Some par-boiled, peeled potatoes (tinned)
Some kidney beans (tinned)
Some sliced peppers (frozen)
Some sweetcorn (frozen)
One dried red chilli (hanging about)
Plenty of salt, pepper, dried parsley and lemon juice, to season
Blue cheese salad dressing
Works for me.
Life has its ups and downs.
There are good times and bad times.
There is pizza, for example. Always a good thing. I don’t ever understand why people classify pizza as ‘junk food’, I suppose if you’re talking about some deep-fried plastic cheese monstrosity or one of those amazing Chicago pie-style ones. I think culturally we have developed a suspicion of dairy goods, they’re fine for children but for adults, well they’re just ‘fat’ and cheese is top of that sin list. I never got the memo, I love cheese. And in all truth, we actually do need some fat in our diets. Did you know that most of the nutrients in salad vegetables are fat-soluble not water? This means if you go ‘hold the dressing’, you’re actually not doing yourself any favours. You need some fat to be able to get the good stuff out of the rabbit food. This modern world has lost all sense of balance. You need fat. Dairy products are good. (If you’re not allergic or vegan, admittedly). So is pizza. You can cram a whole heap of vegetables on the top, add just a little cheese and you’ve got a yummy, quick meal that is part of balanced diet. You can even get vegetables passed suspicious radars when their on a pizza, although not as effectively as mincing them into pasta sauce.
However, there are some things that I’m just going to get past the husband’s radar. Figs are one of them. Especially figs on pizzas. He thinks that it’s just plain wrong. Figs and blue cheese? Well, the yellow stickers were definitely having a good week.
We also made a pizza together. A reduced stuffed crust was purchased but as vegetarian friendly toppings tend to be extremely boring (cheese and tomato or cheese and tomato, anyone?), we doctored it.
Being vegetarian, I can’t remember the last time I had a ham and pineapple pizza. I love pineapple on my pizza though, I add with my vegetables and chillies all the time. We did find some vegetarian pepperoni which was pretty cool. (It’s the salamis and things that I miss most and which are hardest to find ‘pretend’ versions of). I don’t think I’ve ever had a chicken pizza before, they seem to be really common at the moment.
Talking of which, I heard on the telly (where else?) that chicken is the most popular meat in the UK. I thought that was a little strange but then I realised why. Pizzas are covered in chicken, the majority of supermarket sandwiches are filled with chicken. There’s chicken everywhere! I don’ know if it’s actually the most popular but it’s definitely the most available.
And whilst finding a tasty vegetarian sandwich can be difficult (not keen on bland, boring English traditional cheese only types, can’t eat onion, can’t eat egg, fortunately can now tolerate mayonnaise), I have to have a little rant about pizza at parties. There is always cold, sliced pizza at parties. Always. (It has fortunately replaced quiche in popularity, see above comment about egg). However, trying to work out whether the pizza is vegetarian under that cold, congealed melted cheese requires a vigorous autopsy, plenty of patience and a little too much juggling of paper plate and plastic fork (there are never knives for some reason). All the meat eaters will tell you about the lovely vegetable-y pizza that they’ve just devoured. And of which there is not a single slice left. The meat pizza slices stay there, hanging on throughout the evening, unloved, neglected. Why is that? The vegetarian-friendly is always hoovered up (despite most people insisting that they can only bring/eat one with meat on it). How about we just bring vegetarian-friendly ones next time? Seeing as everybody is going to eat them. And then at least the vegetarians don’t have to go to all that trouble and stress. Thank you.
OK, next up ‘chicken’ pizza. There’s plenty of sweetcorn too because I discovered three bags of the stuff in my freezer which is more than I’m sure we usually eat in an entire year (sadly). I’m going to blame burns for that or else my stock control went seriously pear-shaped at some point.
A pizza in the making:
As you can see, frozen spinach is not on husband’s ‘safe’ list of acceptable foods either. I do try though!
I’ve also made cake, a recipe from another blog called Frugal Feeding. (His idea of frugal and my idea of poverty rations seem to be quite different though!) It’s a Raspberry, Orange and Almond Traybake. Mine was going to be lemon until I grabbed the bottle of lime juice by accident. It’s really yummy so I recommend that you try it! I think I got about thirty or so squares out of it so it’s really economical for a party or some other ‘do’.
