Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Meat and three

If you're a Yankee, you may never have heard of "meat and three" meals. Popular in the south (U.S.) and in Australia, they are exactly what they say they are: some kind of meat with three side dishes, usually vegetables. Should you be traveling and need to find a meat-and-three diner, this website would be helpful.

We had our own version last night for dinner.


The meat was more of a condiment, however, as I just added some bits of country ham (maybe four ounces) to the pot of green beans, potatoes and onions. Fresh corn and red-cabbage/carrot slaw were the other two sides. Delish! (Not, however, terribly filling: Three hours later I was nibbling a piece of cheese.)

I picked more than a dozen ears of corn and froze all but three of them. I'm making a black bean-and-corn salad for dinner today, along with gazpacho and taboulleh – a summertime soup-and-salad meal. I hope the additional protein in the beans will keep me feeling full throughout the evening.

I think the only way I could be a good vegetarian would be to eat all day long. Not only do I really like meat, it really does satisfy. Eating all day long wouldn't be very good for weight control, unless I were eating, oh, tomatoes all day long.

Not likely. Sometimes I think I need an appetite transplant. Do they have those yet? Is anyone working on that?

3 comments:

gingersnapper said...

Well, I don't like to go around proselytizing on other people's blogs, but since you ask... I've found the paleo/primal diet has indeed given me an appetite transplant. It's pretty remarkable what a different relationship I have with hunger now.

I LOVE gazpacho, and I am SO envious of your garden. I'm determined that the next place I live will be suitable for a vegetable garden. In our current house the only possibility is the roof (believe me I've thought of it) but it's much too steep.

denise said...

You're right-as a Yankee born and bred, I never heard of "meat 'n 3" until I moved to Dixie.

But you forgot one important thing about typical meat 'n 3 meals - the "3" are most typically veggies that have been somehow prepared in a way to make them totally unhealthy - fried, wrapped in cheese, drowned in sauces, did I say fried??? Or, at the very least they're cooked to within an inch of their lives.

Not that I'm complaining, you understand - at least not about the fried part. But your meat 'n 3 looks MUCH better than what you typically find in a restaurant!

mn3guy said...

Debbi, thanks for the link to http://www.meatandthree.com. There are so many Meat-and-three restaurants out there these days.

The great thing about them is that each one is different, even though the meat-and-three "idea" is the same. Most are mom-ad-pop diners or cafes and they are an important part of the community in which they are located. And, they are important for the economic vitality of the people that own them.

I'd have to agree with Denise ... that photo you put up looks really good. It's late at night and that makes me hungry!

Best to you!

Day Last

 Mike finished his chemo yesterday. The cumulative effects of four rounds beginning in early July are making him pretty uncomfortable, and t...