meatless monday - reflecting on being 6 months vegan

We had a friend over for dinner last night.

Truth be told, I'm a tiny bit overwhelmed at the abundance of food we currently have. We're CSA subscribers, and during the summer, we opt for the extra stone fruit-only box. We usually pick up our box on Thursdays, but since this week is a holiday (July 4th? already? that's a whole other post..), we get an extra early pickup - meaning, we picked up our 2 boxes on Thursday, and then another 2 boxes yesterday (Monday). 4 boxes in 5 days. 2 whole boxes of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, onions, potatoes, cantaloupe and peppers AND 2 whole boxes of peaches, plums, and nectarines. I'm not complaining about the quality (or the quantity, really), it's just the space. Our fridge has precious real estate, and it's already at capacity.

Bringing us back to dinner. I wanted to make ALL the things for dinner. I had a bunch of extra tomatoes from the garden, and a couple HUGE cucumbers from the neighbors garden, so I was thinking pizza and salad.

dinner!

We got these pre-cooked flatbread pizza crusts from Trader Joe's a few days ago, and they looked like the would work perfectly. I cooked one with minced garlic and oil only, and made a bruschetta-esque topping with cherry tomatoes, basil, red onion, olives, and balsamic vinegar. For the second one, I spread goat cheese on the bottom (I cut a third off to make without cheese for moi) and layered tomatoes, zucchini, crookneck squash, and red onion. I served the two with a plain lettuce salad with a mushy plum on top. Oh, and yes, those are peaches floating in that fancy water.

For dessert, I opted for the classic peach galette - the same one from that cookbook that everyone's talking about ('cept veganized, of course). We had 2 types of coconut ice cream - strawberry, and vanilla bean. And I found soy whipped cream, which is... interesting.

Yesterday also marked 6 months from my 28th birthday, which was also the first day of the 28 day vegan challenge (guess I never got the memo that it was over.. ). In 6 months, I've completely changed how my body (and mind, really) reacts to food. I don't need to go into details, but I used to have these.. bathroom episodes that were not very much fun - seriously, it has been happening in my life for as long as I can remember, maybe every other month or so. I have not had one at ALL (nothing even remotely close!) since February. And my heartburn, another thing I've been fighting for as long as I can remember, is nearly completely gone (still acts up a little bit when I eat too much garlic. sigh). In addition, I've continued to lose weight (J+ I started tracking calories in July last year - you can see there is a big drop in Nov, that was after my knee surgery when I got sick from the anesthesia and didn't eat for 3 days, but there is another big drop in Feb - that's the one to focus on.)

whooo

I'm not going to lie - this is hard. There is something that challenges me almost everyday. There are hard decisions that I make regarding food everyday. There are things that I no longer crave (goodbye cheese!), but things that I feel like I will miss forever (hello donuts!).

There's not really a proper way to end this rambling blog post, because this part of my life isn't over yet. It's only been 6 months, and here's hoping to many many more.

Tracy