Matheny - Double the Peas: Meatless Meals for Your Family: Peas and Thank YouMore Peas, Thank You

Simple Meatless

Meals the Whole Family Will Love

I AM SO THANKFUL.

I am thankful to God for blessing me with so many opportunities to love, laugh and learn in my life. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).

I am thankful to my mom for always putting a book, a pencil and a whisk in my hand, and for telling me that I could be the pilot or the stewardess, because women can do anything.

I am thankful to my dad for listening to each and every crazy whim I got worked up about, from playing guitar to long-distance running to writing a cookbook. He always believed I would be the best at whatever I set my mind to, even if I didnt.

I am thankful to my grandparents, Kinky and Papa Bud and Amah Bobo and Papa Oscar, for teaching me about family and food and the beautiful memories that can be made when they intertwine.

I am thankful to my readers and fellow bloggers in the healthy-living blogosphere. You have inspired me with your creativity and encouraged me with your comments and support. Thank you for helping me find my voice and for being willing to listen to it every day.

I am thankful to my friends and neighbors for your help with the little Peas, putting up with my hectic schedule, accepting leftovers and offering feedback. Deb, Susan, Rachael, Angela and the Debban Family, you will always have a place at our table.

I am thankful to my friend and fellow foodie, Ashley McLaughlin for enhancing our project with snippets of her beautiful photography. You humored my crazy whim to be a part of this in the last hour and I will never forget those chaotic few days when we cooked, clicked, laughed and ate ourselves silly. You are forever an honorary Pea, like it or not.

I am thankful to my editor, Sarah Pelz, for helping craft my vision into reality, for putting up with rowdy background Peas on those long-distance calls and for getting (or at least trying to get) all of my silly jokes.

I am thankful to my agent, Lisa Grubka at Foundry Media, for putting my pitch in the keep pile, instead of turning it into scratch paper, and then for turning that pitch into the very strong foundation that has become this book. You took a chance on a silly, veggie stay-at-home mom, and in doing so, you changed my life.

I am thankful to Gigi and Lulu for having an infectious enthusiasm for life that has brought new meaning to mine. And for always being willing to take at least one bite of what I put on their plates. Or for spitting it into a napkin when Im not looking.

I am thankful to Chris for saying I do. Little did you know that meant unutilized law degrees, giving up meat, closets stuffed with more pink tutus than imaginable and the late night clicks of laptop keys. You are the best husband and daddy a Pea could have.

I GREW UP IN YOUR AVERAGE AMERICAN HOUSEHOLD. WE ate cold cereal for breakfast, ham and cheese sandwiches and potato chips for lunch, pork chops and applesauce for dinner, and homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert. It was a different time, and eating healthy meant adding just one teaspoon of sugar to a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, eating the crust in addition to the innards of a Wonder Bread sandwich, and drinking a large glass of milk to wash down that chocolate chip cookie.

I dont fault my parents for feeding me something close to the Standard American Diet. It was, after all, the standard. My mom was, and still is, an excellent cook, and with my chin eagerly perched on the kitchen counter, I watched in awe as she moved around our tiny kitchen. From my waist-high view, I learned how to slice vegetables with my fingers curled under, to not overmix my cake batter and that a canister of whipped cream makes excellent Christmas trees on an outstretched index finger. But of all the food lessons I learned from my family, the most important one was the value of eating dinner as a family almost every night. Sharing a meal that was lovingly prepared by my mother around a table with my brothers and my parents was more important than what was on our plates.