last night's dinner:
burger with bacon, avocado, pesto gouda and a drizzle of miso-sesame dressing
every sunday evening, i resolve that THIS week will be the week we eat less meat. we don't want to become full-blown vegetarians and definitely not vegan, but we would like to eat meals without meat several times a week--to be both healthier and more economical. and yet, we never really get around to doing it.
maybe being raised in the midwest in the heart of beef and pork country is part of it. you grow up feeling that a meal isn't a meal, especially at dinner (which we call supper where i grew up), without meat. and because you know someone who is butchering a cow or a hog or even hunting deer, there's always meat around. of course, i no longer know anyone with cows or pigs, so i get the meat in the grocery store these days (tho' someone did recently give me some some deer meat), so i don't really have that excuse anymore. but the notion is just so engrained.
this week, i felt more resolved than usual, but then the reality of the big-ass packages of leftover hamburger from the birthday party intervened. we had two unopened packages left. one went into a huge pot of bolognese sauce for spaghetti, which we ate on monday (and which i've had for lunch the past two days) and which i froze two dinner-sized portions of so we'd have a quick dinner another day. then, last evening, we had to use up the other package before its expiration date, so we made burgers. if you're going to eat a burger, it might as well be a good one. a bit posh even, so a bit of bacon, avocado and miso-sesame dressing did the trick. and piling on salad makes it seem healthier, right?
so, here we are, it's thursday and we haven't eaten a vegetarian meal all week. i have one of those big ugly knobs of celery root that came in our organic veggie box last friday just languishing in the drawer. and yesterday, i bought some portobellos as we stood in the grocery store and i had a fit of resistance to the hamburger that was home in the fridge. but then, back home, as i stood there before the burgers, my resolve faded and i didn't do the portobellos. so, perhaps today, we'll have a vegetarian dinner. if not, there's always tomorrow.
