So far so good

I went with my friend Ada to the Japanese restaurant Wagamama over the weekend and had a delicious vegetarian noodle dish, which inspired me to create my own. What follows took me less than half an hour to throw together and was light and surprisingly tasty. I recommend making it on a lazy Sunday evening and eating it while watching reruns of Sex in the City.

Ingredients:
Handful of mushrooms (I used a combination of shitake, enoki and button)
Handful of Beansprouts
Fried tofu cut into bite size pieces
1 red or green chili sliced
1/4 cup shiro miso (white fermented-soybean paste)
6 cups water
Soba noodles
Green onions for garnish

Directions:
Bring 6 cups of water to boil in a large pot. Turn off the heat and stir in 1/4 cup shiro miso paste. (Note: Do not boil the miso, it will become gritty when overcooked).

Boil another batch of water in a large pot. Add the soba and cook according to directions. Drain when ready and set aside in a bowl.

Meanwhile, heat up 1 tbs vegetable oil and quickly stir-fry the mushrooms, beansprouts, chili and tofu. Season with a light splash of soy sauce, salt and pepper.

Place the mushroom/tofu mixture on top of the soba noodles, add green onions and miso soup.

Serve immediately.

My One Year Vegetarian Diet Plan

I've devised a tactical plan to achieve my aim of eating no meats within a year. The plan is slow and steady vs. quick with immediate results (because everybody knows that the tortoise wins the race). My plan goes something like this -

Month 1: Give up red meat

Month 2: Give up pork

Month 3: Give up chicken

Month 4: Give up seafood

Month 5: Give up dairy and eggs

Month 6: Give up all leather and suede products

Month 7: Keep this going for another 6 months

My approach is a simple one - to scare the crap out of myself into giving up meat. I am going to take my head out of the sand, where its been buried for the last thirty years, and face the cold hard facts about meat production. I will watch gruesome videos of chickens getting slaughtered, I will figure out how much of the environment I am destroying by eating a hamburger, I will seek out an abattoir to visit.

Last night I explained my strategic plan of no meats to my husband Eric.

"So I'll gradually phase out meat in our lives," I said. "But that doesn't mean you can't eat meat outside of the house. Its just that I won't"

"That's nice honey," he said over a bowl of instant noodles.

"And at some point I'd like to visit a slaughterhouse," I continued. "To see how cows are killed."

"Hmmm...." he murmured.

I was disappointed at his lack of reaction. "I'm serious." I said. "Will you come with me? It might put you off meat for good."

He turned to me with a skeptical expression on his face. "You know those things don't bother me, animals are meant to be eaten."

"But maybe that's because you've never seen an animal being slaughtered," I countered.

"-Sure I have, at my grandma's house in Malaysia. She used to kill her own chickens."

I looked at him with horror. "And that didn't affect you?"

He shrugged. "She used to slice their heads off with a knife. I thought the blood spurting out was kinda cool."

That's not even funny, I thought. My husband thinks that spurting chicken blood is cool? Where was the sensitive new age guy I'd married?

"But of course I'll support you," he said as he slurped on his noodles.

I wondered if there was actual beef in his beef flavored noodles. And if not, where did the beef flavor come from? And if there was beef in there, did this mean I would have to give up instant noodles forever? The thought was disturbing.

"Our year of no meats," Eric said. "I like the sound of that."