The Accidental Vegetarian

A week ago Friday I was headed to bed and mentally reliving the day whe I discovered that I hadn't eaten any meat all day. Unintentionally.
I had been to a vegetarian restaurant, The Foundation, a few weeks prior and tried Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah) for the first time. A friend of mine (Hi Devon!) was telling me all about it. It's a whole protein so it's a great idea for vegetarians as they won't have to worry about pairing a protein with their meal. It's not dissimilar to rice - a little bit grainier and tastes mildly nutty and really yummy! I looked up a few recipes and discovered how easy it is to make (just like rice) and I thought I'd give it a shot at home.
I'm not really anti-meat but I do find I prefer the flavour of a lot of vegetarian meals. I'll blog some other time about my "Bacon Rules" but suffice to say it drives my husband (who is of the bacon-flavoured everything variety) completely insane. Meat as meat is great...meat as an ingredient is not. I love Shepherd's pie as much as the next guy, but other casseroles and things like Mexican food, I prefer no meat.
So back to Friday...I'm tallying up the day's food thinking, "Weird...no meat!" when I think to the day before...no meat! I thought long and hard and was surprised to discover I had eaten no meat for 3 days. So as a challenge to myself (and for fun with a little bit of "maybe I don't need to eat stuff with a face" on the side) I decided to try doing the vegetarian thing for as long as I can. So far no crazy need for meat. Not really feeling like I'm missing out on anything. even went to McDonald's the other day and got a 2 cheeseburger meal "hold the meat".
It has been almost 2 weeks...I think this Wednesday will be the 2 week mark.

Here's the recipe that started it all:

Ingredients
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 (19 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped, fresh cilantro (optional)
Sour cream (to taste)
Salsa (to taste)

Directions
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,
Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans. Ganish with sour cream, salsa and cilantro.

Thanks for checking stuff out!
[Insert cool sign-off here]
~Stacey