I make a terrible vegetarian!

It's so very true. I ate a vegetarian salad yesterday (and yes, I know that's redundant, but when the school serves us free lunches, sometimes they're salad with [sandwich] meat and cheese on them to make them more filling, so there are actually vegetarian salads!) and I ended up with about half the salad in the "don't eat" category. It's not because I can't eat them but because I don't like those things--tomatoes (I do okay with little bits, but not half a tomato like this was), cucumbers (ew!), olives (also ew), Swiss cheese, and then onions and peppers which I do eat but I was being polite since I had to spend another three hours with my classmates. A side note on the Swiss cheese which I don't like; I'm allergic to molds, so while cheeses aren't on my list of allergens, I would conjecture that I can't eat any of the cheese that are moldy cheese (I haven't looked into this but bleu cheese, etc). In case anyone was wondering, I ate cheddar cheese and leafy greens. No salad dressing either; they were out yesterday but most of them have egg yolks in them and some have autolyzed yeast extract, depending on the brand.

There is one vegetarian thing that I do exceptionally well: veggie stir fry. In college, Christina and I had nicknamed our saute pan the "Hamburger Helper pan" because that's about all I made in it. It has since been renamed the "stir (crazy) fry pan," in honor of my new diet. As to the stir fry, I was looking at the ingredients I did have in my pantry right after I started this and I was frustrated. I decided to see what I could do with what I had--namely a can of sliced water chestnuts my mom had bought by accident when she had been looking for whole. I added a can of chickpeas. I happened to have broccoli, carrots, and celery in my fridge, which i sliced and diced into appropriately sized pieces for cooking. Drizzle a little oil over the whole, splash on some salt and pepper, turn on the stove, cover and stir occasionally until everything is cooked. It's delicious! I sometimes cook it too quickly and I seared the chickpeas last time, but it was still still really good. The water chestnuts add crunch and the chickpeas add substance/fiber and it's not that hard to make. I think it also smells good while it's cooking, but I have found that I like the smell of cooked broccoli so...maybe I'm just weird, but I like it. You can use whatever vegetables you have available, but I would not advice potatoes. It's too much with the chickpeas, but I've used squash and baby corn and other vegetables too and it's equally delicious. I'm working on giving it a little more flavor, but I think I did okay for coming up with something on the fly!

So here it is: 1 can of chickpeas (drained) + 1 can of water chestnuts, sliced (drained) + vegetables to fill the pan; add oil, salt, and pepper; cook covered until everything's done (10-15 minutes), stirring occasionally. Enjoy!

(It can probably be served over rice, but I wouldn't know anything about that!)