Dinner Time

A few months ago I established a "no meat" day in our home. Essentially, I felt we were eating too much meat than we needed to, and seeing as meat is expensive, unhealthy in large amounts, and harmful to the environment, I thought we could cut back.

I mean, one day a week. At supper - lunch and breakfast didn't even count.
But the truth is, it's harder than you think. I've made corn chowder, cauliflower soup, potato bake, all sorts of things. But I am not the world's best cook. And even when the dish turn out well, I put it down in front of a bunch of picky eaters who act as though Ricotta were made of slugs and pepper causes teeth to fall out.

Tonight, for instance, I made something from a vegetarian cookbook someone gave me. It's called "Great Eats Without Meats!" and it's wonderful. But after I leaf through and eliminate everything that contains bulgar wheat, tofu, ricotta and gorgonzola, there's not much left to work with.
I found something called "Penne Di Bosco" which is Penne with mushrooms, and I thought the kids would go for it. They even voted on it, but it turned out it was just because they liked the way it sounded. "Penne Di Bosco!" And they also liked the way I said "mushroom sauce." It made Andy laugh.
Anyway, I think I would have had a better chance if the list of ingredients hadn't left out both garlic and shallots. They weren't listed, and so I didn't buy any. And then while cooking I came to the step that said "sautee shallots and garlic" and I freaked out. I skipped the shallots and used pre-minced garlic I keep in the fridge (probably would have done this anyway.)

Also, "add Porcini" popped up in at least two places. The second time was about forty minutes after the first, so I freaked out again...

But it wasn't too bad. I feel a little funny now, but that's probably because I ate thee helpings to show the kids how YUMMY it was and how much they were missing out. Andy finally fell for it, and ate the penne, if not the mushrooms.