Nut Roast- Guesting at Flex Your Food Today!

Hi folks! Well I have a special treat for you today. I am so excited to be guest posting over at Flex Your Food. Their motto is "protect the environment, be healthier. save money. eat less meat." It's a site for people who are living a flexitarian lifestyle. Their site describes flexitarian as a semi-vegetarian diet focusing on vegetarian food with occasional meat consumption. I am striving to live that lifestyle more and more. My daughter has lived that way since she was small. She did not like meat growing up. I think it started due to her love of animals. Those who don't know we have a horse, 3 cats, a puppy, and 5 birds. Mini-me has long avoided meat. What started as a love of animals turned into a textural issue and now she just is plain picky. We do eat some meat, but it's limited by mini-me's and my views. We do not eat duck, lamb, veal, venison, or any game meat. She does not eat anything bird related but we do occasionally. When I was told to switch the puppy to venison for allergy reasons I was promptly told no. When I tried to give puppy a deer antler as a bone ( a friend gave me one to try that she bought) I was promptly told no. I always taught my kids to stand behind their beliefs so I suppose it should not shock me that mini-me is doing just that.

What I find amusing about mini-me's vegetarian upbringing is that I should have known before I had her. I was a big meat lover growing up. When I was pregnant with mini-me I could not eat meat at all. I actually got to the point where I could not prepare it or shop for it. I could not even walk down or near the meat aisle at the store. Should have been my first clue. I learned through her to adapt almost any meal to a vegetarian option. Many nights she would have the vegetarian option of what we were eating. It just became a way of life. So for anyone out there thinking it is hard to have some members of the family be vegetarian while others aren't I can assure you it is manageable. There are lots of meals that can be made easily both ways with very little effort. Trust me, I've been doing it for almost 18 years now.

Stop by  Flex Your Food to say hello to Tessa. I had talked to Tessa about what to make. I sent her some ideas and one thing I had been wanting to play with was a nut roast. They seem so vintage to me but hard to find recipes for. I had seen one in a cookbook but the ingredients where not my taste at all. So I decided to develop my own recipe. (For those who don't know recipe development is where my heart lies.) The trick seemed to be how to do it without turning this into a loaf or dessert. I knew I wanted to play with sweet additions as opposed to veggies. To me nuts just lend themselves to sweet. So I had to find a way to make sweet work without crossing the line. I think I succeeded but I will let you all be the judge. This is meant to be eaten as replacement to meat. People use it in lieu of turkey or ham at holidays. To me it seemed like meatloaf. It is a dense food. So the trick was to make the denseness work for it instead of against it. I have to admit I was terrified this would not work. I like fruit in salads so for me I could be a fruitarian more easily than a vegetarian. This worked for me. If you are more of a veggie person never fear, I have another one of these little beauties coming up using veggies. But I wanted my first stab at it to be all the flavours I love.