Vegetarian again

I've been considering it for a while, but I've quit eating meat, as of a few weeks ago. What really made me finally go ahead and do it was watching Food Inc.  Of course, it's nothing we all don't already know about how terrible factory farms are for both animal and farmer, but it felt like a call to action for me.

I rarely cooked with meat products, anyway, though I usually used chicken broth, and I occasionally used bacon or sausage.  But I almost always ordered something meaty when eating out, and I ate anything offered me by anyone!  I had been on a ham and cheese sandwich kick for a while, and I suppose that's what I'll feel nostalgic about for a while.

Speaking of cheese, I'm aspiring to eventually become vegan this time.  I will have to have in place a suitably decadent cheese substitute, since being without the real thing seems almost like an insurmountable challenge to me.  So I'll probably phase in veganism first by cooking vegan at home and only eating dairy and eggs socially--at restaurants and when it's offered me (I worked with a vegan once who said he only ate "free cheese"--hi, Ryan!).  I am also considering making exceptions for humanely acquired dairy and eggs.

I was a vegetarian for about five years in high school and college, but I'm certain I'll be better at it this time.  I subsisted mainly on different combinations of bread, pasta, cheese and tomato sauce back then!  My friend Heather recently reminded me, too, of my fondness for Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable Soup sprinkled with Kraft Parmesan--I actually did a homemade version of it the other day for old time's sake.  She's given up meat recently, too!

I'm excited about this new adventure.  I've only used vegetarian cookbooks for about 5 years, now, so I recently bought my first vegan cookbook, Veganomicon, and I'm sure you'll see some dishes from it here shortly!

In the meantime, here is a vegetarian "shepherd's" pie I made shortly before I made the big switch.  I used this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Cheap Healthy Good. (Click on the picture to see a larger version--it actually looks tastier close up...)