(More) Meatless Mondays
By Stephanie
Our family has continued going meatless on Mondays, though it sometimes feels to me as though I’m putting a bunch of side dishes on the table and calling it dinner. That is to say, I’m still searching for vegetarian things that truly feel like a main course AND that my kids might eat. If you have some recipes that fit that bill, do share.
One thing I did make, and which my children did not eat, was French Lentil Soup. It was incredibly easy to pull together and made enough that an impromptu dinner visit from family only involved setting two more places at the table. I made this recipe exactly as written and all the adults at the table loved its heartiness and flavor. The girls were put off by the chunkiness and texture of the lentils. I served it with little toasts with Boursin cheese and a green salad.
Another area where I’ve been experimenting is in baking healthier versions of our favorite snacks. Because my girls love Fig Newtons, I made Oatmeal, Fig, and Walnut bars in hopes of incorporating more whole grains. I made a few changes to the recipe, using butter instead of margarine (the original recipe was vegan), and substituting whole wheat flour for half the all-purpose flour. Chopping the figs probably took the longest, and I wish I had diced them smaller:
After that, you just incorporate the figs into a filling, then make a crumbly crust that serves as both the base and the topping for the bars. When it was all said and done (and baked), they came out looking like this:
This recipe made A LOT of bars – a whole 9×13 pan – and my family did not exactly gobble them up. The girls liked them well enough when I served them as a snack or after-meal treat, but they never once asked for them otherwise. And my husband and I both thought the bars were more like apple crisp, but with a fig filling – the kind of thing you want to heat up in a bowl and top with some vanilla ice cream. At 128 calories per serving, though, these would be a good alternative when you feel like baking something but want to avoid having a pan of brownies calling to you from your stovetop.
Next on my list of kitchen projects is baking my own bread. Though I’ve long loved to cook and bake, for some reason I’ve always been intimidated by doing anything that called for working with yeast. Even recipes that claimed to be “easy” or “idiot-proof” made me suspicious, and I always suspected that I’d put in all that time and kneading only to remove a hard lump from my oven. Why I lacked courage here, I don’t know, but I’ve finally come across a recipe that’s convinced me to try. I’ll let you know how it goes, but if you already bake your own bread, feel free to share encouragement here. (Bonus points for telling me how great my house is going to smell.)
March 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
smittenkitchen.com has a lot of vegetarian mains. I really love the barley risotto
March 4th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
That bread recipe is the first yeast-based recipe I ever made (I, too, used to be extremely scared to work with yeast)… it is AMAZING. I literally make it at least once a week now, and I bake with yeast all the time! Dinner rolls, pizza dough, bagels, etc etc. Yes, occasionally something turns out hard as a rock – baking with yeast can just be funny like that, even if you do everything right – but the more you work with yeast doughs, the more you’ll learn how they should look and feel, so that you’ll get a great result. I promise, that recipe will change your life – that bread is TO DIE FOR.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
That bread IS amazing, Christina is right. I make it all the time, too, and it goes great with another wonderful veg. main dish: split pea soup with carrots! (one of my kids loves it and the other grumbles a lot over it)
Other veg. ideas: black eyed peas, taco bar but with black bean filling instead of ground beef, risotto, spaghetti and Nate’s Meatless Meatballs, florentine lasagna, red beans and rice, tempeh cut into strips and served with homemade bbq sauce, grilled tofu and veggies, grilled portobellos, falafel, veggie burgers, either homemade or store-bought…the list goes on! (Yes, I AM a vegetarian
Remember that while lentils in themselves aren’t as protein-rich as meat, lentils plus rice ARE. Orangette, Smitten Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks and Kath Eats are some good places to look for veg. friendly meals that won’t make you gag. Vegan Lunch Box doesn’t update much, but has a good arsenal of kid-friendly ideas in her archives.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
You picked the right bread recipe – that one is AMAZING and you 100% cannot fail. Yum!
Also, we recently stumbled across this meatless recipe and we all love it (3 year old included):
http://amateurgourmet.com/2007/04/the_dinner_im_a.html
This is also very good (just leave out the chicken):
http://clevelandfoodie.com/2010/02/fried-quinoa-healthy-tasty.html
March 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Yeast used to scare me right out of the kitchen as well. I’ve never made the no-knead bread, but have been making whole wheat bread all winter long, and am totally hooked. Now I’m not sure why I was scared.
