Richa Hingle is the prolific and award winning recipe developer, blogger, and photographer behind VeganRicha.com. Her instructions are easy to follow and her step-by-step photographs welcome the uninitiated into their kitchen as vouched by many of her readers. She loves to show people how easy it is to cook vegan Indian or other cuisines. Richa has been featured on Oprah.com, Huffington Post, Glamour, Babble, VegNews.com, Rediff.com (top 50 Indian food blogs), TheKitchn, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, and many more. Her first cookbook Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen, about easy and delicious Indian Vegan recipes, is in stores and is a #1 Best Seller on Amazon. She lives in Seattle.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeganRicha
Intagram: http://instagram.com/veganricha
Twitter: http://instagram.com/veganricha
A portion of the proceeds from the blog and my first cookbook Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen go to the following organizations.
http://vspca.org/
http://helpanimalsindia.org/
http://www.animalaidunlimited.com/
About:
Hi, I am Richa. I live in Seattle with my husband and a fluffball named Chewie.
I started up my cooking experiments once I took over most of the daily cooking from Vivek, who had been our resident chef in 2007(mid 2007 to early 2008). The problem with experimenting with dinner dishes at that time was that, even if the dish comes out good, we might just not like it taste wise. And that puts the dinner at risk. So I thought and thought and picked up baking. Baking helps me make snacks/breakfast/tea-time things which can always be substituted with something else if the taste buds reject the final product:)
I have been blogging since 2009. I like to keep it healthy and constantly strive to reduce the fat and sugar required in most baked goods. I am not a by the book cook, or a stickler for measurements. Vegan Richa is my baking, cooking blog and Hypnagogic is the random life blog.
I used to be a Software Developer, recovering (almost fully recovered as much as I could:)) from a Craniotomy done in 2006 to remove a meningioma(brain surgery to remove a tumor). I am trying to think up some other completely different career options to pursue ( pursuing recipe development and photography now)
I am a foster parent for a Dog Rescue and also with the Seattle Humane Society , Though I mostly end up fostering dogs from the Death Row rescue, since I cant really handle big dogs yet. I still have some balance issues and fostering and baking are helping me get back on my feet. We were fostering dogs till mid 2010, then I was hit by panic disorder brought on most likely by the follow up MRI. Everything is clear, but my brain refuses to listen. So I am working on calming it down and getting life back on track. You can read my daily blab on Hypnagogic .
My right eye nerves were affected during the surgery so that limits my reading, writing, browsing in general, online or books. I do read a lot of blogs intermittently and some books a couple of pages at a time, but since the eyes get tired very easily, I am not so active in the world of blogging, connecting and commenting. I am slowly trying to get more out there.
Food photography work a bit like Tai-chi for my eyes, getting better at browsing and editing pictures and such. Reading long pages is still a pain. I love reading everyone’s stories and posts, and try to spread it out during the day to help me get to as many blogs as I can.
We are on a plant based diet (transition started in 2010 by eliminating things one by one). All the current the recipes on the blog are now vegan. Some Recipes from the archives are non vegan, but can be veganized with simple substitutions. the connection was made because of being associated with rescue and foster of dogs, getting ot know about puppy mills, associating and understanding chewie and the fosters, and finally realizing that the pain, suffering, feelings are the same for all animals. to read more, please see Our Journey here.
I try to use whole, organic as less processed as possible ingredients. I do use some new products and substitutes to find out how they taste and work, but eventually phase them out with home made or unprocessed options. Our food philosophy keeps changing based on things that make sense to me and you can notice that in the posts and recipes over the years.
Update 2013: this year I have been able to read more and more and spend a lot more time on the computer as you can see from the blog post frequency. Though more time in the kitchen is still a higher priority. :). Standing and cooking up a few dishes in one day is something I would love to do almost every day.
Why Vegan:
Me: I realized I couldn’t directly or indirectly cause extreme suffering and death of any other animal or human when there are alternatives. Hubbs, found about the impact on our own health and environment because of our food choices and decided. a little bit of my compassion rubbed off too. Animals are sentient, self-aware, and capable of experiencing both pleasure and pain. They deserve our respect and deserve a natural life and freedom. We choose less cruelty and we do it all without sacrificing taste, habits and pleasure. For our Journey details see here.
What keeps this food blog going, is to prove, that any food choice, is not about giving up something, it is about finding something better.
About food:
I cook very intuitively. On the blog, you will find a good number of yeast breads, Vegan-ized Indian and fusion foods, other cuisines visited, cookies, cakes, breakfast, bakes, and more.
What do we Eat:
We eat a lot of different legumes, beans, lentils, pulses, veggies, whole grains, whole grain flatbreads, nuts, seeds, greens, and most of it does Not include processed vegan meat substitutes, processed soy, vegan cheese, mayo, butter etc. What it does include is bold flavors, variety, healthy food with a bit of indulgence once in a while. More than 600 recipes and counting. Please see the Recipe Index or Category Menu on to top of the page. #WhatVegansEat
Thank you for stopping by. and please do let me know how you like the blogs and the recipes!
Best Wishes and love to everyone!
My Galleries http://www.veganricha.com/p/featured-on.html
-Richa Hingle-Garg
e-Mail: richahingle at gmail dot com
I’d love to hear from you!
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