Meatless Mondays from A-Z {MMAZ}

While enjoying lunch in Denver with Kirk, I came up with a “crazy” idea. My meal had caper berries and I LOVE those, but I realized I haven’t ever cooked with them at home. Why not? Thinking about it, I realized I tend to cook with a lot of the same ingredients. It’s my own comfort zone.

I love challenges as a way to help motivate me to step out of my comfort zone, so what about a cooking challenge?! As I brainstormed ideas, I decided it would be fun to cook through the alphabet, building a recipe around an ingredient with the letter of the alphabet I was on. For example, starting with A – I could build a recipe around “artichokes”. Make sense?

As the idea evolved, I decided I might not be the only one who would enjoy the challenge, so the weekly link-up here on Better With Veggies was born!  Since this blog is already built around a plant-based diet, I built on the concept of Meatless Monday to show how many AWESOME meals can be created without meat!

You can join the fun at any time – pick your favorite letter and jump in on that week. Even better, start next week and make it a weekly tradition! Or, just come by on Mondays to see what others have created around the ingredient of the week.

Ingredients are announced a month at a time – always at least 1 week before the recipes are posted. You can always find the latest list here if you miss the big announcement!

Round 2 #MMAZ

• April 1 – Create a Recipe for Avocado
• April 8 – Cook a Recipe for Avocado
• April 15 – Create a Recipe for Blueberries
• April 22 – Cook a Recipe for Blueberries
• April 29 – Create a Recipe for Cabbage

Interested in looking back? You can still find all the Round 1 #MMAZ posts here!

Ready to Join the Fun?!

In round 1, you were challenged to create a new meatless recipe each week for the featured ingredient. It was a lot of fun for those of us who love the challenge of creating an original recipe, but I also heard from some of you who don’t feel ready to create recipes yet. This time EVERYONE can join!

In Round 2, each ingredient will last 2 weeks! Participate in one or both weeks – it’s up to you!

• Create a Recipe: the first week will be our usual link-up of original recipes created with the featured ingredient. It can be easy, complicated, or in between. Snacks, appetizers, salads, dinner – whatever inspires you that day! The goal is help you get creative and try something new, but you can also link up to a recipe you posted previously.

• Cook a Recipe: the second week is a new link-up of recipes you cooked with the featured ingredient. I encourage you to choose one of the recipes created for MMAZ the week before, but you can use one you found somewhere else too.The only big rule is to never share the full recipe on your post, but we encourage you to link back to the recipe on the creator’s website.

Just add the MMAZ button to your post and link up to your recipe including the ingredient of the week! (Grab the code for the logo below). On the MMAZ post each week, you’ll see a link to add your own recipe (including a photo!) at the bottom of the page. That’s it!

Post Logo for April:

<div align="center"><a href="http://betterwithveggies.com" title="Better With Veggies"><img src="http://betterwithveggies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/BWV-Round2-April_thumb.jpg" alt="Better With Veggies" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Already a Participant? Grab the sidebar version below to show your #MMAZ love all week!

<div align="center"><a href="http://betterwithveggies.com" title="Better With Veggies"><img src="http://betterwithveggies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MMAZ-Side-Round2_thumb.jpg" alt="Better With Veggies" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Any questions? Please feel free to send me an email and I’ll help you out.