Every evening, Bob and I have the same conversation that goes something like this:
Bob: What are you thinking for dinner tonight?
Holly: I don't care. What are you hungry for?
Bob: I don't care.
Maybe a 1/2 hour later:
Holly: What do you want for dinner?
Bob: I don't care.
Holly: Ugh....
This continues on until we are both frustrated. This happens every. single. day. I am sick of it. So, I came to thinking of the journey that I have had with food over the last 30+ years and thought I would share some of it and an idea I have that ties into the farm (hence the blog post).
Before going to college, the norm was a freezer full of animals that I grew up with -- whether it be beef, chicken, lamb, pork, or something else that was raised on the farm. There was also frozen berries, sweet corn, as well as many other canned fruits and vegetables that came from the garden each summer.
During the time right after graduation, as I began cooking more, I came to quickly realize, there was something strange about the food that you could get in the store compared to the taste of what I was used to. Canned corn tasted like what I imagine field corn would taste like, rather than the delicious sweet corn from our garden. Beef was fatty and the color inconsistent with what I had always seen. Fruits and veggies never looked like what came from the garden. I have never seen a perfect apple with some sort of strange wax-like coating on it come from an apple picked right from the tree. There were many more of these examples, leading to me decide to become vegetarian and for many years on and off vegan -- perhaps more appropriately named a plant-based diet. The more I read about the food industry and the processing of food I was putting into my body, the more dedicated I came to being conscious of what I was fueling my body with. I prefer calling this a plant-based diet, as there are many vegan foods that I would not put into my body as they are made from more chemicals and unpronounceable ingredients than most cereals.
Although eating plant-based, whole foods has gotten easier over the last 15+ years, it can still be challenging. I hope, that with starting to plant more in a sustainable way, I can help raise consciousness about what people are eating as well as make it easy to make good choices on how people choose to fuel their bodies.
To help with this as well as the common question of 'what should we have for dinner tonight,' I will be posting 1+ recipes each week that we have tried during the week. My hope is to inspire others to try having 1 plant-based meal each week and gradually increase this as time goes along. I will be focusing on creating meals with fruits and vegetables in season and showing some new ways we try to utilize the foods we grow. Stay tuned each week in the recipes section of the site for our weekly choice.
One thing I learned early on was that this lifestyle is a lot about planning. I strive to create a plan about what we're going to eat once a week and stick to the plan and shop once. I'm NOT a shop every day kind of gal. I like having what I need on hand and always know what I'm making for the week. It's a lot less stressful and the only question I ask my husband is, "What do you want tonight from the menu?" :)