About a week ago, someone expressed genuine interest in my vegetarian diet. This is the same person that prompted me to go ahead and try the quinoa.

When he was asking me about my daily food choices, I have to admit, I was a little flustered and couldn’t properly answer him. Why? Because I live in Oklahoma, and in the 2 years I’ve been a vegetarian, people have reacted only one particular way when told I’m a vegetarian.

Their reaction is as follows….

“You’re a vegetarian. God, that is soooo weird.”

My response to this is to smile and shrug. It doesn’t bother me. This reaction is something I prepared myself for when making the life decision to go meatless. Thus, I’m prepared for people to respond this way.

So, when after 2 years, somebody expected me to answer sincere questions about my diet, I basically stared at him in the most stupid of ways and stumbled around on my pitiful answers. The curiosity and sincerity expressed by this person rendered me speechless. That has never happened to me before. 

After I had time to cope with the shock of being asked non-sarcastic questions about what I eat, I had an idea for a fun blog post.

I decided to take pictures of food that I’ve cooked and eaten the past week, and put them all in this post.

I’m not going to go into detail with long recipes. Besides, most of the time when I cook, I don’t use a recipe. I just throw stuff together and wish for the best. In all the pics you will see here, that was exactly what I did too.

Something that is very important to add about the way I cook is that I like to cook a large dish and eat leftovers for a couple of days. If I had to cook something new everyday, I would be miserable.

Potato and Veggie Soup.

I know. It’s the wrong time of year for soup. I don’t care. Soup is awesome. Soup is king. I can eats it when I wants it.

I didn’t get technical with this soup. I just used whatever veggies I had. Taters, carrots, onions, broccoli, green onions. Vegetable broth, herbs, spices, milk. Topped with cheese. Toasted garlic bread on the side for dipping.

Before:

After:

A couple days later, I was having a craving for chili dogs. Vegetarian style, of course.

Thank you Morningstar.

Morningstar veggie dogs, topped with vegetarian chili. My husband made this chili for me out of the Morningstar Meal Starter crumbles. I love those things.

Because there was a huge pot of vegetarian chili left, I ate that for several meals.

I sometimes used Fritos for scooping. I am ashamed and embarrassed over those Fritos. But they were good with the chili.  

One day this week, my husband and I went out to breakfast after a doctors appointment.

I’ve never been much for ‘traditional’ breakfast food, but I’ve been feeling it lately. This breakfast was particularly wonderful.

I snapped this pic with my phone, halfway through the meal. I was starving.  

Spinach omelet, wheat toast, hash browns.

I could have ordered the fruit, yogurt, and oatmeal breakfast, but well, you know.   

This next dish is something I make often. It’s kind of my “go to” vegetarian comfort meal.

Vegetable Pot Pie.

This is something I just thought up a few months back. I change it every time, depending on what I have in my freezer or cabinet. This pot pie had a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, frozen broccoli and cauliflower, and frozen pearl onions.

I mix the frozen vegetables with cream soups (for this one I used Cream of Onion and Cream of Celery). I add some spices, spread it in a dish, and put it in the oven.

Sometimes I add a layer of shredded cheese, but I didn’t with this pot pie. After the vegetables have a had a chance to cook for a while, I add the biscuit layer.

I make the biscuit layer with Bisquick.

I’m not fancy.  

It’s really pretty good for something I just throw together.

Something else that I could consume in truckloads is fruit smoothies.

Two different pictures for two different days. But I literally had one everyday this week.

Banana, frozen mixed fruit, and either soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, or rice milk. This week I used light vanilla soy milk.

Most healthy living bloggers like to have a “yogurt mess” for breakfast, but because I need real food (hot, cooked, lots of protein) for breakfast, I tend to eat a yogurt mess for lunch. Maybe even dinner.

Banana, greek yogurt (honey flavor), and cereal (in this case….Cheerios). I ate this a few times this week.

And one morning, because I was still thinking of the breakfast that I had in a restaurant earlier in the week (see above ), I made this for brekkie.

Smash the eggs and taters together, scoop the mixture up, and put a big dollop on the corner of the toast. Eat. It’s the only to do it.

Tonight, because my son begs me for them, I made waffles…..

These were mostly for my kiddos, but I did nibble on them just a bit.

So, as you can see, I’m not going to win any healthy eating awards based on the past week. I tend to consume a lot more legumes than pictured here. In fact, they are a big staple in my diet.

Even though the food I prepared this week wasn’t super impressive in the health category, it is kid-friendly, it’s budget friendly, and…..I think it’s a lot healthier than most people eat these days.

And….that’s it.

I think I may do these “Weekly Food Posts” more often. This was a fun project this week.