Meatless Monday

We eat too much meat in our house. Especially Thing 1 who, if given the opportunity, would only eat steak and white bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, in an attempt to cut back on red meat for a.) personal and environmental health, b.) financial reasons, and c.) use up all these garden veggies, I have instituted "Meatless Monday" at our house. I think that by giving it a designated day, I will always remember to do it, whereas if it's just "some night this week," I'll put it off or forget. Last night was our first Meatless Monday.

I had a ton of spinach in the fridge which needed to be used up. So I found this recipe for 5 Spinach Burritos. I'm not sure what the "5" in the title is all about. I substituted home-grown spinach for the frozen, and sauteed it, covered, with the onion and garlic. Everyone but Thing 1 liked it. His idea of a burrito is one loaded with seasoned hamburger, and nothing else will do (see what I'm up against here?).

Mr. E is now dying for all the other recipes that took me hours to look up, but he'll just have to wait (so will you). I don't understand all the ins and outs of a vegetarian diet, and I think to suddenly go all vegetarian would create serious discord, not to mention the fact that I don't think any of us really wants to go that far with it. So for now we'll just do one night a week, and expand to two or three nights a week from there as we find things we all like.

Ideally, all the food will be local. The spinach was, and the cheese and garlic. I'm working at growing my own onions, and could've used my own salsa, I think. Tortillas? There's a huge Mexican-immigrant community around here, so I might find some, somewhere. I served the meal with organic refried black beans, which went well with the burritos, although I'm planning on making my own in the future. The beans won't be local, but at least they won't be processed.

So, a (mostly) successful start to a positive life-style change for all of us!