He called my (almost) vegan meal "Hearty" and "Delicious"

Sam loves meat. I do not. And tonight I was determined to cook vegetarian. Healthy vegetarian to boot. I had an interesting recipe for White Bean Chili with Jalapeno Bulgur and I thought a cool and crisp chopped vegetable salad would pair well with the warm, spicy chili.

Turns out I was right.

I was just finishing the salad dressing (a creamy dijon vinaigrette - made creamy through the use of a little non-fat sour cream at only 10 cals. a tablespoon - my only non-vegan ingredient) when Sam came home from Boot Camp with the bulgur wheat. (I could have sworn we had some!) The moment Sam walked into the house he started talking about how delicious it smelled -- in our apartment and outside our door. He made "mmm" sounds when he grabbed a bite of the chili. "Woohoo!" I thought, this vegetarian chili is a success. Now onto the jalapeno bulgur.

Turns out Sam brought me 100% whole grain bulgur wheat, which is a little different from the regular bulgur and, as such, it cooked a little differently.

Yeah. I burned the first batch.

But after following the directions on the package, we successfully cooked up another batch. It turned out great -- and felt heartier and healthier than regular bulgur. The addition of lemon juice, a little olive oil, sliced scallions, salt, pepper and chopped jalapeno made the bulgur sing and it worked so nicely with the White Bean Chili, especially stirred right into the chili.

My chopped vegetable salad consisted of fresh corn, diced green beans, diced yellow pepper, diced red onion (chopped very small), diced avocado and chopped garbanzos. Delicious! (Sam is making me mention that he preferred the garbanzos whole and not chopped.) So crunchy and fresh! And you can really use any combination of vegetables you like. Personally, I like the salad evenly diced so you can easily get a bit of every vegetable in each bite. Who needs lettuce?

When we finally sat down to dinner Sam oohed and ahhed about how our meal was so hearty and delicious. He eventually demanded I give him the leftovers for lunch. (Me: "Are you sure? You might get sick of it." Sam: "Why are you questioning me?")

Wow. My basically vegan dinner was good enough (vegan except for the use of sour cream in the creamy dijon dressing, which can easily be substituted with a regular dijon vinaigrette) to satisfy my meat loving husband. I will definitely make this again. It feels so good to eat like this.