Exploration 1: Oatmeal & Vidalia Onions

Well, not eaten together of course. Since my personal fast ended Saturday, I found myself in the position to give the "no meat" effort towards all my meals today. So for breakfast, I switched things up a bit - shifting from my traditional meal of bacon, eggs and peanut butter & jelly on bread to oatmeal with peanut butter & jelly on bread.

Now, I do understand that it would be more Southernly correct to whip up some grits for breakfast, but grits for breakfast just doesn't seem right to me. Shortly after arriving here I was introduced to grits and cheese, a side dish during dinner. I have to admit, it was well enjoyed. Then sometime ago, my sister made a pot for breakfast. I admit to cheating as I added some sugar, but it wasn't all that bad - just different. It did fill me up though and held me to lunch.

Last week a friend brought us breakfast from a small Café here in town. Grits came as a side. As a side it was perfect, standing alone...well, let's just say that I prefer oatmeal.

I wouldn't exactly say that I grew up on oatmeal, but I remember my dad making it during cold winter mornings. In fact, I'm pretty sure he still does it. Then he makes some toast with butter and lets it sit out. What happens is by the time you get around to the toast, it's soggy because of the butter. Something about it, though, makes it wonderful.

The oatmeal here in the South seem to be different than the oatmeal up in Nevada. Back home, I'd boil the water then through in the oatmeal before turning off the stove. It took no more than a few minutes before it was ready.

Here, that doesn't seem to work. The first time I tried it my oatmeal was undercooked and watery as not enough liquid boiled out or was absorbed. So this morning, I let the oatmeal boil in the water for a good 3 minutes before turning it off. It was better, but not quite there.

It's something interesting how one country can have so many small differences depending on where one resides.

And that was breakfast. I'm still not ready to abandon my traditional breakfast; I will miss bacon. It's mainly because right now I'm imagining my breakfast life consisting of nothing besides oatmeal (maybe grits.) Well, I guess I'm allowing eggs into my new diet - I can still cook up eggs and pancakes. I don't know...I'll figure it out.

Onto lunch....

Given that I still have a fridge half full of vegetables from my grocery shopping spree a couple weeks ago, now more than ever I need to put in some effort into devouring it to avoid waste. I will, however, insert that I am feeling less guilty about discarding things with the compost bucket sitting next to the garbage can. As a house hold, we are still trying to develop the habit of separating organics and non-organics - slowly, but surely. This morning both my sister and I found ourselves, at different times, digging through the garbage to correct earlier decisions.

Last night we had some friends over to celebrate a friend's birthday as well as wish her good luck. She's preparing to move to Idaho for a job opportunity. Wedge salad became a conversation topic, which placed the thought of having a salad for lunch today in my forethought. 

The fascinating thing about salads is, you literally can throw anything together and it qualifies as a salad. Granted today's lunch item was inspired from the Wedge Salad, I was aiming for the same bleu cheese, crunchy goodness, but lacking bleu cheese and unable to have bacon I quickly had to abandon the thought and set out for something new.

So, I threw together some shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, chopped celery, with broccoli florets on top of a spring mix topped with a few grapes I found in the fridge. Salad isn't a real big in this household, so my dressing choices were limited - balsamic vinegar & oil, ranch and a Vidalia Onion Vinaigrette. The Vinaigrette used to be my sister's dad's favorite - why not give it a try? 

I may have slightly overdone the dressing, but the salad was rich in texture and flavors and satisfied my craving for a salad.

There's still left over pasta in the fridge from spaghetti night a few nights ago that need to be consumed before tossed so I'll try to whip something up, meat free with those for dinner. Despite a small temptation to have some left overs from last night's feast, today's go at a try vegetarian day is going rather well.

Sorry this post was so late today. I hit the ground running right when waking up. It didn't even occur to me that it was Monday until I was about to dive into breakfast.

I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I'll keep you posted come Wednesday.