Dan and I decided that for the month of January, we will be vegetarians. We’re going to give it a go and re-evaluate on February 1st if no meat is really the way for us.

People have asked me if there was a significant moment that lead to this decision, and there was–the lambs in Iceland. Everywhere we drove, we were surrounded by these fluff balls of cuteness, who looked so innocent and happy. Then we would go into a restaurant and see “rack of lamb” as the special, and I’d lose my appetite.

Sheep in Iceland, photo by me

Funny enough, three weeks earlier when we were driving around South Dakota and Wyoming, seeing cattle had the opposite effect on me: I craved steak and couldn’t wait to order a juicy hamburger. I can’t really explain it, except maybe that some animals are cuter than others.

Since those two trips in October, we’ve made a conscious effort to eat less meat. So we’ve been easing ourselves into this decision and aren’t just going to quit cold turkey (to be clear, we WILL be quitting turkey, just not…cold? This is getting weird). Anyway.

I’ll be posting about our experiment here when I have updates. In the meantime, please feel free to share your favorite vegetarian recipes below!