I Need to Stop Eating Meat

I was in the shower the other day thinking about what being alive means. I won't bore you with my confused conclusions, but one of the things that came into my mind as a fully formed idea was that I can't eat meat anymore. I don't really eat that much meat anyway, but I do sometimes make meals that look like this:


Roast purple and white potatoes with rosemary, blanched green beans with homemade herb vinagrette, braised napa cabbage with spices (I love me some cabbage), and of course the mandatory sausage...(I live with a German...).

I like these meals, and I like sausage (in fact, I love it. Especially organic!). I also like hamburgers, and lamb, and I am obsessed with pho tai (it's just not the same with tofu and veggies, it's really not!). But can I live without them? I think I can, and I think it's better for my health and for the earth in general. And do I really want to kill another being that has life just in order to eat it? No, I don't.

I've tried being vegetarian before, sometimes for as long as a year or so, but I always ended up eating meat again. Not because I like it that much, but because I love to cook and cooking is easy with meat. But from now on I think I will try to go meatless.

And cook more of this!:


Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Soup
serves 2

the goods:

two plastic pints of cherry tomatoes (I used orange ones from our garden that I had frozen during the summer). Cherry tomatoes are pretty tart, so for a milder soup I would just use regular red tomatoes.
3 tblsp roasted red pepper paste (from the Persian grocery store. I'm sure there is something similar at Trader Joes)
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper paste
salt
sugar
black pepper
1/3 cup sour cream (the good kind, not one with guar gum and other artificial thickeners, the best kind is Daisy, but trader joes carries a good one too)
chopped italian parsely
Crumbled goat cheese

sliced french bagguette
olive oil
garlic

the deal:

1. place tomatoes in pot and cover with water.
2. cook at medium until tomatoes have softened and lost their shape.
3. add paste and spices.
4. simmer for 15 or so minutes.
5. remove from heat and cool slightly. force through a fine mesh sieve and return strained liquid to pot.
6. place sour cream into small bowl and add a little bit of soup, whisk until smooth and add to soup pot.
7. add chopped parsley.
8. salt and sugar to taste.

While soup is simmering:
1. brush bread with olive oil and rub with garlic.
2. cut into bite size cubes (skipped that step in the picture above and regretted it. It was hard to eat!)
3. broil until toasty and flip, repeat.
4. put half of bread cubes into bowls and cover with soup.
5. cover with soup and pile the remaining cubes in the center of bowl.
6. Sprinkle goat cheese over bread, to taste, sprinkle with parsley and serve.