My illness wasn’t going to let me work out like I hoped, but it mattered little because we had a planned power outage (that lasted a LOT longer than expected) thanks to repair on the lines down the road. By the time said power came back on, I was heading out the door for a mandatory work meeting. The heat of the day wasn’t going to let me go out to my shed and exercise, but I’d hoped I could at least get a couple of miles in, even at a slow speed.

I took advantage of the timing to get some fresh veggies and tofu from the grocery store down the block when we were let out. I had some canned meat-filled soups I was eating up today and starting tomorrow, I intend to have maybe 1 meal with meat in it max per day til I get more vegetarian recipes under my belt. I also still have quite a bit of meat in the freezer, so each day I have time, I’ll batch cook something I can store in the deep freeze and eat on over the next few months.

That’s the one good thing about the power outage this morning: gave the pork tenderloin I had thawing in the fridge a quicker start. My goal is by September to be a full vegetarian, and I think I can make that happen with this “one meat meal max a day” plan. I can’t afford to waste food or give it away, and until I get a better handle on my protein sources and needs (and recipes to ensure they’re met), I’ll keep some meat in the diet.

The biggest thing I’ll be working on in the meantime is cutting out dairy. I thankfully have VERY little of that left, so it shouldn’t take too long to get through it all. I am a bit bummed that it means that lovely goat cheese I discovered last year (lactose intolerance) won’t be a feature in my fridge again, but at the same time, I don’t eat it often enough or quickly enough to avoid it molding over or justify the price. Some of them are great with my Triscuit crackers.

I generally enjoy salads, but I admit it’s gonna be difficult leaving off the cheeses or creamy dressings which have always been a staple in my salads growing up. I’ll have to think of some nice combinations of crisp veggies to enjoy and flavors of dressing that don’t have all that cream or cheese in them. Ranch is gonna have to be out the door soon.

And yes, I know there are thousands of different types of salad combos that allow for different textures and flavors. Since I live in hot-as-hell Texas and summer is approaching, I don’t want warm salads, but cold ones. I got two different types of salad dressing when I was out to give me some ideas. I LOVE raspberry vinaigrette and the spicy Italian looked interesting. I just don’t wanna get bored so quickly when I’m getting the good habits started.

So yeah, today was a good day to do some basic veggie shopping. It’s going to be fun to make salad mix for me and veggie mix for my parakeets. We can enjoy lunch together.

I’ve tried working with tofu before, but couldn’t get the hang of it and didn’t particularly like it at the time. With more experience or help in preparing it (I know you gotta get all the water out of it in hopes it retains what flavors you choose), I’ll give it a few shots. Thankfully it’s pretty cheap, and I have a LOT more recipe books than I did when I first tried to go vegan.

So in the meantime, I’ll cook what meat I have left, experiment with different salad fixins’ combinations, start making some vegetarian dishes, and use up my dairy in the next few months. It’s a good thing I already like soy and oat milk or else this would be tougher to try and work with.

And tomorrow I’m resuming my workouts, going slow to get re-invested and re-build those habits I’ll need to keep going in the future.