On Meat

I have been a mostly vegetarian for the past 34 years of my now 50 years. I do occasionally consume fish or seafood. I do eat dairy and eggs (though in the beginning I didn’t).

I had a friend who gave me a lot of frozen Costco meat for my five kids because he stopped eating red meat. I cooked some of the steaks, some on a skillet, some on the grill, painstakingly following various recipes I researched. My kids were mostly impressed though I cooked one a bit too long. I am paranoid about undercooking meat, including fish. My 80 year old dad was visiting at one point and he is very practical. He said he never worries about steak being undercooked in the middle but ground beef can be a different story. Can it ever…

Tonight I cooked ground beef for the first time. I thought it was steak when I took it out of the freezer in the morning. Everything looks the same wrapped and frozen. But it was taco Tuesday so this was good timing. I had never cooked ground beef. I looked up a recipe for taco meat. I placed he thawed meat into a pan, heated it and it began to ooze blood and the day began to congeal. I was quite disgusted. I covered the pan and let it cook some more on a lower heat. Meanwhile I prepared our standby “veggie crumbles” that has been our taco go to since my kids were babes. I added seasoning to both (the veggie ones come a bit pre seasoned). And stirred. Breaking up the meat felt like I was chopping fingers. It was kind of hard in texture. This grossed me out further.

Suffice to say, some of my boys tried it but it reinforces my vegetarian nature. I honestly don’t know how anyone can eat that. Most of my kids gravitated toward the veggie variety. Let’s just say there was a lot of meat to throw out at the end of the taco Tuesday event. Next time I’ll be buying a double portion of “veggie crumble.”