Latin American Vegetarian Food

I was in Austin, Texas a couple of weekends ago and went to my favorite restaurant, Mr. Natural. If you are a vegetarian living in Austin, you probably know about Mr. Natural and how they have fantastic lunch specials with lots of yummy vegetarian food.

For those of you who haven't been to Mr. Natural or Austin, you should know that this is THE place for Mexican vegetarian food...even vegans! Since Mexican food is known for lots of cheese and meat, the idea of making it vegetarian might sound disrespectful, but I think everyone deserves to have some good Mexican food. When you really think about it, the staples of Mexican food make it very amenable to vegetarian versions.

Soon after arriving back in Miami I was kind of sad to realize that there isn't much Mexican food here, much less vegetarian Mexican food. Now that I think about it, there aren't many vegetarian options for any type of food from Latin America around here. Then I thought, I know how to cook, what am I talking about???

So, I'm embarking on attempt to make vegetarian and vegan versions of some of my family's and my own recipes as well as any other dishes from Latin America that are begging for a vegetarian version. I'm down for the challenge, so if you have any ideas for dishes to be converted, let me know and stay tuned for the results!