When I think I've tried it all.....

The vegetarian lifestyle......6 weeks later! We continue to love it.  If you had asked me a few weeks ago how I would like it, my first response would have been hesitation.  I mean, what would we eat every night? Just beans and rice?  How little did I know of the many choices available, the easy substitutions and how much we would NOT miss meat. A couple of times Bill thought he wanted some hamburger or steak, tried it, but was let disappointed every time.  I have lost all desire for meat and now prefer not to eat it.  It won't hurt us, it's not a health issue, we just chose to go down this path - the advantages continue to show themselves.

Super meatballs!

Today's recipe was so amazing  and unbelievable that I wanted to tell you about it right away. I made meatballs for lunch today. Meatballs! Fabulous!  I had been scanning recipes for some time, contemplating making them. How can you have MEATballs without meat that would actually taste good? This recipe had such great reviews that I figured it must be "the one".  Here it is: Vegetarian Meatballs.  After reading the reviews, I only made some minor changes....I ground up the walnuts and exchanged the bread crumbs for oatmeal.  I was dying to try them and could hardly wait to pull them out of the oven. While they were cooking, I made a basic gravy, added sauteed onions, dill weed and sour cream - giving it more of a swedish meatball flavor.  The meatballs were tender and stayed together just like regular hamburger.  You could cook and freeze a bunch of meatballs, then pull out the number you needed to add to spaghetti, make a meatball sub, sweet/sour, etc.....the list is endless. I waited anxiously for Bill to take his first bite.  "What do you think?" were my first words.  He said, "I can't believe it! Very good!"  It's hard to imagine so few ingredients working so well together. Nothing like good old "meatballs", gravy and rice!

Bill's pizza

Remember a while back we grilled our pizzas outside on the grill?  Bill made a few extra crusts, grilled them and threw them in the freezer.  I pulled them out  for lunch yesterday.  Again, I had heard others added squash on their veggie pizza so I decided to try it.  I actually pulled a lot of veggies out like onions, garlic, bell pepper, squash and zucchini and sauteed them in olive oil.  Bill decided to add fresh tomatoes and I chose sundried tomatoes.  Add some fresh basil, black olives, a little drizzle of olive oil, mozzarella cheese and  you have one delicious pizza.


I did cook the Sloppy Sam recipe.  It was supposed to have a "sloppy joe" flavor. We found it so-so.  Probably won't try it again.  Although, it was much better when we added the spicy coleslaw on top. I continue to look for new recipes and substitutions for old familiar favorites.

Happy fall ya'll!