Week 4 - what!

So I'm still not eating meat.  Well, not regularly.  In the past three weeks I have eaten meat exactly two times.  Once was last Saturday at a friend's BBQ.  I was eating the corn salad someone had made and didn't realize until about five bites in that the delicious flavor in the background was bacon.  I kept eating it even after this realization.  And I went back for seconds.

And Friday night my mom made one of her famous homemade Italian sausage pizzas.  I asked her to leave me a cheese slice.  But one slice of her pizza is not enough, so I had a second slice that was topped with Italian (turkey) sausage.  I had another slice Saturday for lunch.  There are some things that just taste better with some meat.  This is why I can never become a full-fledged vegetarian.

So I haven't gone out of my way to eat meat.  In fact, I've gone out of my way to not eat meat.  And I realized this week that eating a vegetarian diet does not necessarily mean a healthy diet.  Especially when eat out at restaurants.

Between our puppy being sick last week and Mr. Cob's sister visiting, we ate dinner out three nights last week.  The first restaurant (Big Tex in Decatur) left me with few vegetarian options: a portobello burger (I hate portobello mushrooms so that was out), a grilled pimento cheese sandwich on Texas Toast or a salad.  I opted for the pimento cheese, which was tasty, but I could feel my arteries clogging with each bite.  So much so that I ran five miles on the treadmill that night.

The next restaurant (The Marlay House) had more veggie options and I went with the Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Granny Smith apples, walnuts and red wine vinaigrette.  It was a bit disappointing and I can't pinpoint why, but I won't be ordering it again.  I did get a side of the garlic rosemary roasted butternut squash which was AMAZING.

The last night of eating out (The Pullman) I ordered a fried green tomato sandwich on focaccia bread.  It was good but felt equally as unhealthy as the pimento cheese.

So from a health standpoint, I don't think eating vegetarian is necessarily the way to go when dining out.  Or maybe the restaurants we picked aren't the healthiest of places in general.  I do think when I'm cooking at home, vegetarian is the way to go for me.

And I keep finding amazing vegetarian recipes.  For lunch today I made this grilled focaccia panini sandwich - it was one of the best things I've ever eaten.  Seriously.  This was another Pinterest find.  You can check out the original recipe, but the short version is this:

Cut focaccia bread in half (we used the cheese flat bread from Costco)
Spread each side with pesto.
Layer of mozzarella.
Layer of thin sliced tomato.
Salt.
Pepper.
Layer of sliced red onion.
Fresh chopped basil.
Layer of avocado slices.
Put bread on top.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, flipping half way.
Or use grill.  Or panini press.
Enjoy.
Wish you'd doubled the recipe.