It's been another week

I probably should be striking days off the calendar so I can keep better track of time. How will I know when I have arrived at the end of the journey if I don't know where I am? Time really does fly! I think it's been a week since my last posting. As far as my own diet, I have stayed pretty vegetarian, but still eat the occasional chunk of cheese and have been adding Parmesan cheese to top the tacos.  Oh, yes, and a little meat. But I will get to that later.

I did, however, purchase some Vegan Gourmet cheddar cheese substitute that wasn't too bad. I used it on tacos and tostadas. The color and size were right for the job. A very flavorful salsa, though, made up for the lack of taste in the "cheese-like". I am having a struggle here. If you read the label of contents on the vegan cheese-like products, some are difficult to pronounce and to be honest, are not things I would have normally considered human food. If you read the label on cheddar cheese, it says milk and enzymes. I think as long as I get my cheese from a environmentally friendly and humane dairy, I think I can fudge a little. I do know that we are eating far less cheese these days. I generally used to buy a 1 pound piece of cheddar cheese a week and we go through it all. We also go through lots of Parmesan, as Phil loves spaghetti. Truth be told, though, he only puts Parmesan cheese on it because he sees me do it. I don't think he would miss it. My final test is going to be making enchiladas with the cheese-like. Stay tuned.

During the week, I made a batch of pinto beans and we had tostadas. I also really fell off the wagon and made a quiche. Yup! eggs, cheese, and milk. But it was vegetarian.:-} I don't know. It sounded really good and I loved the thought of the Gruyere cheese made me "cross the line". Oddly, we didn't even finish it. I tossed out the last piece. 

Thursday, Phil was done with beans and grains so ordered a pizza. I love pizza, but noticed it was really not as tasty as it has been in the past. I noticed how greasy it was, too. Next time: Vege gourmet with no cheese :-)

Friday I made a wonderful recipe called Caramelized Korean Tofu. I mixed up some leftover rice and steamed a combo brown-wild-short grained rice and lentils. It was a little sticky, probably because of the Arborio rice. I have never simply steamed it. At any rate, in a separate pan I fried vegetable in a drizzle of EVOO. Bell pepper-broccoli-asparagus-onion-mushrooms-celery (what I had in the fridge). About 10 minutes before the rice was ready, I mixed up the sauce for the tofu and fried the tofu patties in a pan. SO GOOD!

 Saturday even I was getting tired of trying to figure out new things to eat. So out came the New York steak. I baked 2 potatoes, ala America's Test Kitchen. Now, you wonder why on earth anyone would need a recipe for baking potatoes. Trust me, You gotta try this recipe! The potato is cooked perfectly. The peel was crusty. Perfect. We added a salad. Pretty traditional meal. Funny thing was, we didn't even eat the entire steak.