So, news first. P and I had a few discussions this weekend about our food choices and made some pretty significant changes. P has decided to become a pescatarian, eating only certain kinds of fish and shellfish. By default, since I do much of the cooking in our home – and I support his decision and the reasons why he’s deciding to do so, and I’m always up for a cooking challenge, and I’ve wanted to make a few eating habit changes myself – I will likewise be cutting pork and beef out from my home cooking for the most part. I did this for about ten years in my teen years, and I really just felt better physically by doing so. I still intend to eat chicken, but I will only ever buy free-range and/or locally raised chicken. Part of the reason I won’t be eating beef will be because A) P won’t be eating it, and I don’t want to cook two separate meals; and B) I’ve been wanting for quite some time to eat as much locally and/or sustainably raised food as I can, and I am not really at a place in my life where I can afford to do that. Plus, I think that meat is too much of a centerpiece of our meals sometimes, and this will help me to make it more of a side to healthier veggie and fruit dishes. This will make it easier to buy meat only every so often, and when I do, to buy only good quality meet from local farmers.
I am fully aware of the fact that if I go to a place where I can get a good local steak or some damn fine Cane Creek beef or pork, I will potentially order it. And every so often I might cook myself a hamburger for dinner. I enjoy food too much to say that I’m cutting anything out indefinitely, and I am not completely opposed to eating animals. But, I won’t be surprised if I get to a point where I just don’t want those certain foods as much anymore – that I indulge every so often. Ultimately, I think my decision is going to be healthier for me and the environment. I’ll keep you updated…and will bring you many more posts tagged “meatless!”
Now that that’s out of the way. It’s thirty degrees outside, I can sort of move around the kitchen, and I’m out of work for two weeks. So, I made corn chowder for dinner! Sans bacon. I can do this. I can do this.
Here’s mah veggies. I went to add carrots and found I had one measly little old carrot in my veggie bin…small and skinny. It looks kinda sad sitting there, all chopped up, beside all the fresh onions and red bell pepper pieces. Oh well.
Since I didn’t fry any bacon, I obviously didn’t have any bacon grease, so I decided to cook the veggies in butter. Unfortunately, I used waaaaaaaaay too much. That made me nervous. Too much butter and dairy makes my tummy hurt. Plus, it doesn’t taste very good.
I added the potato stock and milk/1-2 and 1-2 and let it all cook for a while…and at the end, as I suspected, a good bit of butter had separated and settled at the top. I was glad of that…I just skimmed it off and got rid of it. Thank goodness. I felt much better throwing it all away.
I added some crushed red pepper for a little bit of extra flavor. This was the first thing P and I ate all day, so we scarfed up two bowls each…and there are no leftovers. Wah wah.
Tags: Comfort food, Meatless
December 22, 2009 at 11:51 am |
Any decision about eating more consciously is a good one, I’d say. Hope you have some fun with it, too!
January 9, 2010 at 6:12 pm |
Thanks, Amelia! I’m looking forward to it. Fortunately, I’m now back up on my feet…unfortunately, I’m about to dive into my first semester of nursing school, so I won’t have too much time to explore it quite yet…not as much as I’d like, anyway.
January 2, 2010 at 4:12 pm |
Your corn chowder inspired me to do something corny too. You can read about it on my blog …. harharhar -Stephanie
January 4, 2010 at 6:39 pm |
Happy New Year, Courtney!
Jill and I went the pescatarian and local/pasture raised meats route last summer (sounds like for the same reasons you are) and it’s been a lot of fun. Other than a break in Argentina, we’ve been good. I mean they’re known for steaks, how could we not eat them…and I’m sure they don’t have factory farms like we do here, anyway. Stateside, we haven’t bought much meat other than our turkey for Thanksgiving, probably because it was about $3.00/lb more than the other ones. My only issue now is that I’m slightly worried about eating too much fish (mercury scares me) because I regularly crave meat. Obviously my body misses it. I bought some multi-vitamins as stocking stuffers, so we’ll see if that helps.
Re: cooking, it definitely adds a fun twist. We do Thai curry fairly often as it’s easy to keep vegetarian (or add fish for even more deliciousness). I’m looking forward to reading your recipes, your chowder looks great! I’ve always loved rice and beans and is perfect for vegetarians, but it’s one that is slowly (and I mean slowly) growing on Jill. I think we’ll do a pumpkin soup tonight…we’ve still got a freezer full of it!
January 9, 2010 at 6:15 pm |
I had a friend who was a lifelong vegetarian – when he went to Argentina, he too indulged in the steaks! He was very keen on experiencing the culture entirely, which of course included their food culture – and they are indeed much closer to their meat than we are.
I went without beef and pork for a while (as mentioned above), and I didn’t miss it once, so I’m hoping to have as much luck this time (tho, I don’t think I will, as I’ve learned to appreciate all kinds of different food more deeply..).
I’ve found some awesome recipes with fish that I can’t wait to try, and I admittedly am looking forward to cooking many more veggies. You’ll of course be kept up to date on here!!
Also…happy new year!!