And, your house WILL smell awesome. Some friends stopped by after I made a loaf the other day and the first thing out of one of their mouths was “MMMM, what was for dinner???” The loaf did not last long
March 5th, 2010 at 11:19 am
tempeh is very good cut into strips, lightly fried in a small amt of healthy oil and lightly salted, dipped in ketchup… my mom used to make that and call them tempeh fries.
she also made tempeh rubies, which are basically reuben sandwiches only instead of roast beef, you use sauteed tempeh (with saeurkraut, thousand island, swiss cheese and toasted rye, or you can butter the outsides of the rye and grill it all together in a pan) — it’s absolutely delicious and a fantastic source of protein
there’s also bean burritos, which you can let your family build their own so that everyone has the toppings they like, and have offerings like red onion, tomato, shredded cheese, avocado, sour cream, refried black or pinto beans (or both), rice, scrambled eggs, etc.
eggplant parmesan is another vegetarian fav in my family.
as for soups, i will ask my mom which cookbooks she got the original recipes from, as i know she’s tweaked them into her own, but some of my all-time favorite meals, vegetarian or not, happen to be meatless soups that she makes, and include:
- cream of asparagus
- cream of broccoli (with or without cheddar, depending on how healthy you want to be & what you’re serving it with, we just serve the cheese on the side so that each person meets their own needs + preferences)
- cream of bell pepper (this is my fav)
- 15 bean
- cream of cauliflower
all of her “cream of” soups are low in fat and typically use boiled potato and milk to thicken & cream the soups as far as i know, and i know for a fact there is no heavy cream or half & half involved. they are very healthy, yet filling and creamy and delicious. if you are interested, i would be happy to pass on the recipes. she often serves them with some sort of bread, usually homemade. often it is what she calls “dilly” bread, a bread that has onion and dill and is baked inside a bowl and that we eat with salt & butter since the soups are so low in calorie. it makes for a great meatless meal.
breakfast for dinner can be another great way to go meatless…. pancakes, scrambled eggs, french toast, you get the idea. especially if you supplement with any of the great meatless substitutions they have available for breakfast meats these days, but if that’s cheating to you, there’s still a lot of great breakfast food options and often that’s popular with kids. i know it was popular with me when i was younger.
I could go on…. we eat a fair amount of poultry & fish in my family, but rarely red meat, so the meatless entrees abound in our recipe books… but I have a feeling this is overboard already
Hope this helps though!!
March 5th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Heidi Swanson’s 101cookbooks.com has a lot of really good, vegetarian main dishes.
The no-knead bread is a revelation, for real. It is impossible to screw up, and sooo delicious. Catherine Newman has an updated version (Fearless Five-Minute Bread) that’s a mix of the no-knead and a recipe from Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day, which incorporates more whole grains. She also has a good number of meatless, kid-friendly entrees. You can find her blog at family.go.com/blog/catherinewman
March 5th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Thanks for all the great input, everyone! I had forgotten about Catherine Newman, but I used to read her and love her, so I’ll check her out again. I think we’re going to do falafel with hummus next week, but I am going to follow some of your links for future inspiration, too.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Too funny…I just stumbled upon the no knead bread somewhere else, and someone else was claiming it is the latest “trend.” We’re going to have to try it. We do a lot of meatless nights (not as many as in the past when my husband was a vegetarian). We don’t eat soy, so it often involves beans or eggs or cheese for the protein. Breakfast for dinner is one of our favorite meatless ways to go (huevos rancheros is a favorite!)
March 6th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
health.com has an article I read today called “12 Mouthwatering Meatless Meals” ( http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20345806_1,00.html )
Recipes include:
* Smoked Cheddar and Lentil Burgers
* Linguine Frittata with Greens
* Creamy Polenta With Artichoke, Caramelized Onion, and Olive Ragoût
* Tempeh Fajitas
* Edamame Wontons
* Miso-Marinated Tofu and Eggplant Over Soba Noodles
* Warm Eggplant & Goat Cheese Sandwiches
* Grilled Salad Pizza
… and a few more…. sound good, and they’re all under 400 calories a portion (some as low as 50-200!!), despite containing plenty of delish/satisfying ingredients like butter/olive oil, and plenty of filling lean, healthy proteins and being rich in colorful veggies and providing fiber and enough interest in flavor profiles for you & your mister, while having a couple recipes that might pass the girls’ texture/familiarity tests!!
March 9th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I read this forum since 2 weeks and now i have decided to register to share with you my ideas.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
do you go to the official meatless mondays website:
http://www.meatlessmonday.com/
where they feature tons of recipes and weekly featured recipes supporting this movement?
if not, you should! there’s a ton of ideas right there to keep you going in this great tradition that is not only healthy for your family, but for our planet!
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