Vegetables

I've noticed that lately I've started eating more vegetables. Not just vegetarian food, which I've tended towards for a long time, but now just vegetables. I've always eaten a lot of bread and grains, also cheeses and lentils and the like. But I've discovered something fascinating about just plain old fruits and vegetables.

I can make a meal out of them, eat not very much, and be totally stuffed to the point where I can't eat anymore. I found this surprising. I can eat a ton of fish, or a full load of grains, and a complete meal, and it will take a lot before I want to stop eating. But the other day I made a meal out of just a tomato and an avocado. That's it. I couldn't hardly finish the avocado. I had to force myself to finish it! And, with that, I was stuffed for a full day. Same with squash. I have to FORCE myself to finish it. I'm full, my body is going, "NO MORE!". But if it was a bag of french fries, or bread, or fish, I'd probably be able to keep eating and eating. Odd.

But other vegetables can fill me up for only a short time. Then I get hungry again soon. This isn't a bad thing, but I'm still figuring out what does what to me.

I'm enjoying kale. I've figured out how to make a dish of leeks and kale, pan fried in olive oil and garlic, and I add in some random Asian meat-curry spice mix that makes it really really tasty. I eat it with quinoa usually. Today I made it, and I thought, hmm, this'd be really good with nuts of some kind, maybe walnuts. Sometimes I add feta cheese in there. Today I didn't, and I'm hungry again a few hours after eating. Still figuring this whole thing out, I am.

I'm on a budget now, so I'm trying to buy restaurant food much less than I used to. The last few weeks of the month, in particular, usually will involve no restaurant meals at all. I only have enough to do restaurant meals for a few days a month, and I tend to use them as soon as I can. I love food and I love not haviing to cook it. Oh well.

I am saving a lot of money by eating vegetarian, too, but I love my fish, in almost any form I can get it, and I'll never stop eating it. I also enjoy Vietnamese pork sandwiches, which are, thanks to their extreme cheapness, one of the few restaurant meals I can buy.