I have a couple of new year’s resolutions this year.  Nothing too dramatic, just some things I’ve been thinking about anyway so now seems like as good a time as any to start.

One of these resolutions is to join my daughter amongst the ranks of the vegetarians.  This is a pretty easy switch as I plan all our meals for a vegetarian option for R anyway.  We aren’t vegan so we also have dairy and eggs for protein.  We’ve discovered so many really great meat alternatives too.  Our favorites are:

• Field Roast Grain Meat Company’s celebration roast and sausages.  mmmm, we had the Italian sausages for dinner tonight, cooked with mushrooms and tomato sauce and tossed with 3-cheese tortellini.
• Don’t laugh, but that darn Tofurkey was fantastic.  It made for a wonderful Christmas dinner and we had enough to heat up for leftovers.  Yum.  We all agreed that is was much nicer than regular turkey and about 1/8th the work.  The gravy is especially yummy and luckily you can buy it as a side dish, because we’ll be buying it again!  And as a side note, they do not look like a carved tofu chicken.
• We’ve used Yves Ground Round for a few years now, but the other day we tried Morningstar’s version of ground "beef" and it is much, much nicer.
• Quorn chik’n nuggets and chik’n breasts.  The kids love the nuggets and I use the chik’n breasts in place of chicken breasts in every recipe now.  These are a leap of faith, believe me, but really are great.

A friend asked how will I know if we are getting enough protein.  I thought about this, and to be honest, the only one in the house who knows how much protein they are getting is R — because we are more careful to watch it for her.  I mean honestly, how many meat-eaters out there know how much protein they are getting everyday?  I didn’t, but I know that today I’ve had about 55 grams (and should have at least 45-54g per day).  And I’ve had waaaay less fat because the bulk of the protein has been from grains.

I know there will be foods I miss.  Steak, oh yes.  Ribs, yup.  I asked R if there were foods she missed and she said, "yes."  And that was it.  She knew the consequences of her choice and was willing to make sacrifices for her beliefs.  Passing on a few favorite foods seems easy in the big scheme of things, so I’m pretty sure I can do it.  We can all learn a thing of two from my little 10-year old.

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And, and… when did my mind make the switch from September 1 to January 1 being the start of a new year?  This bothers me.  And I’m no longer having the "omg I don’t have enough credits to get my degree" nightmares.  Does this mean I’m all grown up?  I’m so sad.  I know everyone has these thoughts, so I’d be interested to hear how/when others made the transition.