Friday, June 8, 2012

Vegetarian Recipes

Once upon a time, I decided to institute Meatless Monday in my life. And I was committed to it for quite a while. Sure, I'd skip and have a meal with meat on a Monday here and there (usually due to poor planning), but I'd try to have a makeup veggie meal later in the week when that would happen. I felt like I was doing a great job of decreasing my meat intake. It turned out that once I decided to eat vegetarian on one day of the week that I was more inclined to have meatless meals other days of the week too.

Then I got pregnant and became super lax about my Meatless Monday observance. Then I was the first time mom of a newborn just trying to survive, and well, I scarfed down what I could when I could. Not that everything I ate was bad, but I let a lot of junk food back into my diet.

Anyway, now I'm trying to get back on track. My goal for the summer is to be a "weekday vegetarian" (a term I heard in this TED Talk). I'm giving myself some time to ease into it. This week I've had only 3-4 meals containing meat, and with a little more planning and preparation, I think I can be up to full weekday veg in two weeks. (I would say next week, but I'm going to be at my parents' house...)

Since better meal planning is the key to eating better, I'm also working on a meal planning visual system to use at home. I hope this will help to eliminate the dreaded question of "what do you want for dinner?" When that happens a lot of times we'll just end up picking up fast food.

So, step 1 of developing my meal planning system is gathering recipes that we like. I thought I'd share a few we've tried recently.

Rice, Cheddar & Spinach Pie

We made this for dinner, and hubs and I both really liked it. I really liked the brown rice and egg combo. Kept it from being too eggy. We threw in some mushrooms and garnished with feta cheese. 

 

Black Bean and Brown Rice Burgers

Super yummy. Would definitely make again. Hubs liked them too, which hasn't been true of other black bean burger recipes we've tried. 

 

Baked Hummus and Spinach Dip

Such a yummy dip with baby carrots. I added a little extra garlic, curry powder, and turmeric. I also chopped the spinach a little longer than I think the author intended. This would be perfect for St. Patrick's Day bc it is BRIGHT green! 

 

Oatmeal-Rhubarb Porridge

I made this for brunch this morning, and I thought it was decent. It was my first time to ever try rhubarb (I bought some frozen at Sprouts a couple months ago and wanted to use it)...I kind of liked the tangy kick with the oatmeal.

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