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"What's for dinner tonight?" my husband asked, inhaling deeply as he lifted the top off a simmering pot of tomato sauce.

I shooed him away.

"We're having spaghetti marinara," I said.

"Cool," he said. "But I thought we were eating gluten-free?"

"We are," I assured him.

"But pasta isn't gluten-free."

"It's not actually spaghetti. It's vegetti."

"Vegetti?"

"Yeah. It's fake spaghetti made from vegetables."

He made a face only his mother could love and then backed away from the stove top as though I had said I was boiling slugs for dinner.

"That doesn't sound very good," he said.

"I promise, it'll be velicious," I said, smiling deceptively.

He looked at me glumly. I had been on a gluten-free, dairy-free, meat-free diet for a month, not to lose weight but just to see if it made me feel better. Not that I had been feeling bad in the first place, but after a friend touted the benefits of going everything-free, I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, my husband was often an unwilling participant in my dietary experiments, so this was not his first food rodeo. I've done high-protein, low-carb diets, no-sugar diets, grapefruit diets and something he nicknamed the disgusting vegetables diet, which consisted mainly of lima beans and beets.

With that in mind, I tried to make this latest food journey interesting for him, but so far my husband felt that in addition to being gluten-free, dairy-free and meat-free, most of it was also taste-free.

This from a guy who believes ketchup is a vegetable.

He let me know he didn't like the meatless meatballs, the fishless tuna, and the chickenless chicken nuggets. He was not a fan of facon (fake bacon), fauxgurt (fake yogurt) or nawsages (not sausages). I made a gluten-free, dairy-free macaroni and cheese which, essentially, was a bowl of nothing. He gave me two thumbs down.

Then I tried giving him some near beer with his not dogs, but he was not having it.

"What's a not dog?" he had asked.

"Hot dogs made of, um, something other than hot dogs," I'd replied.

He cut a piece of it and put it on the floor for the dog. The dog sniffed it and walked away.

"If the dog's not eating it, I'm not either," he said.

This from a dog that eats underwear.

"I need something real," he finally complained.

"OK, I'll make you something I promise you'll like," I said.

I perused my cookbooks and the internet for gluten-free, dairy-free, meat-free dinner dishes and finally settled on a meatless meatloaf. It looked great in the photos and got a ton of rave reviews. Even meat eaters loved it.

The recipe was easy. It called for chickpeas, beans, garlic, onions, green peppers and oats.

I followed the instructions precisely. ...

And then I drowned it in ketchup.

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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