Day 5 - Pantry Conversion and Integration

I'm not the only one in the household who wanted to make a change this year.  My younger daughter has decided she'd like to try her hand at being a vegetarian (but the kind that eats fish; so I think they're called pescetarians?...) She hasn't really been clear about her reasons for doing this but I fully support her decision.

So you've got me; the wholefoods, natural person.  Then you've got my youngest who doesn't want meat (but will eat fish).  If it was just the two of us that would be simple, but we also have my oldest in the mix who doesn't want to change a single thing...

I'm working out a shopping list and meal plan that can satisfy us all. I refuse to be that person making multiple meals to suffice the various eating habits of the household members. Here are the challenges:

• We can't eat fish everyday.
• The youngest won't eat brown rice.
• The oldest insists on having a meat in every dinner meal.
• I don't want to eat pasta (not even the whole wheat type).
• The oldest doesn't like tofu.
• The youngest (the VEGetarian) doesn't really like a lot of...vegetables.
• Most of the "youth-friendly" vegetarian foods you find in the stores are over processed.
• The youngest hates beans.

There's going to be some amount of "versioning".  This can't be helped.  I can see myself making huge meat-free but veggie-heavy stews of some sort and while the girls put theirs over pasta, I'll put mine over brown rice.  The oldest will have to bend sometimes with her insistence on eating meat in every dinner (give me a break).
I'm in the process of researching recipes because dinner is really the main concern; which is cool.  I have to make some discerning choices at the supermarket and educate myself more about what "minimal processing" really means.
And speaking of research...I recently came across the issue surrounding the use of raw olive oil and almost started googling to the point of obsession.  But then I realized that obsession is the murderer of any task I undertake because then I start to tire of the whole project and lose interest.  So I decided, I'm not going to stress about olive oil and just continue to buy the extra virgin like I always do...see?  Now that was easy!