Meatless Monday Catch-Up

Meatless Mondays 28 – 38.

I know you all just think I fell off the Meatless Monday wagon. That I am too ashamed to even admit it.

But you are wrong.

We’re still doing Meatless Monday. I just haven’t been writing about it. There are several reasons why:

• They have been lame.
• They have been lame.
• And, they have been lame.

Remember when I said I wanted to do no repeaters?

Fail.

Remember when I said having plain noodles or rice was a cop-out and I wouldn’t do it?

I’m a hypocrite.

Remember when I said we’d — all of us — be eating Meatless Monday together, even if it wasn’t on a Monday?

I was on drugs.

But I’m a stubborn one. I’m not giving up. Just yesterday, I was busy stewing up a Meatless Monday enchilada recipe for dinner to be made with my freshly made green tomato sauce.

This isn’t tomato sauce made with unripe, green tomatoes.

Rather, it is made with the variety of tomato (Green Zebra and Green Grape in this instance) that is green when it is ripe:

A delicious, delicious variety. Probably one of my favorites.

And one that should never, ever be made into tomato sauce.

And yet I did, because what the hell else am I going to do with two buckets full of them? They’ll rot before we can eat them with fresh mozzarella. Not to mention that if I ate that much mozzarella, I would start to look like a log of the stuff myself.

What to make with green tomato sauce, what to make with green tomato sauce…

Green enchiladas! Yes! (I mean, that would look OK, right? Sort of like salsa verde??)

What to add, what to add…

Those extra frozen red beans from the batch I made in June!

And it was all downhill from there. The red beans had big chunks of chorizo that I had forgotten about, wrecking my Meatless Monday plans (yeah, I know it was Sunday, just go with me here). The addition made the sauce a sick orangish color that looked like vomit. So I figured, what the heck, I’ll add some of these chicken legs… The very legs that had been holding up one of my roosters up about three hours before.

And I sat there stirring that ungodly brew, sort of crying about those stupid roosters and thinking of becoming a full-time vegetarian.

Seriously. There is nothing like butchering your own meat to push you over the edge.

Wait. That isn’t accurate. I’m sounding way too cool. You are probably thinking, “Wow. She killed them herself?” No, no, no.  I’m a ninny. I always think I can do it, but I actually can’t. It’s happened several times out here. Me thinking I can kill any number of varmints. But I never can.

I do hunt upland birds, but I think I can do that because there is always the chance I will miss them. A good chance. It’s certainly never a sure thing.

Going into the coop, where I have fussed and carried on to keep the chickens safe and not afraid of me. To go in grab them and kill them? Nope. Sorry. No can do.

That’s what dads are for.

My dad.

It was the nicest thing he’s ever done for me. I know it was hard for him because he babies my chickens even more than me. He offered to help since he had the time. I knew he didn’t really want to do it and yet I let him do the whole dang thing. Dave was finally obligated to help him once he realized it was really happening. He didn’t want to look like a ninny, either. But the truth is, no one really wanted to do the deed, Dave included.

And I hid in the kitchen wringing my hands.

What a weenie.

I did do a brave thing later on. I actually cooked a couple of the legs.

And it made me sad. I’m not going vegetarian, but it does seriously make you consider every bite.

Every dang bite of every morsel of chicken. You gettin’ my drift? Chewing chicken has never been so hard…

So, for Meatless Monday tonight I had this:

It might have been the best one ever: Blue cheese on triscuts with red wine. Just me and my blue cheese with a book and some wine.

Meatless Monday suddenly took a turn for the better.