So, all good stuff there. Of course there have been the downs too. It’s not so much fun to share those though! I’ve been Tired, run out of medicine, usual stuff. I’ve been hoping to get some work done on the bathroom but have now found out that the shower is leaking (wet plasterboard is not going to be a good game ever) and we only have one and a half tiles left to finish the floor. We need at least five. And we haven’t even got to working out if we’ve got enough of the wall ones either. That’s all been good fun. Oh and it SNOWED this morning! I know, it’s only the start of November too. I wasn’t impressed.
But I better leave you with something to make you smile. Husband decided to wash the padding in his cycle helmet so he hung it on the line. It was then that we noticed that it bears a striking resemblance to a moustache! So I took a photo.
Oh and someone gifted me some cheese this morning. Mm, cheese. Life is good.
Lately I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, or at least what is to me. It’s a very militant attitude, convinced of one’s own smug superiority whilst writing off the others as decidedly inferior, or worse, not even worthy of classification. I don’t like the whole superiority thing in any context, it’s very different from where there’s a clear wrong/right, legal/illegal. People only feel superior when they are convinced that their beliefs, ethos, principles are not only elevated above all others but often are the only way. No, I don’t like it all.
I don’t eat meat. I class myself as vegetarian although I don’t always use that description. For most people the definition of ‘vegetarian’ as someone who doesn’t eat meat is fairly logical. In fact, that’s always been the definition used, even by noble societies.
Of late, however, not eating meat is not good enough for the many vegetarian voices that you may meet in print and online, even representing such noble societies. Oh no, now a vegetarian must never touch egg or dairy. Uh, come again? Doesn’t that in an albeit simplistic model make you vegan not vegetarian?
All of a sudden, a great majority of vegetarians have seemingly failed and been pushed out into the cold. To be accepted as vegetarian in this modern day, you must be something more than the basic definition of non-meat-eating. Neither may you take gradual steps into the vegetarian swimming pool but plunge in straight at the deep end, preferably after some ethical epiphany. No, gradually becoming vegetarian also makes you a failure and kicks you out of the club.
This strikes me as a rather stupid, arrogant manoeuvre. Sadly when it comes to food definitions, you either eat meat or you don’t. If you don’t then you can be pretty sure that the meat-eating fraternity will abandon you faster than you can say ‘I’ll just eat the vegetables’, not even a kiss goodbye and a hope-to-see-you-soon. So where does it leave the non meat eaters? Apparently not vegetarian anymore. You need to pass some kind of exam to get in that club, it’s no longer a warm, welcoming, cosy corner where whatever your current food persuasions you’d be made welcome and introduced to nutritious, balanced and exotic cuisine. It’s now an élite, members only society with more rules than an entire country.
I don’t think it’s going to help encourage people to make the step, which is what these proselytising vegetarians do want. If you want people to convert then surely you have to meet them somewhere along the way? We can’t all be struck by lighting and find ourselves fully initiated, we all take different paths and make different choices.
When I started turning properly vegetarian (or at least I was a vegetarian before this new attitude got me booted) in my teens, there was a little information around, educational and inclusive. Welcome, try it and see if it’s for you. There were definitions, a little language to help you define yourself if you wished. Lacto and ovo were all acceptable prefixes. Even the pescatarians found themselves under the ‘vegetarian’ label at the time, because they did not eat meat. (This is a red rag to a very irate TVP bull equivalent who are now busy rejecting those who don’t aggressively check cheese and biscuit labels with a magnifying glass).
Well, sorry, to me that still makes sense. A vegetarian is a non-meat-eater. I stand by that still. As more people are reducing the amount of meat in their diet then surely it would also make sense to be a little welcoming to these people? After all they’ve got their toes in the water and maybe with the right swimming lessons, they may go completely veggie, in one form or another. And if they don’t, at least they won’t think vegetarians are all snooty cranks. I’m starting to think that myself.
So yes, I’m a lacto-semi ovo-sometimes pesca-vegetarian. And if you don’t like that, lump it. It’s my life, my choices and I respect yours.
