A while back my punky kid sister (actress, uber-mom, and intentional vegetarian) masterminded a Meatless Monday event on the set of her tv show. Seems though she doesn’t care to harm her feathered friends in the front yard, when it comes to her leafy lovers in the backyard, anything goes: slicing, dicing, making julienne fries… When she announced to her fellow co-workers, that they would be checking their chicken and chops at the door, she reported that the initial response, much to her dismay, was a rousing round of crickets. (Crickets are meat too, right?) On the bright side for my bright and well-intended sister, by day’s end there was much positive feed-back and good feelings most the way round.
Now, I am an omnivore who married a carnivore and bore two hybrid children. So Meatless Monday will likely never be a regular part of our lives. However, today I decided (based on the Nutrigrain Eggo Waffles I had for breakfast) to try a meat-free personal day in honor of my veg-head sis. So far the fare has been acceptable and at times tasty. Where do you go for lunch when you want to see how the other half lives (or the other 5% of Americans according to the Vegetarian Resource Group)? Indian cuisine of course; a veritable smorgasbord of masala, naan, korma, and kheer, and today I chose only the vegetarian options. After eating an admittedly large lunch, I was down 37 points on my Weight Watchers daily tracking, but feeling quite sated indeed! I stood on the brink with a mere 10 points left till bedtime, satisfied and planning my evening repast. On the bright side for me, fruits and vegetables add up to about zero points in the Weight Watchers Points Plus plan! Hazzah.
Taco salad was the supper of choice, but that necessitates ground meat for my family. Since I cannot bring myself to foist my temporary veginess upon my t-rex spouse and my piranha children, whose love and adoration I would like to continue to enjoy for some years to come, I will season up some ground turkey for them. But for me, I am going to try rinsing a can of cannellini beans and sautéing them in the taco seasoning concoction. So a turkey may give its life for the nutrition of my family, but it’s the beanstalk that will sacrifice its journey to the kingdom of marauding giants and golden eggs for my own repast. Sad for the beanstalk.
In the end the beans, though not real attractive in the pan, tasted great on my taco salad and spared any wandering fowl from running afoul of my frying pan (not counting the aforementioned famous fall-foul I fried up for the fam). All in all my homage to my little sister was a rousing success: I enjoyed a meat-free day of gastronomic variety and culinary experimentation (that was the bean experiment, not the Eggo waffles in the toaster) and my family dodged the vegetarian bullet. Life is good in my manic microcosm.
The bean in the taco seasoning sounds really tasty! How exactly did you do that?
ReplyDeleteI took the plebeian way out. I drained and rinsed a can of Great Northern Beans ("cannellinis") then sauteed them in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes. After that I used the Taco Seasoning packet from McCormicks and treated the beans like meat. And when I say "I," please read "my husband, because I was blogging at the time." Unfortunately one can of beans isn't sufficient to allow attractive distribution of the seasoning, so it was quite the thick concoction by the end (a little like seized up chocolate). Next time I get the urge, I think I'll put in 2 or 3 cans for more surface area (and let my husband off the Experimental-Cooking-Hook).
Delete