Keeping Secrets

For overall health it is a good idea to eat a few meatless meals every week. Unfortunately, saying the words "meatless meals" in my house is grounds for divorce. To say that Hubby balks at it, is putting it mildly. However, he's eating meatless meals without knowing they're meatless. One can hide many sins of omission in a soup or casserole. Heh, heh!

Take tonights supper for instance. Cajun bean soup with cheese bread. Today's high temperature was 41 degrees. It's damp and cold so a soup with a home baked batter bread sounded good to me. There is a brand of dried beans I purchase for this. It's got 15 different types of beans in it and the package of cajun spices. I wash the beans and soak them just while I'm chopping onions, celery and garlic.

I saute the trinity in a little olive oil and once that's done add three quarts of water plus the beans. It takes around 2 1/2 hours to cook down. About a half hour before serving I add a large can of crushed tomatoes and the contents of the cajun spice packet.

I make the cheese batter bread with half whole wheat flour in the mix. Instead of cheddar cheese I use a mixture of cheddar and spicy taco cheese, that way I can tell Hubby the color of the bread comes from the spices in the cheese. If I tell him I've put whole wheat flour in it, he'll not eat it. This is a meal he actually enjoys eating, and there's not a bit of meat in it anywhere, plus there's whole wheat flour in the bread.  Shhhhh! Don't tell him that or he'll deny that he likes it. Sometimes healthy eating means keeping secrets.