Restaurant Meals

Remember Taco Mac? That's where we hold our kids hostage so they have to sit and talk to us instead of texting or facebooking in their own corners of the house. It's not as bad as it sounds. Once we are all together in a booth they do actually enjoy our company. It's fun. Great news for this vegan: Taco Mac has actually added a Black Bean Burger to their menu!  No, not a burger with black beans on top, a burger made out of black beans! It is wrapped up with some tortilla chips, salad ingredients and mustard. It comes with fries, but I subbed broccoli because I was craving it and felt there was plenty of empty carb content with the crunchy chips. I will be ordering this again, soon.

Here's more broccoli. I'm pretty sure this next outing was the same weekend as the Taco Mac trip. I guess my body was loving broccoli then! This giant bowlful was half of my dinner on a date with my husband at a very fancy Steak house. My husband ordered the unmentionable, and I shared part of my broccoli and mushrooms:

with him. The broccoli was perfectly clean and delicious. The mushrooms, as you can see, were swimming in butter, which I drained and blotted a bit. I'd have preferred them with my own earth balance at home, but I don't think they made me feel as bad as cheese or cream would have. I did not finish the mushrooms, but I was a member of the "clean plate club" with the broccoli (that's the carrot my parents alway dangled when I was little to get me to eat my food!) Obviously I had no protein here, which I had planned ahead for, eating quinoa and chick peas at lunch.

I am not going to stop going to restaurants just because I'm vegan. I won't eat only a lame salad now that I know how good a salad I make at home can be. So I do my best with whatever else I can find on a menu. In the case of the above restaurant meals, it is interesting that the casual restaurant was more vegan-friendly than the more upscale one. My hope is that, by spreading around the notion that some of us don't eat cheese and butter, I will somehow effect change. Strangely, folks get the idea of not eating meat a lot more easily than the notion of not eating dairy. Aside from vegans, aren't there lactose intolerant folks out there?  Maybe they are not so vocal, given the more personal nature of their malaise. Something to ponder . . .

I am going today with my girls to a fun restaurant which unfortunately puts cheese on everything. I'm craving more dark green leafies than ever, so I'm planning on walking in toting them. Yes, I'm going to rub some kale with oil, lemon, salt and pepper and put it in a plastic bag. I'll also throw some raw almonds in there. Then I will have something good to put onto the lame cheeseless salad I plan on ordering! We do what we need to do kids!