Another Mother’s Day has passed and I am glad to have to over with. My youngest child is not speaking to me, which is pretty rough when that child is 34. Bah. But we had a nice dinner at Puckett’s, and we did the NYT puzzle afterward, as we usually do. Dale is at the controls, casts it to our large tv. It’s fun.
Today I was wondering if my PT (pool) would be canceled because of lightning and it was. Which felt a little like a snow day for about 5 mins.
I am trying to overhaul our diets. I resent a little that I, the housewifery person, am the one doing this, on my own. But, since I am the one who is interested in doing it, and I am the one who does most of the cooking It makes sense for me to do it by myself. I have this idea that it would be so cool if we would sit down together and make a plan, but we have done that before and it never sticks. So I am trying to figure out a way that I can get meals on the table so that we only eat out once or twice a week, and I will say that even if Dale is going to eat out, I want to really limit my time eating out. It’s expensive, it’s too calorie dense, and every time I eat out for convenience sake I make it that much harder on myself trying to motivate myself to cook.
So I want to eat vegan foods, not exclusively vegan foods–if someone else wants to make me some real bacon or some fish, I’m fine with that, but I have no interest in ever touching meat again. I mean ever. The only meat I’m comfortable touching is cold cuts and cooked bacon and things like that, but there are alternatives that I love that are not made from meat, so I’m just making up my mind and putting my foot down that I’m never touching meat again because seriously yuck.
Also because best for the planet. But really it mostly has to do with the fact that I want to eat what I am drawn to eat and what I feel like would be my perfect life my perfect world and I would eat these bowls of rice and legumes and noodles and vegetables and all kinds of grains and seeds and nuts and greens with wonderful sauces. And piles of fruit and dried fruit and some chocolate.
What I would not do is sit down to a plate with a slab of protein, a huge serving of some kind of carb like a baked potato, plus some green peas and, this is the hardest thing for me to even think about giving up—bread.
I’m not going to give up bread but I want to have it in different ways. Don’t get me wrong I’m still gonna get up on most days and have a bagel with butter and my fake bacon, but for the rest of the meals I want to have really good breads like sourdough that we get up on the mountain which means I’ll have to drive up there to get it but it would be worth it. And pita breads and naan, burrito wraps, maybe learn to make some of those Indian fry breads at home as they’re supposed to be really easy. And I want to seriously employ the wonderful crunchiness of toasted nuts and seeds; that can make a big difference for me because crunch is everything.
But I need to be gentle with myself and very clear that this does not have to be done quickly, and I guess I need to be really clear about the fact that if all I can manage is a slab of protein like some marinated tofu and some green peas and a baked potato that’s OK too. Everything has to be as simple as possible. So I’ve been looking at the Make-a-Mix Cookery which is an old cookbook, very interesting. I figured out how to do my own Rice-a-Roni mix. I’m thinking that I also want to do some Spanish/ Mexican rice mix because we love that as well, and then if you have some refried beans and some veg you’ve got a meal right there.
Anyhow that’s what I’m doing today–perusing cookbooks and making plans. I’m especially interested in vegan spreads for sandwiches. And any kind of loaf that I can whip up really fast like a lentil loaf or black bean loaf or burgers made of beans and tofu, things like that. But I have a lot of cookbooks to go through and I already ordered more cookbooks and then some more cookbooks are on their way here. So I need to take a breath and calm down.
I also have to be mindful of of the fact that I haven’t seen food coach in a long time. Her husband has fallen seriously ill. So I don’t know if I’m going to be able to see her at all anymore. I should probably put in an e-mail today.
Here’s to supper of Brussels sprouts,… and something.
~r.
