I was completely vegetarian for several years. I was never a big fan of meat and had no problem giving it up. Except for bacon. Bacon is yum. That was the last thing to go!

A general moral opposition towards consuming animals was never my thing, though I do have a HUGE moral opposition to modern factory farming practices. You know the drill. Confined veal calves. Chickens in cramped cages. Hormones and antibiotics liberally applied. If more people realized the conditions their hot wings were raised in or their skim milk was milked in, there’d be a movement. An anti-massacree movement.

I’m putting on Alice’s Restaurant now.
Nowadays, I will eat bacon or chicken once in a while. I still don’t like beef. And I still refuse to handle raw meat (ick). In my full-veg days I picked up a few awesome cookbooks. This recipe for vegetarian black bean chili is adapted from Paulette Mitchell’s 15-Minute Single Gourmet.

It’s not a vegetarian cookbook (darn that chicken chapter) but it has dozens of vegetarian recipes. I used this book a lot more back in the day than I do now, since I cook larger portions and freeze what I don’t eat, but it still rocks.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili

1 tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped bell pepper, any color
1/2 cup corn
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
1 15-ounce can black beans
1 4-ounce packet Boca “ground beef” crumbles
2 cups water
6 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon dried basil or 1 tablespoon minced fresh
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin
Dash hot pepper sauce, or to taste

Heat oil in a large pan. Add onion and garlic; cook until soft. Add carrot, bell pepper, corn, and celery and cook for 3-5 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; simmer 5 minutes. Makes 6-8 servings.

Options: Obviously, you can mix and match vegetables however you like. You can use whatever kind of beans you like. Sometimes I will put in 8 or even 12 ounces of fake meat.

And, as you see in the photo, I like to garnish mine with feta cheese.

Social Bookmarks:

I was going to make lasagna. I make it and freeze what I can’t eat. I’m a big proponent of freezer food. It saves making bad choices when in a hurry. Someone smart said somewhere I can’t find anymore:

“If you don’t know what your next five meals are, you’re in trouble.”

I put water on to boil. Pretty glad I didn’t begin the sauce since when I looked in the cupboard, I remembered I hadn’t bought lasagna noodles. Damn. There goes that plan.

I was still in the mood to cook. Moosewood to the rescue.

It’s a low-fat cookbook, which is the only thing I don’t like about it. I lose weight best on 30-45% fat intake daily, and these recipes will put you around 20%. Since I’m vegetarian, the slack gets taken up by carbs, since even vegetarian proteins like beans have a good deal of carbs as well.

I’m not anti-carb. I just feel most balanced and satisfied around 40 fat/40 carb/20 protein.

I bought the Moosewood book…man, 15 years ago? A lot of the recipes are really involved (tons of ingredients) and/or time-consuming. And some are just awful — don’t try the Dark Chocolate Pudding unless you are feeling masochistic. However, there are tons of winners, and even if some require a bit of effort, they’re worth it.

Tonight I decided to try two new recipes. Macaroni and Cheese, and Chili Burgers.

The mac and cheese came out very dry, likely because I used whole wheat pasta, which soaks up more liquid, instead of plain. The recipe called for nutmeg, which like a dipshit I blindly followed. Yuck. I forgot I hate nutmeg in anything other than some baked goods. Still, it’s not bad, and I think with 1/2 c. more liquid and cutting the damn nutmeg, it will be yummy.

Chili Burgers was kind of work-intensive for what you get. Basically you mush some beans with cooked onion, garlic, spices, and oats for body, make patties, and fry them in a pan. The recipe must think you’re making giaganto burgers, because it was supposed to make six. I halved the recipe, and still got six burgers. Yay! At least three of them will make it to the freezer for lazy-day meals.

So two-plus hours after I got it into my obsessive pea brain to “whip something up” for supper and fridge, I finally got to sit down to eat. Oh well. It was worth it.

It’s always worth it.

Exercise: Nothing special.

I’m not insane!

Monday is Official Weigh-In. That’s the one that gets recorded, and tracked, the one I keep in my head. It doesn’t fuss me to weigh every day. I like seeing the little ups and downs. It feels normal.

Today is a sad, sad day in Emo-Free Weight Loss town.

I’m officially up 9 pounds from my low, to 269.

Why am I smiling? Because I know I’m paying proper attention again. Because I know it’s not the end of the world.

It’s about the process, not the numbers. The numbers simply track the process.

P.S. Shit, my Fitday is public now. Go look and laugh.

Aunt Amy has a hangover.

Oh, wait, this is about weight loss.

*refocuses, ignoring cotton mouth*

It’s actually less about weight loss and more about head space.

Cause the weight doesn’t go anywhere without the proper head space. Sure, for some people it does. Some people can follow insane plans, live with hunger, and scratch and claw for every pound.

I’m just not that dedicated. Or insane. You see, I’ve lost 63 pounds. Wait. I’ve gained some back. Let me go get a morning pee and check for you.

Yup. I’m going to call it. I’m going to fucking own it. At 63 pounds lost, I was at 260. Today is 268.8. Some of it might be water weight, but I don’t care, and I hate fucking prevarication. Not that it quite often isn’t water weight. Just…pick a day and stick with it.

Everything I say related to dieting is “used to” now. I used to take my Monday weigh-in as the official. I still would if I were paying attention anymore. I used to use Fitday nearly every day. I used to eat when I was hungry and stop when I was full.

Oh, man, that was THE BOMB. It was THE FUCKING REVELATION.

Not “eat when you’re hungry, and stop when full.” That’s true, but it’s a damn retarded revelation.

The revelation is, “When you get hungry again, do the same thing, EVEN IF IT’S ONLY TEN MINUTES LATER.”

Think on that. I don’t have time to explain it. I’ll rant in more detail on that later.

I have to get dressed. Take an iboprofen. Drink a bunch of water. And go watch the kids. And hope they let me veg. They’re nice kids. Really nice kids. I bet they will. *dreams*