“What we’re eating”: Vegetarian Dinners

Posted at 5:23 am on October 20, 2009 by April

My family eats nearly 100% meat free at home. In fact, I cannot remember the last time we either cooked with meat at home or bought meat. When we eat out, we do eat meat, mostly because we have found it too difficult to make vegetarian choices while out. So depending on what is going on in our (ok, let’s face it-MY) life at the time, we may eat out a few times a month or a few times a week. Still, it is considerably less meat consumed every day, and for some every meal, than most Americans eat.

Whenever I tell people that we eat vegetarian, I always get a similar response: “I wouldn’t even know what to cook because meat is such a central focus of our meals.” So rather than a post about why we became vegetarians and why it’s a good choice for most people to go meat free at least some of the time, I thought I’d give you some tips on how to cook meat free in your home, should the urge strike you. Whether that is once a week, once a month or once a year, that’s up to you!

Soups: Soups are incredibly easy to make vegetarian, if they aren’t that way to begin with. You can easily omit the meat and add extra veggies for bulk and you won’t be able to tell the difference on most recipes. The same goes for using vegetable or mushroom stock instead of chicken or beef stock. Another bonus of soups is that the recipe usually makes enough to freeze several servings so on nights you don’t feel like cooking just defrost your soup, make up some toast and serve it with a salad. Viola! Dinner in 10 minutes!

Pasta: Pasta is another great meal that lends itself naturally to vegetarian cooking. Sure you may love spaghetti and meatballs, but chances are what you really love is spaghetti, covered in sauce with parmesean cheese on top. The meat in a lot of pasta dishes is simply “gravy” while the pasta is the true star and desire of the dish.

Casseroles: Casseroles may take some creative thinking but it is fairly easy to assemble one without using our animal friends. Cooked grain (rice, pasta, or barely are probably the most common), lots of veggies, a sauce (white sauce or marinara), and some cheese on top, pop it in the oven for 30 minutes and you’ve got not only an easy and meat free dish, but a very inexpensive one as well. As a bonus, you will most definitely have leftovers so not only are you saving on not buying meat but you have ready to go lunches for the week.

Eggs: Eggs are a fabulous food. They are a complete protein and I once read that the only food more complete than eggs is breastmilk. So while there are recommendations about how many eggs to eat a week, to be honest I completely ignore that.  I know I probably don’t eat enough eggs to worry about the cholesterol in them plus they are so healthy for you. To me, it’s like putting a cap on how much broccoli my kids can eat. Eggs for dinner is one of my favorite meals. A frittata is a very simple dish that you could make in 20 minutes or less. A frittata is basically a crustless quiche, or some call it a baked omelet. You basically saute some veggies in olive oil, put them in a greased (or non stick) baking dish, sprinkle on some cheese, and pour on top eggs that have been beaten with milk. It then takes about 30-35 minutes to cook in the oven. The combinations for frittatas are endless: potato and asparagus with parmesan cheese is one of my favorites, you can do a “greek” style on with spinach, tomatoes and feta cheese, or a mexican style one with peppers, tomatoes, jalepenos and cheddar.  The possibilities are really endless. Whatever veggies you have on hand that sound good together, go for it!
In addition to frittatas for dinner, you can do an actual quiche fairly easily with the help of store bought crust.  You could do an actual omelet, or you could do a hash (where you brown some potatoes, add in some veggies and serve it with a fried egg on top).

Potatoes:Recently I was able to get a 10lb bag of russet potatoes for $2.50. There were at least 25 potatoes in there, so for a dime a spud, my family has been eating lots of potato dishes the past few weeks. The easiest and most versatile is the baked potato. You can serve it with vegetarian chili and cheese on top, sour cream and chive, or even get creative and do something like a “pizza potato” with pizza sauce and mozzarella on top. Recently my family has also eaten hash (see above), burritos with potato and beans, and potato soup.

Change up established recipes:Finally, one thing I find myself doing often is changing up established recipes and trying to substitute something else for the meat. This is most easily done with Mexican food because it is simple to swap in black beans for the ground beef. It can get a bit more tricky with other recipes, but later on this month I plan on trying a basic chicken and veggie casserole, topped with biscuits and subbing in white beans for the cut up chicken. We shall see if its a success. I find that recipes that called for ground meat or cut up meat it is very easy to sub in beans instead. For other recipes, you may find just adding in extra veggies instead of meat works just as well. This option is certainly the hardest, but it also allows you to have some freedom in your eating and doesn’t force you to give up your favorites. The one I’m most proud of so far is finding a recipe for “sloppy lentils” instead of sloppy joes. While it certainly was not the same as the original, putting some mayo on the bun and topping it with some American cheese, and the difference wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying my sloppy sandwich.

If you decide to give meat free a try this week, you see there are lots of options out there. Go ahead and give it a try-don’t tell the hubby and kids and see if they even notice! Good luck!

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