Veg Pledge: The First 1 1/2 Days

Yesterday, we started our whole family pledge to be vegetarians for a week.

So far, so good.

We had homemade biscuits for breakfast, with jam or honey.

We snacked on nachos--corn chips and shredded cheese.

For lunch, we actually had corn dogs.  Vegetarian corn dogs, Mama Hungry's choice.  Sure, fake meat isn't exactly the point of the week, but the kids learned they could like it.  In fact, Bud didn't believe it wasn't meat.  Which I guess means he hasn't had too many corn dogs!  We balanced it by polishing off half a watermelon and a quart of strawberries.   Neither organic.  We're suspending our organic standards a bit to encourage fruit and vegetable eating this week.  And there just aren't a lot of organic choices in the stores right now (at least the stores we can get to).  Besides, as Mark Bittman notes, if you don't make whole food choices, then organic really isn't your most important food issue (I'm not always good at that, foregoing non-organic grapes for processed organic snacks.  Bassackwards sometimes.  But I'm trying.)

For a snack, while we played Junior Scrabble we had crudites with dill dip.  Bud even tried sugar snap peas, though he only liked 2/3 of one.  But he likes celery and Sis likes carrots, without dip, so fine.

Dinner was broccoli noodle soup.  With more cheese!  And my  kids don't even really like cheese.  But I can see that, even so, our dairy intake is increasing somewhat.

No complaints, no concerns.  In fact, they hardly seemed to register that they didn't have meat.

This morning, they had yogurt and took macaroni and cheese, with corn, for lunch, along with dried mangoes and fresh grapes.

We'll probably have peach smoothies or popcorn after school.  Dinner will be baked potato bar, including roasted broccoli, probably more cheese, and a cabbage slaw on the side, perhaps something else for Bud who doesn't like potatoes.

I have a few observations so far:

• Meat is easy.  And even as a vegetarian, I used meat when I was lazy in cooking them dinner.  Just like I use beans for myself.  But that's not an option for them.  I'm definitely having to work harder both to plan and to cook.
• Taking this pledge makes me bring my best game.   I can tell that I'm trying really hard to have variety, old favorites and new tastes, and choice.  I'll be shopping and chopping and cooking more.
• I don't know what I'm going to feed them for lunch.  Today, macaroni and cheese; tomorrow, grilled cheese.  Wednesday, quesadillas?  Ugh.  What else?  They don't eat nuts or seeds.  Protein is going to be a problem.  It can't be cheese all the time. 

Looking forward to the rest of the week.