A special thank you to this week's clients for trying me out!
If you're interested in having your groceries delivered to your doorstep next Monday, January 20th, the link for your Grocery List can be found here. (Details/instructions can be found by clicking the banner at the top of the screen.)
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Do you ever wonder if people eat dinner the way you do?
Surely you aren't cooking a meat with three sides, homemade bread, and a different dessert seven nights of the week? (I'm not!) Yet, I often feel that these are the type of menus I should provide instead of what I really eat for dinner.
In my attempt to cut a large portion of meat & dairy out of our meals last year (for health and cost reasons), I had to think about ingredients differently than I had in the past. I had always thought of vegetables as the filler...the side item. My goal was to move them to the "meat" of the meal...the side would become the entree. It was a difficult paradigm shift in the beginning. We ate a lot of salads, because that was the most traditional way most people think about "eating vegetables for dinner."
It occurred to me at one point while I was looking over recipes that if I could eat a salad for dinner (or a bowl of cereal for that matter), why couldn't I make a "side" for dinner? I've never been very good at cooking more than one thing for dinner on a normal night--I fix an entree and maybe serve it with bread and that's it. But here was a use for all of those side dish recipes I'd saved up.
In addition, I had plenty of recipes that included a (meat-free) side that I happened to like. Why not just make that for dinner?
But the protein! The starch! You might be fighting this thinking in your head. I mean, technically, a bowl of cereal as your dinner includes protein (in the milk poured over it) and a starch (in the cereal itself). What's funny is that we are quick to toss out the most nutrient-dense part of the meal as "unneeded"--the fruits and veggies and legumes and seeds contain all of the best stuff!
When I started reading books making the case for eating more fruits & vegetables, I was surprised to learn that protein was in more vegetarian sources than beans. (It's in whole grains like quinoa and in plenty of vegetables, like romaine lettuce!) Starch can be found in fruits & vegetables in addition to whole grains. Almost all vitamins can be found in fruits/vegetables/seeds. So much of our traditional thinking about what should be on a plate comes from the way other people/corporations want us to think.
If you're interested in cutting meat & dairy out of your diet, why don't you try fixing a vegetable side as a meal sometime? (Call it a "salad" if you feel like that makes it legit--whatever works.) We're having Sweet & Sour Collard Greens with Cornbread for dinner one night this week...or "Warm Collard Greens Salad" if you need to spin it that way. Or try another trick of mine--creatively think of a vegetable that could substitute the meat in a favorite recipe. This week, I'll be substituting veggies for meat for my family in two of the recipes I share. (Snap peas in place of shrimp in Curried Rice w/ Shrimp, for example.) Why? The vegetables are better for us and a lot less expensive than those multiple pounds of meat I used to buy weekly. (And NO, my preschooler does not always eat them. But sometimes she does...! And the more exposed she is to veggies, the more likely she is to try them eventually.)
What makes up a meal? If you can eat a bowl of cereal for dinner or my all-too-common dinner-of-shame: boxed mac-n-cheese, then I guarantee you that collard greens can count, too!
If you're interested in having your groceries delivered to your doorstep next Monday, January 20th, the link for your Grocery List can be found here. (Details/instructions can be found by clicking the banner at the top of the screen.)
-----
Do you ever wonder if people eat dinner the way you do?
Surely you aren't cooking a meat with three sides, homemade bread, and a different dessert seven nights of the week? (I'm not!) Yet, I often feel that these are the type of menus I should provide instead of what I really eat for dinner.
In my attempt to cut a large portion of meat & dairy out of our meals last year (for health and cost reasons), I had to think about ingredients differently than I had in the past. I had always thought of vegetables as the filler...the side item. My goal was to move them to the "meat" of the meal...the side would become the entree. It was a difficult paradigm shift in the beginning. We ate a lot of salads, because that was the most traditional way most people think about "eating vegetables for dinner."
It occurred to me at one point while I was looking over recipes that if I could eat a salad for dinner (or a bowl of cereal for that matter), why couldn't I make a "side" for dinner? I've never been very good at cooking more than one thing for dinner on a normal night--I fix an entree and maybe serve it with bread and that's it. But here was a use for all of those side dish recipes I'd saved up.
In addition, I had plenty of recipes that included a (meat-free) side that I happened to like. Why not just make that for dinner?
But the protein! The starch! You might be fighting this thinking in your head. I mean, technically, a bowl of cereal as your dinner includes protein (in the milk poured over it) and a starch (in the cereal itself). What's funny is that we are quick to toss out the most nutrient-dense part of the meal as "unneeded"--the fruits and veggies and legumes and seeds contain all of the best stuff!
When I started reading books making the case for eating more fruits & vegetables, I was surprised to learn that protein was in more vegetarian sources than beans. (It's in whole grains like quinoa and in plenty of vegetables, like romaine lettuce!) Starch can be found in fruits & vegetables in addition to whole grains. Almost all vitamins can be found in fruits/vegetables/seeds. So much of our traditional thinking about what should be on a plate comes from the way other people/corporations want us to think.
If you're interested in cutting meat & dairy out of your diet, why don't you try fixing a vegetable side as a meal sometime? (Call it a "salad" if you feel like that makes it legit--whatever works.) We're having Sweet & Sour Collard Greens with Cornbread for dinner one night this week...or "Warm Collard Greens Salad" if you need to spin it that way. Or try another trick of mine--creatively think of a vegetable that could substitute the meat in a favorite recipe. This week, I'll be substituting veggies for meat for my family in two of the recipes I share. (Snap peas in place of shrimp in Curried Rice w/ Shrimp, for example.) Why? The vegetables are better for us and a lot less expensive than those multiple pounds of meat I used to buy weekly. (And NO, my preschooler does not always eat them. But sometimes she does...! And the more exposed she is to veggies, the more likely she is to try them eventually.)
What makes up a meal? If you can eat a bowl of cereal for dinner or my all-too-common dinner-of-shame: boxed mac-n-cheese, then I guarantee you that collard greens can count, too!
