Meatless Meals

This whole eating thing. Do we really need to do it so much? I keep asking myself that. Maybe I am just getting tired of having to make dinner everyday. Thinking about what to eat, getting to the grocery store, and then actually cooking it. Totally over it.  I told the husband that we are not eating meat unless he cooks it. He might finally decide to cook if he wants meat instead of my meatless meals. Doubtful but possible. This week I intentionally started a meatless week. I need to make some diet changes for health reasons anyway so I need to start somewhere. Fortunately cold weather set in so I am more inclined to cook. Ready for different flavors, fall flavors. We eat a lot of vegetarian meals anyway so this isn’t really a stretch for us but I am really trying to remove meat.  Just a guess but I don’t think the husband is going to be motivated to cook many meat-centric meals. Why am I cooking meat I don’t want to be eating in the first place? I’ve made a few delicious meatless options so far this week so no one is starving. I even ate vegan cheese which has always been rather icky to me but this was Field Roast’s Chao Creamery cheese and in my opinion is pretty darn good!

First I stuffed a roasted acorn squash with Field Roast Apple Sage Grain Sausage, celery, orange sweet pepper, wild rice, dried cherries and ‘fall’ spices. I’ve tried Seattle’s Field Roast sausage when I’ve been in Seattle so was glad to find it here. They really are good. Homemade crepes filled with Duxelles and covered in Mornay sauce was great without the ham that I used to put in. A butternut squash and roasted tomato soup with a little drizzle of Lodi Olive Oil and Parmesan cheese was perfect on one of our cold days.  The squash was roasted with some of that great Lodi oil as well as cinnamon, paprika, cayenne pepper and cloves. A perfect fall blender soup. I decided  Penzey’s cinnamon really is better than the big generic container of it.  I was getting into the fall cooking spirit I think. Changed up the same great Field Roast brand grain sausage to Chipotle flavor for tacos tonight. I had to get some fall flavor into this meal too so I bought some Butternut Squash tortilla chips. I kid you not and they are good! Meatless Monday lasted all week.

                                         

L

Getting my artsy on

It’s been cold, it’s been snowing, that’s no surprise for Up Nort’ but it has given me too much inside time. New project desperately needed. Organize, no. Declutter, no. Cook, no. Sort photos, no. Paint. Yes, I should paint. Problem is, I don’t really do that. I thought I’d try. I thought I might try some Aboriginal-like art I saw somewhere. Thinking, “I just need to start with a dot!” So I did! It’s been very therapeutic and fun! I have a few people who have liked what I’ve done. I even like most of them and that’s pretty unusual since I don’t normally like much of what I do. It’s a perfectionist’s curse. I keep experimenting with colors, designs and techniques. Once I get going it’s so difficult to stop. So many ideas in my head for new ones but I should probably do something else, like cook. All those photos are still sitting there too, in boxes, waiting to get organized. Yet, I am painting dots.