Saturday, June 14, 2008

Weekly Menu - week of June 15

Time to plan our menu again! I've been doing a lot of hard thinking about food lately. I'm glad that we've almost completely cut out meat at home, but the more I read and learn about the meat industry, the more I feel compelled to try to cut back even further. I never pictured myself ever becoming a social consciousness vegetarian, but I'm beginning to lean that way. I'm glad that we've mostly gotten out of the habit of eating it at home, but I'm trying to decide if I'm ready to make the next step, because while I may not cook it at home, we're certainly eating our fair share of meat when we're out at restaurants, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

So yeah, I don't know if I'm ready to give it up completely, but it's definitely something I'm mulling over. Not the kind of decision you want to make without putting some thought into it, right? I've been pleasantly surprised at how easy it's been to stop preparing meat at home, and it's great that Brad and the kids are all fully on board with it, too. I doubt Brad would give up meat completely -- he really, really enjoys it -- but it's still something that I could do myself. So we'll see. A lot to think about.

Along the same lines, I do want to make more of a determined effort to avoid dairy products, too. We already primarily only buy soy milk and margarine, but as a person who loves to bake, some of the other substitutions/equivalents are more difficult to come by. Egg replacements, for instance. Soy sour cream. Or unflavored soy yogurt. I very rarely find those at the store, even at Whole Foods. And I LOVE cheese, but haven't found a soy cheese that I can really get behind. Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled that there are so many alternatives out there, but not al of them are adequate, or at least not readily available. I think that baking presents the biggest hurdle, but I'm game for trying to figure out ways to make it work as much as I can.

So there you have it. My random ramblings about meat and animal byproducts. I guess we'll see how it plays out.

And here's my menu for the week!

Saturday - Spaghetti with homemade sauce (kids' night to cook), french bread

Sunday - Lentil "meat" loaf, roasted baby potatoes, green beans

Monday - "Meat" loaf sandwiches, salad

Tuesday - Red curry vegetables with rice

Wednesday - Quinoa salad, french bread

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Black-eyed pea salad, french bread

Saturday - Dinner out

1 comment:

alisa said...

hey cheryl!

have you heard of a soy cheese called 'teese'? I read a review of it here that claimed it was the absolute greatest cheese alternative in the world! you should check it out!