This summer I decided to do something new. I have a collection of cookbooks. I've cooked my way through them several times over. I love cooking. I love cookbooks. But in the spring I noticed a certain "ennui" when it came time to make dinner. I had never experienced that before. I just didn't care about making a menu or preparing stuff for us to eat. Let me back up....
I grew up in a house where my mom didn't cook. She'll be the first to tell you that. She doesn't like it. But when I left for college I discovered quickly that I loved to cook. And with that discovery came a large collection of cookbooks, which, apparently after 15 years, I'd grown tired of. Chris said I should get a new cookbook. Little did he know what I would pick up was a copy of Vegetarian Times magazine.
So this summer I committed us to having a vegetarian lifestyle here at our house. So far it's going well... Unless you consider that being a "vegetarian" in Texas is sort of like admitting to being a Cold War Communist. And I haven't exactly told my mother. Because she sort of already has enough to deal with - I forget to vote, I'm not a straight ticket Republican, I think her talk radio hosts are nutcases, and I let my kids listen to Pink Floyd. I'm afraid telling her we've gone vegetarian will cause her to have a stroke. Well, not really. But I think she'd expect us to start protesting dairy farms. There are plenty of critics. I think if I'd decided to do a Hamburger Helper Summer no one would have said anything, but somehow deciding to try something new for three months makes us sort of a target. It gets tiring.
The reason I'm blogging about this is because it's something we are doing as a family. And it's neat to discover new foods and take pictures of the kids eating fun stuff. We've been vegetarianing ourselves for a few weeks now. I don't miss meat. I've eaten three meat meals in the past month. Each time I felt terrible after. Bloated, tired, just a general "yuck". It's amazing how quickly the body adapts to a new diet. There's a significant difference in energy levels here. We feel more energetic. Chris recently took up distance running, and he noticed quickly that he had more energy to run. The grocery bill is lower. The amount of time it takes to cook dinner is easily cut in half - all I do now is chop and serve.
So we invite you to witness our veggie journey this summer.
Pictures of our creations to follow.