The vegetarian project - day 3

Well today I feel much more prepared for the upcoming month and a half. We went to the grocery store :) Now I know that I could have fulfilled this with the stuff that we normally buy, but I tend to get less than enough protein when I do eat meat, so I wanted to make sure that that number wouldn't dwindle down to almost nothing now that I am temporarily not. We got several flavors of yogurt (I put vanilla in my morning smoothies, and use plain to make sauces already, but flavored varieties just sounded yummy, and I had a coupon). We also got several different types of beans, both canned and dry. (Once again we had beans in our pantry already, but I know me, and I'll want some variety).

Breakfasts have been easy to convert as they were pretty basic already. My smoothies needed no altering, and the breakfast burritos only needed to have the bacon removed. Breakfasts on the weekend are usually non existent, or cereal, so no issues there.

Lunches aren't that hard either. For the last two or three weeks I have been taking salads to work for lunch, to convert these over I simply stopped bringing the meat to put on top and tossed some cheese on there instead (the salads are so low in calories even with the meat that I deem it necessary to replace those calories).

Dinners are where things get creative. Since I've been dieting I've been cooking all the dinners anyways. Alex knows how to cook, and he is a good cook, but he doesn't remember to measure the amount of ingredients he uses. Our dinners prior to the challenge were fairly straight forward, 3 oz of some kind of meat (I weigh and individually wrap portions in parchment as soon as I buy meat, makes it WAY easier to cook for jsut two people), vegetables, and a starch. The last two nights, and two lunches (I eat lunch at home on Wednesdays, and I'm eating the last serving of this right now) it's been brown rice with a little bit of jarred Alfredo sauce, and stove top grilled veggies. It is delicious. filling, and an easy dish to add or subtract calories from depending on where I am at the end of the day. If I need a few more calories the veggies are cooked in butter and get a sprinkling of cheese, if I need fewer I use Pam and more seasoning. Tonight we are having Moroccan garbanzo bean wrap things from the recipe on the can. I'm hoping it turns out yummy :)