I am a vegetarian

It is not so much about not eating meat anymore, so much as it is about what I do eat. My wife and I decided about six months ago that we were going to be pescatarian or in terms of meat, we are strictly fish eaters. Most people refer to this art as being vegetarian because “fish isn’t really meat.” Our reasoning was a few fold: Lex was having some health problems with red meat in particular, we had basically cut meat out of our diet anyway, and I didn’t want to make two meals each night simply because I had a propensity for eating meat that my wife couldn’t have.

As we have lived with this life change, we have also dealt with how others feel about it, often resorting to the childish feelings of “if it is different, it has to be made fun of.” This is of course something I deal with daily from one person or another and I have been thinking recently about how to combat those general feelings from others, hence the first line: “It is not so much about not eating meat anymore, so much as it is about what I do eat.” The questions I tend to get on a daily basis are all based on the same thing. Meat is a staple in dietary menus for every culture because “isn’t that the only place to get a good amount of protein?” This sentiment often comes out in the form of, “well, if you don’t eat meat, what do you eat?” That is a great question for me. It opens the door to acceptance that I all too readily jump through.

I am the cook of my household; I have fun making myself be creative every single day with my meals. I don’t have the easy fallback of meat.  This is where I rep all the cooking blogs I follow. I scour the Internet almost daily for ideas on what to make during the week. In no particular order, I turn to the following geniuses in the kitchen:

• Smitten Kitchen
• Ezra Pound Cake
• Marx Foods
• goodLife {eats}
• Two Peas and Their Pod

What meals will take the longest to prepare? What have we had so far this week? How will the leftovers we had for lunch from last nights meal jive with the meal I am planning for tonight?  Creativity in the kitchen is an art, vegetarian or not.  However, when you take the plunge into being a vegetarian, you need to understand that being creative just got harder.  Unless you have an endless budget to seek out new species of squash to test and taste, you have a strict regimen of peppers, onions, fungi, and the like.  How many things can you do with these ingredients? Quite a bit actually.  I suggest that you take a look at the above sites and see what I have to work with.  I would also like to use this blog as a place, similar to TweatingOut, that reviews dishes I have done and restaurants I have visited in the Indy area.  Hope everyone likes that idea!

See you next time!