Meet Sassy
Your Vegan Coach

Wondering who The Vegan Coach is? It's time to meet Sassy!

Do you like to cook? If so, perhaps you can remember back to a time when your food didn't exactly turn out the way you had expected. That was me back in 1994. Well, I had always been a terrible cook. I burned practically everything I ever made.

So when I decided to "Go Vegan" all those years ago, and didn't know anybody who could show me the ropes, I figured it was FINALLY time to learn how to prepare meals that were delicious and nutritious.

I purchased as many vegan cookbooks as I could, and with my trusty taste-tester hubby by my side, my kitchen laboratory was open.

I can't tell you how many horrible-tasting dishes were made back then. Oy! But somewhere along the way the tides started to turn. Little by little, dish by dish, I learned to create food that was 100% vegetarian and yummy tasting.

It was truly amazing to me that I actually started to enjoy cooking! So after 9 years of hands-on practice and honing my skills, I opened Chef Sassy's Vegan Personal Chef Service, preparing delectable vegan meals for my fantastic clients.

As featured in the Reno News & Review Click to read the article.

Of course, along with preparing food for others comes a responsibility...

In all my years as a Vegan I kept running into huge amounts of conflicting information about the vegan diet. One day I'd read some information which solidified my resolve to be a Vegan, and the next day I'd question this same information.

I really had no idea if the food I was preparing for hubby and I (and my clients) could provide the nutrients that we needed. In order for me to continue enjoying my vegan way of life, it suddenly became extremely important for me to learn the ins and outs of vegan nutrition. I needed to learn the truth for myself.

So I enrolled in a nutrition course and to my delightful surprise, the topic of nutrition completely and totally fascinated me. I fell in love very quickly with the wonders of the foods we use to fuel our miraculous bodies, graduating with Honors as a Nutritional Consultant in record time.

This course spurred inside of me what has now become a never-ending search for the unbiased truth about vegan nutrition.

So there I was, now armed with the knowledge of how to make delectable AND healthy vegan food.

Yay! All was fabulous with my world, right?

Well, not so fast...

Because through all the cooking and book writing and vegan nutrition education there continued to be one teensy tiny little nagging point that just wouldn't go away:

When it came to creating a vegan dish from scratch without a recipe, I was SEVERELY challenged! Sure, I could "veganize" a recipe with the best of them, but starting with an ingredient and building on it without a recipe in sight was over my head.

Friends and family would indicate an interest in checking out "vegan". But they'd get turned off when they discovered that it required following time-consuming recipes. They had their hands full with kids, football and cheerleading practice -- who had the time? They would ask me for more basic advice and recipes, but even the simplest recipes I could find were too much for many to deal with.

And for years Jeff wanted to help in the kitchen, but he's an entertainer, not a chef. He disliked recipes and found them to be confusing and overwhelming. We love to do everything we can together, and we wanted to discover a way to make vegan cooking easy and fun for both of us.

(Celebrating our 16th Anniversary in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!)

Then, in 2006, after 12 years of whipping up delectable vegan vittles, something inside of me snapped! I was tired of recipes. Sick of having to follow the "formulas". And cooking just started to be a drag. I needed to make cooking fun again. I'm a creative person (aren't we all?) and felt the strong desire to be more creative in the kitchen.

Around this time Jeff and I took a fateful trip to Costa Rica. While in Montezuma, we visited Cafe de Artistas, a simply magical, gorgeous restaurant right on the beach!

Every evening our fantastic Chef Nicola (from Italy!) prepared a vegan feast just for us. A HUGE platter was delivered to our table with the most delectable veggies, beans and grains I've EVER had the pleasure of tasting, all prepared to perfection to compliment the natural flavors of each food. Delizioso!

We swooned with each and every single solitary bite. The simplicity of this food was incredibly inspiring. I couldn't wait to get home to ATTEMPT to capture some of what I tasted.

Once in my own kitchen, I started to experiment with different foods and spices, trying to capture the unique beauty of each ingredient -- without a recipe in sight! I amazed myself with the food I was cranking out of the kitchen.

Food that's not only easy to make, but focused on the best of vegan nutrition.

And Jeff? He's happily whipping up recipe-free vegan dishes that taste great. He figures if he can do it, anybody can. And best of all we get to play in the kitchen together. Happiness!

All this helped me to realize that perhaps there are others out there who can benefit from all this information I've been gathering over the years?

Vegan Coach is dedicated to all my fellow Vegans (or wanna-be's) who are sick and tired of recipes and just want to play with their food. Who need an EASY way to get food on the table -- food that's delicious and nutritious and doesn't take an hour of solid preparation!

No matter your skill level in the kitchen, VeganCoach.com has been created to teach you the tricks of the vegan trade I've learned over the years. You'll discover how to create healthy, whole foods that are easy to prepare and support your good health.

But what you may find most helpful are the "Vegan Flavor Matches" found throughout the site. Visit the Vegan Cooking Guide Tutorial for an understanding of how these food matches can simplify your cooking. Simply mix and match flavors to create easy vegan meals that are tailored to your exact tastes and what you have on hand at any given time. It really doesn't get much easier than this. :O)

Of course, you'll still find a few recipes lingering about throughout my site. Because sometimes you just need a recipe!

Thanks so much for popping into Vegan Coach for a visit. And if you like this site, please tell your friends. ;O)

Patty "Sassy" Knutson, NC
Vegan Chef/Author/Nutritional Consultant
Proud Advisory Board Member of DetoxReviews.com

p.s. If you would like to read a little more about how creating this website for you has helped me to find my life's bliss (and can help you find yours too!), click here.

All done with the Meet Sassy page?
Click here to visit my Blog!

Discover the Vegan Food Pyramid!

Visit the Vegan Cooking Guide to discover how EASY vegan cooking can be!

Take a peek at the Vegan Coach Sitemap to see all the information VeganCoach.com has to offer you.

Go to the Vegan Coach Homepage

ADD TO YOUR SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: Blink Del.icio.us Digg
Furl Google Simpy Spurl Technorati Y! MyWeb