Meatless Meals

For a few years now, I have tried to make at least 1 or 2 meatless meals a week. It's really not as hard as most would think. I now try to do 3-4 a week, and we, well definitely I, don't miss the meat in these meals.

By no means are we planning to become vegans or vegetarians, and we were never a crazy meat consuming family/couple. But it feels really good to make a super satisfying and feeling hearty meatless meal. I don't use Tofu, I have tried it once in a meal and I am not a huge fan, I will try it again someday and maybe incorporate it once in a blue moon. I use beans a lot, and recently have started to use quinoa.

Last week we made vegetable fried quinoa (with some added black beans for extra protien) rather than rice, and it was DELICIOUS. James was very hesitant to jump on the quinoa bandwagon, he was expecting a cous cous like taste and texture, which he strongly dislikes, I LOVE cous cous. He is also the cook in the house for fried rice, he makes a mean fried rice dish hehee pretty much the only thing he knows how to cook other than plain potato/rice, steak, and boiled veggie ;) so he was the first to make a quinoa dish for the family., and we all devoured it.

This weeks meatless meals are:
-Crockpot Minestrone type of soup (beans, chickpeas, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, italian seasoning, canned tomatoes and broth, though I admit I used chicken broth, I really dislike the flavor of commercial veggie broth) with homemade crescent rolls.
-Black Bean Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries
-Baked Beans, Scallop Potato, and some sort of veggie probably green.

I like to do meatless mexican with beans yummy, pasta with lots of veggies and sometimes I throw in some beans as well, meatless stirfrys, meatless soups. Not every time I make a pasta or soup etc is meatless, but really it's so easy to skip the meat a couple times a week, I think EVERYONE should do it!

I watched a documentary a couple years ago on how much meat North America consumes, it was disgusting, and how meat is such a high demand and how damaging it is to our environment. Not that raising animals, and using them for consumption is completely damaging but the rate at which we do it is what is damaging, and how much animals are needed to meet the demands is environmentally damaging. I cannot for the life of me remember the name, but I know you can find it on the internet. I found it incredibly informative and eye opening, it was definitely what lead me to my quest for cutting out meat in every meal every day.

I'll be sure to share some recipes of meals we try and we all love....those that have recipes. James veggie fried quinoa does not have a recipe, nor does my minestrone soup, it's always changing slightly ;)

Ciao