My Family Humors Me: Zillionth Edition

Let's be real. I am, in general, a pretty good kid. Heck, I'd even give me a few gold stars.

But, then....there are somethings that I feel I must commend my family members for putting up with. I came up with this idea yesterday, when my Dad asked me if we had a dinner plan. "Yes!" I said. He replied warily, "Err...does it involve meat?"

See, my sister is a vegetarian. A straight-up vegetarian. Not one of those that's like, I eat fish/chicken/burgers if the craving strikes me. When I took it upon myself to plan meals frequently this summer, I decided I was too damn lazy to figure out meals that could be both veggie and omnivorous. I also consider myself a bit of a flexitarian, which basically means I try to avoid meat but don't have the strength of moral character to sacrifice the glorious deliciousness that is a cheeseburger.  So, I thought to myself, this is the perfect chance for me to expand my family's vegetarian food boundaries beyond pizza toppings and that stuff in Chipotle! I made the decision that I was going to become a master chef.

Oh, my god. Seriously, my poor, poor, family. They are super nice about it, and supportive because hey, at least someone is cooking, but honestly. This is harder than it looks. First off, I am not big on directions. Or measurements. The most frequent unit of measurement I use is "hey, that seems right--ish!" I also rarely have all the ingredients for any recipe, and the substitutions or just complete omissions have made this a very interesting ride. But my lovely family has smiled and eaten and said it's great and all that. But in reality, this has really been an exercise in discovering that if your recipe fails to produce any sort of flavor, douse it in Parmesan cheese. It has certainly worked for us.

So this summer my family has eaten far more chickpeas, zucchini, and failed white wine reductions than they ever thought possible.

But don't worry--yesterday we had a side of chicken strips. And they were even breaded. It was the tastiest thing to come out of our oven in ages, and it also came out of a bag.