I've never had any true dietary restrictions and the only occasions where I have limited what I have eaten have been when I've been attempting to lose weight or when I have been curious about how certain food affects my body.
My husband, on the other hand, has Crohn's disease, which means he really SHOULD be more careful about what he eats, but even he has very few dietary "restrictions." I put that in quotation marks because different doctors have said different things, and one lovely man even told Chance that his diet didn't affect his Crohn's at all, but if I get off on a tangent about that genius, well...
I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions, honestly. It's not because I think they're bad, and it's not because I think they can't be useful or that I am not up to the challenge, but I'd rather not make a long term "resolution." I do, however, think that setting intentions for a new year is a great thing, and overall, my intention is to be more mindful in 2017. I want to be more intuitive. I want to be aware of things that I've let pass me by in the past. I want to know what my body needs and doesn't need (even if I don't plan to turn down that bag of Cadbury eggs at Easter).
With all that being said, I asked Chance if he'd like to do something in January to test our bodies. I think that eliminating things from your diet is a great way to see how certain foods affect you, and although I've never considered being a vegetation before, we thought for January, we'd go meatLESS. I say it this way because we'll still consume fish and will most definitely consume some animal bi-products, but we will cut out all or the majority of beef, pork and poultry. This way we are limiting the amount of meat we consume.
To start us off, I made a great vegetarian "sausage" dip for New Year's Eve. A few years ago, you see, my brother was told he could no longer eat ANY red meat. He is deathly allergic due to a random hunting incident. He went into anaphylactic shock one evening and the doctors concluded it was from the deer meat he'd been eating. His diet changed drastically and he lost a ton of weight, so my sister, mother and I all started getting creative with what we were making to share with him. This dip was an experiment on his behalf, and it turned out fantastically!!
Each Christmas, my mother makes that sausage and Rotel tomato dip that is eaten with club crackers (Chance argued that his family eats it with tortilla chips, so I suppose one could do it that way). I bought veggie "sausage" from the grocery store, cream cheese, two cans of mild Rotel tomatoes, and I put it all in the crock pot. The herbs were fantastic in the "meat" and the rest tasted completely the same. I was so impressed, and Chance loved it too...he and I both snacked on it throughout the week. The only thing I would have done differently is get the hot version...the mild was not quite spicy enough for my taste! Unfortunately for my brother, he didn't come over in time to get any. I'll have to make another batch next time I see him.
As I mentioned, I love to eat different types of cuisine, and after living in China for a year and a half, I learned to make lots of Asian food. I now cook Chinese and Thai very often. This past week I decided to try a new recipe that called for lemongrass.
I love lemongrass, the lemony freshness of it, but I have never cooked with it. In order to keep with the meatLESS theme, I thawed some tofu I had rather than using chicken or beef. I searched the internet for a recipe that looked like the ingredients in my kitchen, ran to the Asian market to get what I was missing (the lemongrass and vermicelli) and came back home to make a yummy dish. Click the hyperlink for the recipe.
My version of the Vietnamese vermicelli bowl wasn't as pretty as the photos, and it wasn't as spicy, or shall I say flavorful, as I'd like (do you see a theme), but it was really good. The leftovers for lunch yesterday were even better as I went back and added some hot sesame oil. Note here, the lemongrass was tricky to work with and I'm pretty sure it should have been cut even smaller than I managed, but again, the flavoring was good so I'm pleased with my first attempt. Come to think of it though, I'd never cooked Vietnamese noodles like these either, so I'll give myself props for that too!
For Christmas this year, my mother gave me a great daily detox cookbook and I've been eyeing a recipe for a zucchini "lasagna" since I received it, so I opted to make that for dinner last night. The recipe calls for zucchini, cauliflower, goat cheese, garlic, tomato sauce, mushrooms, onion and eggs. It was rather easy to make, despite the call for several dishes which meant clean up wasn't as easy. You sweat the zucchini in salt after thinly slicing them. Use a food processor to break down the cauliflower, then place in a dishtowel and ring out the excess water. Mix the cauliflower with the egg and seasoning and then start on the "mushroom meat." This is a pan of chopped mushrooms and onions in a tablespoon of butter sautéing with garlic. You assemble the "lasagna" just like any other and bake for 60 minutes. Again, mine wasn't as pretty as the picture in the cookbook, but man, it was tasty. Chance went back for a second helping although his first serving was considerably large. I kept to my one small serving so I could have ice cream after (I told you...animal by products are not being cut out...I definitely would find no dairy difficult)!
When it came out of the oven, it was all melty and smelled phenomenal. As you can probably tell, I did't use goat cheese. I had mozzarella at the house, so that was one adjustment to the recipe. It was very, very good, but I can imagine the goat cheese would be a whole different flavor, and one I'd like to try.
So, for the first week of our MeatLESS month, I think we're doing pretty well. Tonight we're having pasta, which is a lazy night for me but it's been a long day. Tomorrow we may do vegetarian pizza. I'm not sure if this will help Chance's Crohn's or not, but I'm willing to try different things to help him, and perhaps next we'll go Gluten free to see if that makes a difference, but shhhh, don't tell him. I don't want to scare him off before our one month anniversary!!
