A New Year in the Kitchen

The New Year would not be the New Year without setting diets goals. (Note: We don't diet. The changes we are making are intentional life style changes.) This is such a big part of our culture that just as September brings out the fall decorations and November brings out Christmas sales, January always brings out adds for workout clothes, water bottles and exercise DVD's. Mr. and I decided to hop on that bandwagon and follow the recommendations of one of my favorite books titled, Eat To Live. Six weeks with no meat, no dairy, no white sugar, no white flour and lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, and beans. With the exception of the beans, this is not that much of a departure from my normal meal plan. For Mr. this is pretty radical. After six weeks the things that we are currently eating remain 90 percent of our diet. We can add back in a 10 percent ratio of dairy and meat.

The first day, I fed Mr. steal cut oats and fruit for breakfast and then I sent him to work with a whole bag of chopped vegetables for lunch. Now normally Mr. comes home from work and wants to acclimate with the household. This is a little bit of a struggle for me as I always want dinner on the table when he gets home. After several months of not rushing dinner onto the table I could almost pat myself on the back that I had conquered the urge and as a result removed several stresses from our evening. However, on Monday, the front door flew open, in fell Mr. and with a shout of exclamation I heard him say, "I'm hungry! Feed ME!" It turns out that his jaw was tired of chewing before his stomach was done eating lunch! After I got some food in him, I heard his second complaint of being cold. This is definitely comfort food weather in Iowa and Mr. wants HOT food not cold salads. I myself do not care for cooked vegetables and prefer a nice salad. This leaves me in the position of fixing HOT foods for Mr. and "normal" foods for the kids. It has only been four days but I thought it was going pretty well until DYS wandered in the kitchen to ask what was for dinner. I told him spaghetti (normally a favorite). He looked around and said, "You guys go on a diet and we are getting jipped!" I looked at him shocked and asked why he felt that way. Apparently spaghetti is supposed to come with meatballs and home made french bread neither of which were made because it would have tortured Mr.! DMD is taking this more in stride even trying a couple bites of Mr.'s stir fry last night.

Thursday is my traditional menu planning day so I sat down this afternoon with one of my favorite cookbooks, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and the Internet. I need a better plan!