Flexitarian

I'm married to a strict vegetarian. Basically if it's ever had a brain he won't eat it. Put it like that and most of us would stop to think about what we are eating. 17 years ago when we started living together I had to figure out how to cook interesting vegetarian meals. It took me a long time but I now have a pretty good library to draw upon.

Whenever anyone finds out that my husband is a vegetarian I always get asked if I am. I have struggled and fumbled through this question for years. The real answer is no but the fact is that I very rarely eat meat. I'm cooking for a vegetarian almost every night and I'm not going to go to the trouble of making a meat dish as well. It's just too much work. So I always answer "no" and then ramble on about how I don't eat it often and bore the person to death with my consumption habits.

While driving in the car over Thanksgiving I was listening to NPR and they were discussing vegetarian Thanksgivings. This was when I was introduced to the term Flexitarianism - a semi-vegetarian diet involving the practice of eating mainly vegetarian food, but making occasional exceptions for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons. Yipee, I'm a Flexitarian. I love it! So to celebrate my new title I made some chicken soup!

It's just a basic soup. 1 Onion, 3 stalks celery, lots of carrot, chicken (I bake 2 breasts in the oven and cut them up), low fat organic chicken stock, pasta (I cook my pasta separately), lots of black pepper and some salt. Nothing like a bit of chicken soup on a really cold day, Flexitarian style!