So Much Yumminess...Adventures in Vegetarianism

Why haven’t I tried vegetarianism sooner?  I must admit that I’m shocked at how well yesterday and today have gone.  As I wrote about a few weeks ago as of yesterday I have gone part time vegetarian.  I will admit that I’m actually considering going full time vegetarian but I will wait and see how the next few weeks go as I continue to explore my new food choices.  I figured though I should write a quick update to keep you posted on how it’s all going and as a way to document the experience so I can always remember it. 

In order to catch you up to date about a month ago I made the commitment to not eat meat Monday through Friday (I’m not giving up eggs and dairy though).  In the last few weeks I have bought several vegan and vegetarian cookbooks and have been getting ready to make the change.  My plan had been to try out different recipes but as a procrastinator I didn’t do much testing before yesterday.  I’m sort of kicking myself for not trying out more though, not because it would be easier now but because so far the stuff I have tried has been amazing.  If all my meals taste as good as the dinners I have made last night (black bean burgers) and tonight (Tuscan Bean and Veggie Soup) going vegetarian would not be a hard shift for me.  I’m not overly particular about what I eat but I do want the things I choose to eat to taste good.

I will admit that I’m still learning a lot as I go.  The first lesson I have learned is that having and using a food processor is AMAZING!  I’m blown away at how much I have been able to cut down my prep time.  Tonight’s soup would have taken easily almost an hour to prep and cook if I was cutting by hand and instead it took me just over half an hour, which is completely doable even after a long day at work.  I’m blown away by how much I can do with one kitchen appliance.  I could have saved so much time in my life having one sooner.  I never would have thought that it was something I needed to have but wow I’m already in love with it and can’t imagine what I would do without it.  If you don’t have one I totally recommend getting one.

The second thing I have learned is something that is not really a new lesson but one that I have reminded myself of in the last couple days.  Cookbooks are a gift to those of us who are not naturally creative with food.  I will admit that I love to cook and I think I’m good at it but I owe all my success and best recipes to my cookbooks.  I’m not one of those people who can just look at ingredients and whip something up.  So while I lack the ability to create unique dishes I have developed a strong love of a good cookbook.  In the last little while though most of my cookbooks have been stashed nicely on the bookshelf gathering dust and being shamefully ignored by me.  Going vegetarian has forced me to look for different recipes and to pull out those poor ignore cookbooks (as well as buy a couple new ones)  It is also forcing me to cook again.  I have a couple favourite cookbooks, the first is The Joy of Cooking and the second is Veganomicon.  Joy of cooking is just full of lots of good recipes (for all diets not just vegetarians) but also great advice on how to pick out specific fruits and veggies not to mention some basic guidelines how to cook even the basic things.   Veganomicon I got on the recommendation of a friend and so far I’m totally impressed.

Switching my diet has not been without its challenges.  I will admit that even though it is only day two I am struggling a little with some of the textures.  I have always been a texture person which is why I have never been a fan of mushrooms.  So when creating things like burgers from veggies the texture is a little different than what I would expect from a beef burger.  I also tried the dessert tofu today and although it tasted great by the time I got through it I was having a hard time swallowing it because of the texture.  I have struggled with textures in the past and won though.  I had a hard time with cottage cheese but after a little while of just making myself eat it that went away and now I quite enjoy it.  This leaves me hopefully that this minor hiccup in my change of diet which will quickly be worked through and left only as a random blip in my exploration. 

In terms of this being a healthy lifestyle and better for me I can’t really speak to that quite yet.  That will play out over the next few weeks when I go to weigh in at Weight Watchers, not that I think weight loss is the only way to judge this but it will certainly give a good indication of it.  What I can say though is that already in the two days I have done this so far I feel pretty good.  My energy level is already up, which may be because of the food changes or maybe it’s just in my mind because I expect to see positive changes like that.  The other thing that surprised me is that after eating vegetarian meals all day yesterday when I went to have the slice of cake I bought for myself for my birthday I actually enjoyed it.  I know this sounds weird because who doesn’t enjoy cake but normally if I eat a piece of cake I’m plagued with a sense of guilt and it takes away from the enjoyment of it.  This was not the case last night.  I felt confident that I had made good choices all day and that the small piece of cake would not be my downfall. 

All in all I’m really exciting about these changes.  I’m excited to see where it all takes me and to see if it makes the differences that I’m expecting from it.  The true test will be a month from now when I’m tired of cooking and want nothing more than to hit a drive thru for an easy dinner but hopefully by that point I will have lots of quick meals frozen and ready to heat up instead.  I will keep you all posted as things continue on.