Friday, January 9, 2009

Vegan Eating-Day 5, and the Hartland Rink

We've somehow managed to avoid meat for the last five days, though I have to confess, there was some bacon in the fried rice, so maybe it doesn't count. Either way, the challenge of being more creative with our food has been, if you can believe it, fun and satisfying, much in line with our philosophy of not trying to do things the easy way.

And I have to say, cooking healthy vegan meals is not necessarily more expensive. I realize fast food and junk crap are cheap, but there is also a huge convenience issue that contributes to their popularity, and if you put some effort into it, you can be healthy and frugal. It just takes some thought, and many of us have simply chosen to stop thinking. That's why we watch TV.

Either way, the kids loved this one, and that's all she wrote. We made a dal with fried rice and steamed spinach on the side. It could be served all in one bowl, simplifying all aspects of the meal, i.e., serving and cleaning. The meal went well.

I don't know if I feel any better eating a vegan diet, but I most definitely feel better about it. Again, it's about meeting the challenge and realizing you can do it if you just give it some thought and try.

Tonight it's salmon, and I'm thinking I need to buy bigger pieces of fish because all I hear are complaints about how small the servings are. You just can't win.

We had a quiet day doing school work and hanging out by the fire, but at some point in the afternoon we went over to the Hartland rink, and once again it was crowded, but again once again, they kids were really nice, especially to N, who is much younger than these guys. It was mostly boys, and I worried that they'd get bully-ish or mean, but they were so nice, and they really jived with A.

In fact, they were in awe of her skating abilities, and even invited her into their speed skating club. I think she was beaming. They also complimented N on his skating, and I think it really made him feel proud, if not for the fact that he was outskating kids almost twice his age.

It was a good day. The weekend is coming up and we have the potential to have a big one, or not. We shall see. Until then, thanks for reading.

2 comments:

BookChook said...

My husband is a vegetarian, but I am not. We probably eat three totally vegetarian meals a week. The rest, I use soy products for him and cook meat for myself.

I tried going totally vegetarian, but I really enjoy eating meat and missed it, particularly bacon ( which is one of the least healthy meats I guess.) Now I just do my usual act with most things in life: walk on the fence.

It's great that you are finding and enjoying frugal and healthy meals, especially the kids.

phredude said...

Susan, I am so with you. I love meat, and we still eat it. In fact, we had bacon just this Sunday morning. My feeling is that we shouldn't deny our kids meat since they need the protein, though there are good vegan sources of it. Either way, they should enjoy food.

I just think that when you look around, it's amazing how much meat people actually eat. Before we went more hardcore in our vegan habits, we embraced the philosophy that meat was a garnish and focused our meals on veggies. That works well, we've just upped the ante a bit.

Interestingly, the kids have gone along with it, thus far. We'll see how this goes. Take care.