Why I Will Never be a Vegetarian

Two words: red meat. I just love red meat: steaks, hamburgers, sausage (well, that I think is pork) and of course roast beef. I would take a good roast almost any night. I still remember Sunday dinners; coming home and smelling a roast in the oven. We would have mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli and cheese sauce. My mom doesn't even ask me what my birthday dinner will be, it is the exact same menu as what we used to eat after church.

Once again I hate to say it but my husband and I do not agree. In fact, I swear that one day he sat down and made a list of all of my favorite foods and then decided what foods he could no longer eat: dairy, fried foods, or red meat. Ummm... cheese, ice-cream, sour cream, milk, tater tots, french fries, hamburgers, steak, ROAST BEEF! These were no longer foods that were welcome in our home.

For the most part I have compromised and made foods that I used to love but with a slight twist. Tuna casserole with no cream of celery soup or mayonnaise can still be okay. Cooking tacos with 2 meat options, ground turkey for him, is not that difficult, and for a time I even gave up my roast. For years I stopped cooking roast beef because I knew how much he hated it.

But that all changed when I had my second son. The first night home from the hospital my mom left a pot roast in the oven. She poured french onion soup on top and put it in the oven on a very low setting. By the time I sat down to eat, the meat was well done, the potatoes a nice golden brown, and the carrots were caramelized. I think it was the best roast I had ever had. I ate it for dinner and then for lunch several days in a row.

Since that day I have started to make a small roast about once a month. I buy my husband gross chicken thighs and put them in a separate pan in the oven. I don't even care how they taste because I have my delicious roast to eat. I have to ration out how much I eat that first night to make sure I have an equal ratio of potatoes, carrots, and meat to last several days. For some reason this is another favorite food of mine that neither of my kids seems to appreciate. They have too much of their dad rushing through their veins.

Once, for a very short time, I thought about becoming a vegetarian. I even bought 2 vegetarian cookbooks to try to see what we could eat. This lasted for maybe a week, when I realized I would have to give up red meat. That was the end of my vegetarian life style.

I told my friends my next blog would be about roast beef. So there it is. I really truly do love a good roast and will gladly give lessons for those who have yet to cook one!