Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Vegan Night

I have spoken some here on my blog about my dietary goals. You might know by now that I am taking baby steps towards a healthier diet for my family and I, which will also in turn be healthier for our planet. My wonderful husband, after reading some information I gave him, has agreed to also take his own baby steps. So now I am researching and trying new meals for us in correlation with these goals. I have a goal of being vegan for 3 dinners a week and Hubby darling has agreed to only eat meat (chicken or fish) 3 dinners a week. So here is our first Vegan night, congratulate us!



I decided to try my hand at frying up some tofu and it turned out pretty good. Both of my sons ate a piece and Clark went back for seconds. I also made some whole wheat pasta and added some oil and some veggies sauteed in garlic. My plate is the one with the spinach salad and the broccoli. There are a lot of changes my husband is willing to make, but spinach and broccoli are still not on this list.



My boys both got a small plate of pasta (do I have the only children on this earth who don't like pasta), some fried tofu, a pickle and a small bowl of apple sauce. I am feeling very good about this meal for my kids. They don't really eat much meat in the first place so the biggest hurdle with helping them towards our goals is the pickiness of these two boys. Getting more fruits and veggies into these two boys has been a challenge to say the least and I am really happy with our progress.

Right now the only meat my boys eat is either in the form of nuggets or sandwiches. The nuggets will probably be a pretty easy thing to eliminate, but the sandwiches are another story. I'd love to hear some new ideas for lunch box/picky boy friendly vegetarian lunches. My boys don't like nut butters, so this really does make it a little more of a challenge packing lunch boxes.

So I am now congratulating myself on yet another baby step towards my ultimate goal. Breaking this goal down into these smaller more attainable goals has really helped us to be even more successful, and on top of that, feel the joy of this success on a regular basis...and really who doesn't want to feel joy regularly? I think one of the biggest lessons I have learn so far in my early thirties is to take baby steps toward any goal. In my experience I have found that in my exuberance for an issue I tend to jump 'both feet' into it, only to find myself having to start all over again at a later date. I can't say exactly why breaking a goal down into smaller steps seems to equal more success for me, but I can say that so far it has been true for me and I am very happy to have figured this out.

6 comments:

Elly Lou said...

"who doesn't want to feel joy regularly?"

Sing it, grrrl. You're wiser than Bill Murray. It's like that irish saying - everything is in walking distance if you have the time.

Heat said...

woo-hoo!

i am definitely better with baby steps, too.

i'll think more about lunches...

i have a recipe somewhere for a fruit smoothie with spinach in it. makes the smoothie green, but you can't taste the spinach. maybe you can get some veggies in that way?

Taradactyl in a Modern World said...

Yup, I have a post on here somewhere about our green smoothies. Clark and I love them but Curtis isn't always so happy about them.

angela said...

Your dinner looks delicious. We are switching to healthy eating slowly too. There are two books that really helped "Feeding the whole family" this book has tonnes of great kid friendly lunch ideas. The other one is Nourishing Traditions, this one will blow your mind about all the things you don't know about food. Glad I found your blog.
Angela

Taradactyl in a Modern World said...

Thanks Angela. I actually have Feeding the Whole Family out from the library right now!

affectioknit said...

That looks yummy and YAY for you for going vegan!