When the other half is a Carnivore.

I don't like to cook.  It's not that I can't, it's that I don't enjoy it. Food & I have an uneasy relationship based on necessity rather than love.  It is why all my children learnt to cook early & cook well!

Things have, perhaps, been made more difficult by the fact that for different periods of my life I have been vegetarian.  Most of my household is not. Going off meat was always the first & surefire indicator that I was pregnant & going back to a carnivore diet was more out of convenience than because I enjoyed my meat.

When you don't like to cook anyway it gets complicated.  Do you do your carnivores meat & 3 veg & just eat the veg? Excruciatingly boring over time & dull beyond belief.  Do you cook 2 separate meals? [Perish the thought!] Do you cook vegetarian & put up with all the complaints? *sigh*

Then in her early teens ODD decided she would be vegetarian.  Way to go girl!  That we like & eat very different vegetarian dishes quickly became apparent.  I'm not much of a one for lentils or tofu but I love my mushrooms & chickpeas! Reverse for ODD. Somehow we muddled along, finding a variety of interesting dishes we both enjoyed ~ or could @ least tolerate but now it is just down to the man & me.  Needless to say the man is not vegetarian!

However there is a solution.  I plan a vegetarian meal & his meat becomes a side dish just for him.  There is just one little fly in this ointment of compromise:  I don't do the shopping!

I am rather European in my food shopping ~ more because I can't really be bothered to plan so far ahead as much as because I know if I only buy what I need for any given day there will be far less wastage than if a  lot of stuff gets bought that just doesn't keep well for a whole fortnight.

So coming to the end of our fortnight I considered what the man had bought home that was still edible ~ which is to say, not much. We had pumpkin: lots & lots of pumpkin.  And some rather sad carrots that really needed using up. The last of the salad mix & a few peas ~ none of which sounded very appetizing on their own...and don't you just hate standing in front of a fridge full of food feeling totally uninspired?

I must say though, if the internet isn't much good for anything, @ least it provides a seemingly endless variety of inspirational recipes for all sorts of things. Like pumpkin. I hadn't looked very far when a marinated Japanese recipe appeared.  It looked good & would work as a main for me though I had to get the sauces.  Mirin was a new one to me & someone has taken the soy but ginger & limes we had. 

I almost always do a salad of some sort because I like salad & I like my salads crunchy with nuts & seeds & other nibblies; caramalised carrots; peas & the pumpkin. I wasn't sure about the recipe which had a little chili in it because chili doesn't like me so I have to be super careful if I use it but it was really yum & I will cook it again.  

However I had a second choice & I am going to try that tonight: onion & pumpkin with pecans. Mmmmm.  I'm a nutty sort of girl. ☺