And, so Lent begins . . .

For Lent each year we abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. Coming up with meatless meals twice a week is sometimes a challenge. I've discovered, however, that you can put just about anything in a tortilla, bake it, and the family is thrilled. Today, my son asked if we could have those meatless tortilla things, again.

Given that Ash Wednesday is this week, I'm going to have to review my meatless recipes. A favorite around here is lentils over rice with grated cheese. Since half of my children can be super picky about what they eat, the fact that they like lentils is a continued source of amazement to me. In fact, while still at college, my older daughter made it for her dorm and college friends one evening. No one had had them before but after days of cafeteria food, one of the friends was heard to sigh, "I don't know what this is but it feels healthy!"

I like meatless meals and look forward to having spinach lasagna a few times in the next six weeks. Not as popular with the rest of my clan as they want meat in their food.

As mentioned in the intro of this post, you can stuff a large tortilla with refried beans, cheese, rice, and bake it in the oven with a cheese sauce. The cheese with the beans forms a complete protein so you keep to the sacrifice and still nurish the family!

Lest you think we are not being sacrifical enough with our meatless, my burden of proof is that my husband eats leftovers at work for dinner three days a week so he will require two meatless meals two days a week. That sometimes means that we might have meatless on another day in order to provide the needed meal for my husband. I figure the fact that we have food on the table every day of the week should keep us from complaining too much about whether it has meat or not.

We came up with this idea when the children were little. We wanted to impart the reality of the action of sacrifice in terms they could understand. We also abstain from eating out during the six weeks of Lent. That means planning our excursions so that we are home when it is a meal time. As little ones, the children enjoyed being part of the plans and some of this tradition has seeped into their grown up years.