"Where's the beef?"

After talking about it for quite awhile now, Matt and I are finally ready to make some major changes in our family's eating habits. Over the years we've tried eliminating all sugar, refined sugar, refined flours, white rice, and red meat at various times and with greatly varying success, but nothing really "stuck". Seeing the health issues in both sides of our families and the chronic congestion/allergy symptoms our kids suffer from has led us to revisit our food choices. And visit to my darling brother and sister-in-law's blog (looking for an update on their now one-day-over-due firstborn daughter) has provided the impetus we needed. My little brother, Scott, is a fabulous cook and a recently converted vegetarian to boot. The dishes he's come up with lately have opened my eyes to the wider variety of menu options out there, and I'm starting to get excited about it. Most of my hang-ups with vegetarianism stem from being raised in Oregon where "vegetarian" means tie-dye wearing, barefoot, unshaved, pot smoking, rarely bathed, liberal wacko, throw-back to the 70's, hippie. Eeek!

Everything we've read says that the easiest way to make sure teenagers get the nutrients and vitamins they need is to include some dairy and eggs in their vegetarian diet. We're fortunate to live overseas where growth hormones and antibiotics aren't fed to the cows and chickens, although food on the German economy is more expensive than it's American counterpart.

The *fun* challenges for me will be: maintaining my Wunder Cook/Baker Extraordinaire status and decreasing our food budget. I usually do a great job of feeding us well without spending too much money. Our monthly food allowance is $350 which includes dog food, tp, etc. We eat well and we eat a lot; too much from the looks of us lately! I know $350 is a lot less than most families would spend to feed 8 people 3 meals a day, 30 days a month, but a fair portion of that amount is spent on sugars, butter, chocolate, eggs, and other baking supplies. We bake a lot! I think it'll be fun to see what happens to our food budget when we're only buying fresh produce, dried beans and fish. (Most of us like fish and the rest will learn to.) I'll still probably use fresh turkey breast now and then and maybe the occasional fresh chicken, but again, animals aren't injected over here. All this to say if any of you have some tried and true, great family-friendly vegetarian recipes you'd like to share I'd love to try them.