Sometimes I forget just how odd my diet appears to non-vegetarians. I took a vegetable tray with two dips to a work function. One dip was roasted red pepper hummus and the other was a black bean dip. The people who were brave enough to try it liked it but they had lots of questions.

“What is hummus?”
I explained that it was made with chickpeas.

“What are chickpeas?”

“I tried to find chickpeas in the store once but I couldn’t find them. Where are they in a store?” Bean aisle

“I don’t get it. Why is it called hummus?” That one stumped me. I explained that it was what the dish was called in the middle east. “Like where Dr. B is from?” No, that’s India. Take a left on the map. Lebanon, Turkey, North Africa etc. That earned me some blank stares.

My roasted red pepper hummus recipe:

15 oz can chickpeas, drained
1 tablespoon tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
a bit of minced garlic to taste
roasted red peppers to taste (I used about 2/3 of a bottle)
1/2 cup water

Blend it all together

Black bean dip:

15 oz can of black beans, drained
salsa

Blend black beans with salsa. I kept adding salsa until it had a texture and consistency I liked. Real scientific, huh?

I explained this repeatedly but they kept asking me if I made it all by myself. Yep, dumped it all in the food processor and hit the on button. I’m quite the gourmet at times.

One person then told me that she should come live with me so that she would have healthier habits. Yeah, like I’m the poster girl for healthy dietary choices. I’m making an effort to do better though. I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last 2 months. If the husband doesn’t slow down his weight loss he would weigh about the same as me in a few months and I’m not having that. That’s a good motivation for me to lose some weight.

When I lost weight before I did it by eating veggie burgers and salads for four months. Then I didn’t touch another salad for about a year. I still can’t face a Subway salad. I just read the book Eat to Live. It had seen it mentioned on several food blogs but the title discouraged me from looking at it. It made me think of the saying “eat to live don’t live to eat.” I like to cook. I like food. But it turns out that this is a mostly vegan eating program that emphasizes raw foods. Like salads. I did go buy lots of veggies, hence the veggie tray that went to work. I’m still not getting excited about salads but I have been keeping cut up veggies in the tray in the refrigerator with dips. I’ve been eating that for breakfast and snacks. I have lost a few pounds since I started putting more raw food in my diet. I also feel more full. I just don’t know that I can do salads alot though. One of my vegetarian pet peeves is when people ask me if I don’t get tired of only being able to eat salad. It is up there with “Do you eat chicken?” People also say that I can go to any restaurant because they always have salad. Yeah, salad with all the flavoring based on meat put on top of the salad. Take off the meat and it is usually iceberg with some cheese tossed on top. Besides, I don’t like salad. I seem to have issues with salad. LOL