Dark Days Week 14: EAST recapper Vegetarian Meals

Today kicks off the Vegetarian Challenge for the Dark Days Challenge. This is not much of a challenge for those participants that are vegetarian or vegan, but it will be interesting to see what all the carnivores out there come up with. Be sure to check out the companion post today where the WEST will showing what this did this week.

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Preparing and eating vegetarian meals is not really a challenge for me (Sincerely, Emily.) We eat many vegetarian meals using where our protein comes from chickpeas, bulgar wheat, quinoa, as well as different beans, but none of those things are local to me. I also do not think that a meal without protein is a terrible thing as long as I am getting enough protein in other meals throughout the day. I could have added some cheese to this meal, but I did not. I also could have gone an easier route and just made something with eggs, but I did not. Instead I had local eggs for breakfast (protein) with some local cheese shredded on top (more protein) and some toast (homemade but not local flour.)

In general, this challenge has gotten me my to step out of my backyard and see what local foods are out there past the local meat and milk/dairy products I have found and  challenged me to meet some farmers in my area. I have also found that all farmers markets are not created equally. I guess I already knew that, but it still surprised me when I come across it.  We have many farmers markets in our area, but not all are selling local foods. While the sellers may be from the local area, some of the produce (and other products) are not and have traveled many miles to get there. When I decided to look past my backyard and freezer for the Vegetarian Challenge, I decided to go to farmers market that is a “producers only” market. I have been there before, but it was time to go back for more mushroom! I only stepped out back for one item on my plate, the broccoli and while it would been easy to just step out back for other vegetarian items out of the garden, I am glad I headed down to the farmers market. The butternut squash and the mushrooms are both locally grown and wonderful! This past Friday I posted about this vegetarian meal. You can read more about it here, including where everything came from.

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