continue to be vegetarian

I’ve had a request to stop substituting out the meat from traditional recipes and to actually look at a vegetarian cookbook. Bah! That sounds too easy but I’m still considering The Enchanted Brocolli Garden if only because it has an interesting title.
So Friday night is my free night to amuse and feed myself. Got a little boost from Mom yesterday pointing out that I’m just 5 years from the age at which my grandfather was diagnosed with diabetes and that it skips a generation. Great encouragement Mom! Got in a huge fight at home over the nutritional properties of what I like to call 100% fruit juice. It seems I should rethink that and understand it to be merely sugar water. It would follow then that beer is the solution to all my nutritional requirements for its wonderful hops and barley fiber content. That genius advise aside, I still have to feed myself tonight.
Fridays I tend to go out for dinner or at least pick up some take out on the way home. Had the world’s most vile eggplant parmesean for lunch the other day – threw out half of it! So eggplant is out. Could do the caprese thing again but I don’t want to get sick of it (how could I?) Or snag a tofu hoagie at Mellow Mushroom but that doesn’t especially grab me either. So far today I’ve eaten a big serving(s) of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Please don’t suggest a burrito, refried beans make me cringe. Ok, most food makes me cringe, I’m a fussy eater. But I know I’ll have no energy for the weekend if I skip dinner. Could I mix some waterchestnuts into some Ben & Jerrys? Probably not. sigh help….

I promised myself I would figure out something to do with eggplant this week. Any tips? I’ve been here:
http://www.deliciousorganics.com/recipes/eggplant.htm
but I don’t know what I want to eat. Anything with cheese, lots of cheese.

maybe with some high quality chocolate or ice cream from time to time?

I went out to eat last night and it was amazing! I started with the Caprese for an appetizer (Buffalo mozzarella, flavorful tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar) then I had the salad mela, a spinach salad with golden raisins, feta, and pine nuts. For dinner I had the zucca which is a butternut squash ravioli with a marscapone radicchio sauce. No room for dessert! So good and entirely meat free!

I’ve been doing this for 3 weeks now and it really is getting easier. Last night I made the most wonderful dinner….mushrooms and leeks sauteed in red wine over basil & garlic polenta! If I can stop thinking about fried chicken I just might make it. Heres a good motivator: www.themeatrix.com