Exploration 1: Becoming a Vegetarian & Attempt One

As stated in the previous entry, the inspiration for the blog and the first exploration...becoming a vegetarian. To quickly recap, I was born and raised in Northern Nevada. Our family business, raising cattle for beef (There's a Tyson Chicken and something of a Tyson Beef. HA! HA! Who knew?) and recently moved to Central Georgia where I fell in loved with Southern Cooking.

I decided it's time to devour just vegetables...and fish....occasionally. 

This is something that I've considered for about a year and a half to two years - honestly. However, the obstacles comes down to two things: I do love meat (yum!) and despite how much I love vegetables, unless I can master making vegetable only dishes tasting BOMB-DIgGITY, yes, let's revisit 1999, I just said that - I'm going to come to dread eating.

And I love food! 

I asked my friends on Facebook for their favorite vegetable only dishes and although this generated a response, it mostly just got me to surf the web myself. Something I should have known better to do anyway. 

I may never know for certain, but a lot of what I was seeing CLAIMED it was "just as good as with meat," but the photos.....most of them were less than convincing. 

I decided to start at what I knew - ALL the vegetarian dishes that I ever had thus far, have been Asian based. Despite how I look, I'm in fact not Asian. I'm actually Native American. But I was fortunate enough to be considered an honorary Asian about a decade ago. 

So I took myself to the local grocery store last week and, literally, grabbed a bunch of Asian ingredients that I remember my Thai friends using back when I hung out when them regularly. I sent one of them a Snap informing them of my impulsive decision. She Snapped back, "All the Asian good stuff."

"I hope so. I just grabbed what I remember you and Varisa using."

BTW, if you want to add me on Snapchat: boi2seaguy.

Then I came home and reorganized a cupboard in the kitchen, making it my Asian pantry. Well, wish the exception of some Mexican spices (hot sauce) and Italian things (Balsamic and EVOO.) It's my Asian pantry - leave me alone! haha

I have NO idea how to use them. I also grabbed a thing of curry - never made it. No idea! 

I also grabbed a shit ton of vegetables. I will say, I foresee the grocery bill being MUCH lower once I get into the swing of things. I look forward to this. Understanding, however, that this is a transition - I'm not going out of my way to sacrifice meat just yet....doing this as lovingly as possible.

Originally my plan was to try the Asian ingredients with some sort of vegetable stir-fry over white, rice but our evening plans let room for the possibility that we'd be going out to eat. I wanted to try something, just to see where our starting point was.

I've seen my Asian friends doctor-up Ramen Noodles a time or two and figured this would be a good starting point. 

I grabbed some celery, bok choy, broccoli, and cabbage sliced it up, threw it in some water before tossing in the hard noodles and preparing it normally. 

It wasn't a true vegetarian dish as it was the beef flavored kind, but hey it was a start. Besides the slight mess I made because the pot was a tad too small to accommodate all the extra ingredients, I turned around immediately after eating it (and I hate two packages in there) reached for two slices of left over pepperoni pizza.

I currently weight 215 lbs. besides from having to train my stomach to eat less in order to feel full on meat-less meals, I also need to train myself to just become OK with not having to have protein with every meal. This will just take time. But this is where we are. This is where we start. 

Hey! Can only go up from here.

Oh yeah, after our night out I regretted eating a double cheeseburger from McDonalds. I didn't regret so much it was a cheeseburger. I regretted the fact it was from McDonalds. Bleh!