Adding To My Vegetarian Collection

It seems that every time I post a picture of a meal I've made it's a vegetarian meal. That's because I want to be a vegetarian and they usually turn out to be fairly healthy meals. I think I could, without too much trouble, at least get to the point where we are eating vegetarian five days a week. That would be great and it would still leave room for the special occasion meals that have meat, like the turkey for Thanksgiving and the chicken salad sandwiches at Christmas. Ideally, I'd love to be vegan and all that. It's too hard with the gluten free thing though. Isabella has so much she already can't eat. I don't think it would be fair, realistic or maybe even healthy (I don't know) to eat vegan too.

The vegetarian thing for me, it isn't a new advent of the last few years. It's been around for decades.If someone thought, "What happened to her? She's become such a liberal type in so many ways." I'd have to respond, no, I haven't been taken over by liberal hippie types, I've been like this for decades. When I was 18 I was attending community college in Mesa, Arizona. In my public speaking class I gave a speech on vivisection (animal testing). I poured over articles on the microfiche on the subject (haha, microfiche!) In my English class I wrote a paper on the evils of fur. We had to give ideas for subjects for our papers in class and I think I actually raised my hand and suggested "Meat is Murder". Haha, again. (I was a little too influenced by the idea of The Smiths. Not The Smiths music itself though, I'd never really listened to them, just heard of them.)

I don't know where I came up with these ideas, it was all pretty much organic though. Most of the people I knew at the time were Mormons and the idea certainly didn't come from them, I was chastised by a couple of them when practicing my vivisection speech on them at the LDS Institute (place for Mormon religion classes). I don't think I was totally convinced myself of the animal rights thing, I was definitely fascinated by it though and could see nothing wrong with it. As far as I was concerned, you were supposed to be all idealistic about things in college. I wanted to become a vegetarian but my mom cooked all of my dinners at the time and I couldn't expect her to do it for me and Chuck, my stepdad, would never have gone for it. At BYU I wrote a paper for biology called "The Elephants Demise". I remember my roommate MaryAnn (may she rest in peace) laughing at how dramatic the title sounded.

When the girls were little Brent and I both wanted to give it a try. Brent a little more than me at the time. I got a bunch of cookbooks, experimented a little but I didn't cook well enough at the time to make it fly. I have always incorporated quite a few meatless meals into our diets though. When Isabella wasn't growing, before she was diagnosed with celiac disease, I worried a little that my vegetarian meals might be the reason for her issues, scanty as those vegetarian meals were. So now I know that wasn't the problem. I keep experimenting, finding more and more dishes. Most of the dishes I come up with are pretty healthy and have a lot of whole foods in them. They are tasty and you just feel better when you are done eating. I swear, the fact that they are colorful and pretty and look healthy make it a much more pleasant dining experience too.

I guess I figure if I get enough meals on here in photographs, I'll have enough to make it easy to do. No fuss, no muss.

Pasta primavera with spaghetti, veggies and provolone cheese, sauteed with olive oil, garlic and rosemary.

Vegetable soup (potatoes, zucchini, spinach, celery, tomatoes and carrots from the garden, garbanzo beans, garlic, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning), spinach salad, and pumpkin muffins.