Pudge and Nico Blog

Eeeep, sorry for leaving you guys hanging! Here’s how our vegetarian challenge ended.

Breakfast:

Breakfast tacos from Bill Miller’s again. I think you know what those look like. Also, coconut water. Much needed.

Lunch:

Nicole: No real lunch. Ate a few cheese crackers and half a slice of cake for a coworker’s birthday.

Darius: Nothing.

Dinner:

We decided to end this thing a day early and celebrate with BACON CHEESEBURGERS. Damn, they were good. We also shared some fries. Oh, and that lovely milkshake you see? It’s a NUTELLA AND PRETZEL MILKSHAKE! Yes, it was incredible. I was sooooo full when we left the restaurant.

Anyway, it’s over now. Whew. We were going to start vegan week right after this, but then we realized SCREW THAT, WE NEED TO BE EATING RAMEN AND CRAWFISH AND BURGERS AND OTHER MEATY GOODNESS. So yeah, living this way for just this week made me realize I am super not interested in doing it long-term. Here are our other thoughts on the experiment:

*Eating at home was pretty easy. Like I said before, we already eat a lot of beans and eggs and tofu, so we were already familiar with fast, easy meals that provide protein other than animal protein. It’s definitely nice to be able to supplement a meat-eating diet with vegetarian foods.

*Eating out was definitely harder. Luckily there are a lot of vegetarians in Austin, so there are options on pretty much all menus, but when you have to order vegetarian pad thai over a pork belly bahn mi, you definitely feel limited. Even at Whole Foods Express, I was looking enviously at the pasta with grilled chicken thighs and the flatbread sandwich with salami, and had to settle for cold tofu and salad instead. When the prospect of eating any meat is closed to you, you realize how nice it is to have meat as an option!

*I realized that we eat a lot of dairy–mostly in the form of cheese and eggs. I don’t think I could survive vegan week. Sometimes Every day of your life, you just gotta eat some cheddar as a snack and top things off with an egg.

*I don’t feel like my energy level was affected either way. However, I do feel like my digestion was better, although Darius said he didn’t notice a difference.

*I did feel like our meals were healthier, overall, specifically when it came to eating out. It seemed like the vegetarian options typically included more veggies, less grease, etc.

*This doesn’t have as much to do with the vegetarian part, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. We didn’t buy bread since I had planned on that vegan bread actually being edible. CAN I JUST SAY HOW MUCH I MISSED BREAD?!?!? Toast is like, one of my favorite foods ever. Meals felt much sadder without it. Typically if I have a smoothie, I’ll have one piece of toast on the side. Or a piece of toast with scrambled eggs. Or for dinner, we’ll mix up something like beans and veggies and cheese and serve it on top of toast. I miss toast. Darius said I should have to do the Atkins diet for a week, and that that would TRULY be the hardest challenge for me. I think I’d rather die.

*Also, we were using up a lot of random veggies from last week and didn’t buy anything new, so I felt like we were eating repeats of foods a lot of times. Which is fine, I guess, but kind of boring. I kind of wish we would have bought more inspiring veggies instead of resorting to leftovers so that we could have made more creative dinners. I can see how you get caught up in the whole “protein + grain + veggie” thing and get sick of cooking real fast.

Any questions about our little vegetarian experiment? Do you think we’re weird Austin hippies now? Have you ever done your own little experiment? 

Breakfast:

Leftover sweeties/russets from last night. Scrambled eggs with spinach and chives. Also, another iced coffee/coconut water concoction.

Lunch:

Nicole: We have food trucks that sell at my office building once per week, so I got to try a new one–The Peached Tortilla. I had the two vegetarian tacos on the menu–tofu pad thai, and pulled squash (spaghetti squash that looks like pulled pork). They were delicious! But still…I really wanted some of those meaty dishes!

Later, a coworker received warm cookies from Tiff’s Treats, so I couldn’t resist one as an afternoon snack!

Darius: Nothing, again.

Dinner:

We shared a fried egg sandwich (with tomato, arugula, beer mustard, and avocado) with fries, and the vegetable chili (with cabbage, carrot, beet, jalapeno, avocado, onion, cheese) with cornbread. And good beers (it IS a brewery, after all…). Too many beers, actually.

Breakfast:

From Bill Miller’s: potato & egg taco, bean & cheese taco, lots of salsa!

Also, I had a coconut water while sitting in traffic. I like this brand because it’s the only one I’ve discovered so far that doesn’t taste like sweaty socks.

Lunch:

Nicole: Salad with romaine, carrot, celery, red onion, olive oil, lemon juice, hummus. Pita bread and clementine with mint on the side. This lunch was sad. I got a different brand of hummus this time. Turns out it wasn’t a different brand, it was a re-branding of a hummus brand I hate.

Darius: Nada.

Dinner:

Sweet potatoes and russet potatoes roasted with turmeric, sumac, oregano, and coriander. Pitas stuffed with a veggie burger, spinach, avocado, red onion, mint, cilantro, creme fraiche.

Dessert: Slice of apple-rosemary cake for me, nothing for Darius