BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Vegetarian Success 2009 - New Year's Resolution Community

We eat out sparingly and when we do go out it is more of a reward with friends to a nice place. We are not vegetarian but I do cook some vegetarian type dishes. I made pasta cici Wednesday night. I cooked a huge batch for a large group of people but normally I cook enough to last me a week - two dinners and two lunches (I never get tired of it). Pasta cici is made with onion and garlic browned in olive oil. I add chick peas and the liquid and add diced or crushed tomatoes and Italian seasonings. It simmers while the elbow macaroni cooks. I add the drained pasta to the mixture and that's dinner. It is good cold too and I often take it to a pot luck. If it becomes dry, add some water.

I've never put it in the freezer. Do you think it would freeze well?

Angie,

First of all that sounds great! I think it will freeze well. What I would do though is freeze it in portions so that I don't have to reheat everything and risk either having to eat it all or putting it back into cold storage, which isn't the healthiest thing to do. To do it properly you'd have to put it into an ice bath and rapidly bring down the temperature.

Let us know how it comes out after you freeze it.

Another thing you might want to do is make sure it doesn't have a lot of excess water when you freeze it. This way you don't have a block of pasta 'cici' ice.

I'll try that.

As a vegetarian, do you eat eggs and cheese and other dairy?

Eggs and dairy aren't our thing. We don't bring them into the house, but if we're out visiting and it's placed before us we don't make a big deal about it and fly the vegetarian flag. We give thanks, say a word of prayer and eat it with gratitude for the ones who took the time and love preparing a meal for us.

We don't normally run into that challenge though. Most of the time our friends and family know that we're vegetarian/vegan and make provisions for us or give us the option of bringing food for us and them. It always turns out the way it's supposed to.

I hope that answers your question.
Let me know.

Yes, thanks.

Hey Guys!

Checking in to see how it's going for everyone.

We've been really pressed to the wall in my house. A lot of movement and the more than occasional repairs. Big drag and also a huge challenge that brings home the reality of how hard it can be to stay up with a program when everything else goes haywire.

Here's what we've been doing to take the pressure off:

We've been cookng a lot of things bland [ pre-prep ] and storing them in our fridge or freezer so that all we have to do is grab the already cooked food and toss it into the skillet with some onions, veggies and/or sauce and top it with some soy cheese and we're ready to go.

It's been helpful because our cooking time for a full-on meal is between 5-10 minutes. That's what we need in our busy lifestyle.

How have you been managing/handling your resolutions?