- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
April 2012 Moms
s/o meal planning: Veggie ladies?
So I told the hubs that I want to move us towards having one day a week as "meat free" dinner and one day that is a meat AND dairy free dinner (harder because no cheese). I think we need to broaden our food horizons a bit now that it's coming time for LO to start being a part of meals soon. We eat meat probably 95% of the time for dinner since it is so easy to just cook a bit of meat and veg for a quick dinner.
I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian or a vegan, I love meat and dairy I just think it would be good to not eat so much of it. Especially for the hubby who has serious portion control issues. Also it would be cheaper. Since I like to buy grassfed beef and free range chicken as much as possible, hubbys meaty appetite can be very $$.
I don't want our daughter/future children to grow up thinking every meal has to have meat and/or cheese in it in order to be considered a meal.
So now I just need ideas of what such meals might be? Please give suggestions of veggie/vegan meals that you enjoy. Preferably without "fake" products, I'd rather just focus on meals that just have regular ingredients rather than using fake meat or veggie based cheese products.
Thank you ladies in advance!
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
This discussion has been closed.
Re: s/o meal planning: Veggie ladies?
Try this, without the Parmesan:
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/quick-recipes/2012/08/summer-squash-and-red-quinoa-salad-with-walnuts
When I go meat-free, I go towards salad and pasta. Since pasta just doesn't taste that good without cheese, I'd go towards salad.
mm 2/17/11 * dd born 4/20/12 * bo 1/3/14 * edd 1/21/ 1/15
A couple of years ago I made a cookbook for my mom for mother's day, and it's all veg/vegan recipes. I have the PDF of it - I've pm'ed you my email if you'd like a copy.
We eat a lot of bean-based stuff, like burritos, black bean soup, chickpea dishes, lentil dishes, etc. Another good option is Indian dishes, if you like Indian food. Dahl, chana masala, aloo chobe, etc. Of course, pasta dishes are easy. Also, it depends on what you consider "fake." There are processed products that are meant to mimic meat, but you can also replace meat with tofu, tempeh, or seitan, which are not "mock meat" products but make good substitutes. Seitan in particular is really robust and is good in a lot of traditionally meaty dishes.
A few websites to check out: vegetariantimes.com, vegweb.com, vegetarian.about.com. Those sites have a lot of good recipes.
Hope that helps!
that quinoa salad looks pretty good!
Definitely interested in the cookbook JFH- checking PM now. Yeah I don't mind tofu (i mean I don't like it but I can learn to perhaps. Its just sort of spongy. Like a lump of flavorless egg?). When I said no fake meat/cheese I meant, just nothing that is supposed to "look/taste" like meat. Like the message I want to give is that meals can have meat and/or dairy, or meals can just have vegetables, whole grains etc. but by having fake meat/cheese on no-meat days would confuse things a bit I think.
Since I'm not against eating meat per se.. I would prefer to just save "meaty" dishes for regular days if that makes sense..
I think a veggie diet would be great for hubby as he eats way too much meat. Like he'll order and eat a 24 ounce steak. I order an 8oz steak and eat half of it. Then he wants to eat the fat lumps I cut off as well. That's just gross to me and seems like it must be really unhealthy. Also I find a cheese stick to be a nice snack but he finds half a bag of cheese sticks to be a nice snack
So I think it would be better for him to be eating too many carrots or something, than too many cheese sticks. Maybe I should stop buying us cheese sticks.
I would LOVE a copy of this if I can butt in here too:)
OP, another poster shared this several weeks ago, and I've already made several of these dishes- hope this helps!
https://www.carascravings.com/category/vegetarian (sorry it's not clicky)
Thank you! I makey the clickey for any others who want it
https://www.carascravings.com/category/vegetarian
looks great! though I did notice one of the first recipes listed has shrimp in it,lol.
Sweet potato/black bean quesadillas: https://www.eatliverun.com/black-bean-and-sweet-potato-quesadillas/
Kale/Mushroom quesadillas: https://www.eatliverun.com/creamy-mushroom-and-kale-quesadillas/
Broccoli Quiche (I add spinach to this too): https://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-broccoli-quiche/
Pumpkin/Black Bean soup: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/pumpkin-and-black-bean-soup-recipe/index.html
Focus on beans and eggs to get protein without meat or cheese. We usually do 2 or 3 meatless days each week. It has helped us be able to buy free range chicken and grass fed beef.
eggs! I forgot about eggs! duh eggs have lots of protein and are cheap. I still buy free range eggs but its like $3 - $3.50 a dozen which isn't bad.
I am not a fan of beans, however I am working on it. It's weird because I LOVE split pea soup but beans = weird for me. It's a texture thing. It seems I have a lot of weirdness about textures.
But beans are cheap and high in protein so I'm going to get to cooking with beans more. And peas. I wonder if split pea soup with no ham would be still tasty...
Thanks for the ideas patella!
I'm kind of late to the party but here are some things we eat.
https://open-cookbook.com/recipe/main-dishes/roasted-red-pepper-and-basil-penne/
https://open-cookbook.com/recipe/main-dishes/six-herb-linguine/
https://www.thekitchn.com/poached-egg-over-polenta-with-148103
https://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/04/shakshuka/
https://open-cookbook.com/recipe/main-dishes/minestrone-soup/
https://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/07/27/quiche-lorraine-pizza/
Now that I am diary free, I have been eating more meat, it is really hard to find good meals without diary or meat!
Ministrone soup that's a good one! Love ministrone. Guess I could do without parmesan on top sad face
I haven't, but they're on our list to try soon. I loooooove butternut squash! If you make them before I do, let me know how they turn out!!
Do you guys like sushi? Once you learn to roll it, it's really easy, and there are tons of rolls you can do. Asparagus and sun dried tomato, avocado, sweet potato, cucumber, plum and apricot...you can use honey mustard or vinaigrette in place of the common mayo-based sauces topping the rolls at fast-food sushi places.
This is also a great season to try some new stews!
https://vegandad.blogspot.com/2009/11/burgundy-stew.html
https://vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/10/vegetable-stew-with-savory-biscuit.html
If soy milk is more "fake" than you would like, you could probably experiment with other liquids to replace it in that second one.
I don't like sushi because of the raw fish part (ick) but veggie sushi I would probably be ok with!
Thank you for the stew ideas! First clicky link not working right but I found the recipe.. Looks good!
Tonight we had meat since I couldn't get to the store so I think tomorrow will be veggie dinner day as I found a bag of tjs 17 bean and barley soup mix so that's going in the crockpot tomorrow, yay! I think I need to make a proper cooking and grocery plan so I don't keep reverting back to meat and 2 veg dinners coz it's easy!