Meatless Meals - Sharing a Few Recipes

Sharing a few recipes:

It's amazing the amount of people when you tell them you don't eat meat ask 'what do you eat then?' As if if you don't eat meat there are no other choices for food. We are going on 2 years eating meatless and it has been a wonderful journey for our taste buds. We cook more at home than we ever did, and we enjoy cooking. It has been exciting and fun to explore new recipes.

We usually scour the web for our vegan/meatless recipes then make variations to suit our needs and our likes. We eat vegan at home but when eating out, let the kids make their own choices. For the most part our daughter stays away from chicken with the occasional burger. Our son just recently has decided against all meat except on occasion seafood. Which we still eat seafood several times a month. Our goal down the road is to grow all of our own food, on our own land to provide for ourselves without the reliance on grocery stores for most of our nutritional needs.

This is one of our all time favorites:  Curry Cauliflower and Broccoli Soup
Didn't snap a pic this week before everyone ate it up!  Whenever we have a cauliflower or broccoli sitting around we always use this recipe:

Tim-Perrys-Soup-Creamy-Curry-Cauliflower-and-Broccoli-Soup

 Our variation- we use a whole head of broccoli, skip the onion (our kids don't like it) and use onion powder and add 4 finely chopped red potatoes, or any other vegetable in for that matter! We also half the amount of cheese in it - - oh and it's so good, we usually double this recipe on purpose to have leftovers! When you think curry you think spice- but its so mild, our son likes it too!

Another stand by, over mashed potatoes: Vegan Gravy
I know, vegan right, but its really great!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup all purpose flour

4 tablespoons soy sauce

2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 teaspoon dried sage

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions: Heat oil and saute onion until translucent. Stir in flour and soy sauce to make a paste. Whisk in broth, season with sage, salt, pepper, garlic, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 8-10 min until thickened.

Spinach Enchiladas w/Verde Sauce

Not the best picture after we'd eaten half the pan- but so good! Usually we make Enchilada's with onion, tomato, olives and mushrooms and cheese with red enchilada sauce as a meatless version but we decided to try something new.

Ingredients: 

1 1/2 cup sour cream

1 (7oz) bottle of green salsa

1 bunch of FRESH spinach

2 cups Monterey Jack Cheese

1 package of corn tortillas

 Directions: In bowl- stir all the sour cream and half the bottle of salsa together, mix well. Chop spinach finely. Take a 9x13 baking dish and spread enough mixture to coat the bottom of the pan. Heat the tortillas so that they are soft. Fill each tortilla with spinach, small pinch of cheese and drizzle with mixture, then roll and put into pan. Once all of these are lined up, pour remainder of green salsa on the top of the tortilla's and put the remainder of cheese on top. Bake at 350 for approx. 20 minutes until heated through and browned slightly on top.

So quick and easy with not very many ingredients, my kind of recipe! And a yummy way to get the kids to eat their spinach too. We served with vegan refried beans and spanish rice.

Shepherds Pie

From last week...pic posted a few days ago- but here it is again:

Super easy and simple and the kids loved it.

Ingredients:

1 package 'meat' crumbles

1 onion chopped

1 package of frozen veggies (we used green beans, corn, pea's)

8 tablespoons butter (we use earth balance non-soy)

1 cup vegetable broth

1 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce

salt, pepper, garlic, other seasonings of choice

Directions: Quarter Potato's and boil in salted water, about 20 minutes. We left our skins on, you can peel them if you'd like.  Melt 4 tablespoons butter in pan, saute onions. Add crumbles, cook. Add Worchestershire sauce and seasonings. Add vegetable broth.  Once cooked, Add frozen vegetables until cooked through. Mash potatoes in bowl and add remainder of butter and season with salt and pepper. Place crumble mixture in baking pan. Smooth mashed potatoes over crumble mixture. Bake in oven at 400 for approx. 30 minutes. Broil the last few minutes to brown the top.  We served this dish with rolls and a salad.

This was such a hit, our son ate it for the next few days for lunches!

A few quick and easy meals:

Throughout the week because of evening activities we need quick and easy meals quite often or at least a couple times.

Make your own Veggie Sandwich with Homemade potato chips

Pasta Dishes with fresh vegetables on top (our fav is asparagus and tomatoes) with garlic bread and salad

Oven Roasted Red Potatoes with Roasted Squash/Zucchini with Salad and Rolls

Homemade Vegan Chili and Queso's

Veggie Stir Fry with Rice

I also try to prepare meals ahead of time or freeze some things for easy reheating on busy nights.

Going meatless was a huge change in our ways in the beginning but now it is a wonderful way of life.