Day 1: Who removed my cheese?

Well, I can officially say we've made it 24 hours as vegans. It wasn't bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but I will admit that a tiny part of me died when I opened the breakroom fridge at work and saw four slices of pizza sitting next to a bag full of string cheese. What struck me at that moment was: damn, I wish I was a vegetarian. I can easily say that thought had never crossed my mind before today, but seriously... cheese.

Some lady (hi, mom!) has been insisting for years that I ditch dairy for a while and see how I feel. As much as I miss cheese, I will admit that this was the first day in months that I wasn't horribly congested. I have no idea if it can really affect you in just one day or if it was just a placebo effect, but I'm happy enough not to care.

I should also mention that Scott dropped about 6lbs... in a day. No, he doesn't shovel coal in the hull of the Titanic for a living. No, he didn't do P90XsanityTURBO12 Zumba Edition. And no, he didn't lop off his foot. When a guy goes from a steady diet of Pizza Hut to eating only veggies and whole grains, things happen metabolically. (Yes, you can quote me on that, Medical Journals.) I won't pretend to know what I'm actually talking about, but I have a feeling his weight loss had a lot to do with dramatically reducing his salt intake and retaining a whole lot less water. There. That sounds right. Ish. Then again, maybe he was just accidentally holding our cat when he weighed himself the first time. (Just kidding: our enormous cats surpassed double-digits on the scale years ago.)

Before I get to the food portion of today's rant, I'd like to put a few things out on the table: I do not have access to a National Geographic telephoto lens that can capture the beautiful intricacies of every microorganism in the meals I prepare. I do not live in Tuscany where the sun is perpetually setting, filling my kitchen with a breathtaking glow. I do not have a functioning digital camera (you jam the battery in backwards ONE TIME and it never forgives you). I do not have an iPhone or even a phone that is capable of ringing without freezing. Moral of the story: my pictures aren't about to be framed above your mantel. But I've been around the block and know that every blog post needs an image or else it's dead in the water. If we all just agree to lower our standards from Pinterest to Playskool, everyone wins.

Ok, on to the food. Lunches for me just aren't that tough. I have access to a fridge, a microwave, and even a stove or oven if I feel like subjecting my coworkers to excessive temperatures in a confined space while they try to enjoy their cherished breaks. Scott, on the other hand, is not so lucky. He uses the ol' ice-pack-in-a-lunchbox trick to keep his food nice and damp, because life is one big field trip for him. He's usually out on a construction site for the majority of the day and has no means of warming up his food, so leftovers are out of the picture. Starting to worry that he was about to embark on a 30-day PB&J diet, desperation led to an idea: I took a tortilla shell, slathered on some spicy hummus, added a bunch of red pepper slices, shook on a nearly fatal dose of red pepper flakes, and ground up some black pepper because it made me feel fancy and it matched my overuse-of-pepper theme. Long story short: he loved it and wanted another when he got home. The key to a newly vegan man's heart is spiciness. Plain and simple.

If you're still reading at this point, I just want to metaphorically shake your hand, because this is getting mundane in a hurry. Wrap it up, shall we? Here's how dinner went: I made Pistachio Pesto Pasta and was pretty proud of myself. Sure, all you have to do is boil noodles, throw a bunch of stuff into a blender, then add the former to the latter, but if I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be ordering Jimmy Johns for the 3000th time, so... yay me.

Admit it. That looks pretty decent.

It was simple: while your noodles are boiling, chop 1 clove of garlic then 1/2 cup of pistachios in a food processor (or in a blender, or with whatever throwing-star-like device you have atop your counter), add 2 cups of fresh basil, 2 tbsp of lemon juice, 2 tbsp of feta cheese (or in my case, nutritional yeast - and seriously, who was in charge of naming that product? Rebrand. Stat.), and 1/2 an avocado. Then slowly add 1/4 cup of olive oil until you have a delicious paste. Toss it with warm noodles and then let the smug feeling of grown-ness wash over you, because you just made your own pesto, pal. The lemon juice went a long way and made the dish light rather than oppressive (like the folks at Big Cheese). Did I still want to cover it in a thick blanket of Parmesan? You bet. But was it a satisfying, tasty dish that yielded at least 3 days worth of meals? Sure was. When I go to make leftovers, I'll be adding some cooked mushrooms and tomatoes on top though, just for style points.

I'd love to stay and blather all night, but there happens to be pesto on every surface of my kitchen - OH WAIT, I almost forgot to mention! I was taking a mushy tomato outside to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner (aka: throw it in the back yard) just as a friendly little raccoon happened to be scavenging at the foot of our porch steps. We both stopped in our tracks, stared at each other, and then I slowly rolled the tomato down the steps to him. He ran up to it, grabbed it with his adorable little critter paws, and tried to figure out what it was. Just as I thought we were going to snap into a Disney movie and become best friends, the dog nosed her way out onto the porch and my miniature friend ran off into the night. Well, the garbage cans... he ran off into the garbage cans. He's probably enjoying the bag of yesterday's discarded cheddar as we speak. And I'm ok with that.