing university. In Valencia I really missed the vegetarian restaurants (highly recommend Govindas and Cornucopia if you’re ever in Dublin) and wider range of products in the supermarket from back home, but Valencia had a lot to offer. Cheap, plentiful and high-quality fruit and vegetables, lovely weather, the beach life….I spent about four years living it up there, before moving to Madrid in 2010 for a job which paid more. I wanted to be able to save up money for my master’s, which was based in Barcelona.
As we all know, life rarely goes to plan, and I never made it to Barcelona. Instead, I met my future husband and partner-in-crime, also known as HH (Handsome Husband!). Although we met in Madrid, he is actually Zimbabwean. We fell (hard) in love, had a baby boy, and got married…Due to HH’s job, we later had the opportunity to live in Bangalore, India, for two years. We moved there when I was eight months pregnant with our second child and so I gave birth to our daughter in India.
I loved beautiful Bangalore. The colours,the spices, the amazing food…I could go on, but suffice to say there are things I really miss about India. It was an amazing experience living in a place where there was so much vegetarian food available. It was all so well cooked and spiced, and I learnt so much about cooking there.
I have been vegetarian for over twenty years now, and I don’t miss meat at all. I originally made the decision because I just wasn’t OK with the deaths of animals, but now I also firmly believe that vegetarianism is better for the environment. I was vegan for three years previously, and I still regularly eat vegan food.
In my household, my husband and children eat meat some times, but my son is extremely allergic to eggs and dairy. I was also recently diagnosed with an egg allergy (go figure, who knew you could become allergic to stuff later in life?). So that and my son’s allergies heavily influences my decision to cook everything from scratch and eat mainly at home. That and the fact that I am secretly carrying out a not-so-secret long term vegetarian-conversion campaign against my family…mwhahahaha.
Restaurants in Spain are getting better and better at serving vegetarian food, especially in Madrid, but allergen-labeling and information still have a long way to go here. I love love love spicy food so you’ll see it featured often on this blog. I bake vegan cakes and bread for my kids, quick soups and midweek dinners, and at the weekend I like to make more complicated recipes that copy our restaurant favourites. I’m constantly looking for and experimenting with new recipes as I’m pretty obsessed with food! This means that in my free time when I’m not working on my blog, I’m reading other recipe blogs.
I have a long backlog of recipes to get through and then I plan to spend a lot of time developing new ones, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to drop me a line! I love interacting with readers so feel free to comment or reach out to me on social media. I work full-time as well as working on this blog, so it may take me a little longer to get back to you, but I will (eventually)!