DO WITHOUT {Week 1}

One week without meat and shopping - almost.

One week down, five to go. How did you do? Were you full of optimism and it was a breeze? Or consumed by angst and just stumbled through?

I’m a bit of the latter. Not that week one was difficult by any means, but I was less than prepared, in the meat department anyway. We made it through. Even managed to stay meatless on the weekend, which are always the toughest. I do not envy vegetarians trying to eat out. There’s not a lot of options out there.

So we survived, but our meals were rather stale.

• Wednesday 9 – we ate up the remaining leftovers containing meat.
• Thursday 10 – mac ‘n cheese
• Friday 11 – leftover mac ‘n cheese
• Saturday 12 – spaghetti
• Sunday 13 – veggie burgers
• Monday 14 – fake-meat sloppy joes
• Tuesday 15 – mexi-mediterranean torta

That last one was rather interesting.  And confusing.

Mexi-Mediterranean Torta

It’s a recipe from a vegetarian cookbook the shop owner of Vintage Vogue {the best vintage store in the world} gave me for Christmas.  Thanks Toni!

It was supposed to be Mediterranean Torta, but no one in the fam likes black olives so I substituted black beans.  Then I thought it needed a little somethin’ somethin’ so I added corn.  That combined with the roasted red pepper and flour tortillas certainly gave it a Mexican flair.  However, the spinach, feta, tomato and mozzarella leaned towards the originally intended Mediterranean flavor.  As if that wasn’t confusing enough, the recipe called for French Fried Onions, which I was absolutely-positutely-without-a-doubt-100% sure we had a can leftover from Christmas.  It turned out to be chow mein noodles.  Ah, what the heck.  I threw them in too.

After all, this is part of the “Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or Do without” challenge.  Makes no sense to run to the store and buy something new when I have loads of stuff lying around never being used.

For week two I hope to be more prepared.  I’ve been perusing the rest of the recipes in my vegetarian cookbook and have a few planned for the upcoming week.

• Spinach & Ricotta Stuffed Shells
• Stuffed Yellow Squash
• Mediterranean Veggies with Navy Bean Penne

This time I’ll try not to give my mediterranean dish an identity complex.

As for the shopping, I’ve done fairly well.  I had one small transgression.  I stopped at the mall to visit a friend and ended up buying two pair of tights.  It’s not easy when your friends work in retail and are always working – as anyone in the retail industry knows all too well.  The only way you get to see them is at their store.  Which usually leads to trouble.

I just need to stay out of the stores.  And never read my email.  Or go to the mailbox.  Anything with SALE! in the subject line immediately gets deleted and flyers in the mailbox go directly to the bin.  I cancelled all catalog requests and opted out long ago to reduce the amount of paper mail we receive so that helps, but I still subscribe to my favorite Indie stores online newsletters and they flood my inbox.

One “Do Without” challenge participant {Tea and Crumpets} went so far as to unsubscribe from all online shops.  Brilliant!  The best way to resist temptation is to have none.  I need to get on that.

So that’s the scoop on my seven days.  Let’s hear about yours.

So you’ve missed seven days.  So what.  There’s still time to join the Do without challenge!  Better late than never.  If you haven’t already done so, make your pledge by adding your name/blog name and what you are giving up under the “Make the pledge” tab.  Check out the rules and grab a badge too!  Then write a post on your blog and link up weekly.  The “Participating Posts” linky is a bloghop, so feel free to add the link list to your posts.  Just grab the code.

You may also add your blog name under the “UWMD Challenge” tab for participating.  This is a running list of all blogs taking part in the UWMD Challenge throughout 2011.  CLICK HERE for full challenge details.

• Participating Posts
• The Rules
• Make the pledge
• Grab a badge
• UWMD Challenge

Grab a badge Link to this post: http://midnightmaniac.com/post3174

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