Meatless Monday: Pizza di Spaghetti

June 25, 2012 By 1 Comment

I’m not a big fan of leftovers.  Eating the same thing two times inside of a week is just not something that excites me.  That having been said, I can’t in good conscience just throw out perfectly good food.  It wastes money and teaches my kids a terrible lesson.  So I like to use leftovers to make other, different meals.  Taking this approach to make meatless leftover dishes can be quite easy.

Today’s recipe was inspired by something I saw years ago on The Food Network.  This seemed like such an easy way to use leftover spaghetti.  The linked recipe shows all of the homemade sauce components and just looks lovely, but my focus was on the first part.  Just take a couple of eggs, 1/4 Cup of milk, some salt and pepper, and plenty of Parmesan cheese.  Mix it all together and add two cups of leftover spaghetti and sauce (we just used a jar of sauce for our spaghetti the night before).  Pour it all into a pan with a little olive oil over medium heat.  Cook for about 10 minutes until it browns up and pulls away from the side of the pan.  Put a plate over the top and flip (careful, please!!) and slide back into the pan to cook the other side for another 5 minutes or so.  Sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese and garnish with some parsley.  Slice into wedges and serve with a side salad.  Enjoy!!

What are you doing for Meatless Monday? Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request? Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

 

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet. It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Veggie Quiche

June 4, 2012 By 7 Comments

No frills this week for Meatless Monday! We made a quiche with some veggies that were sitting in the fridge. We took some onions, mushrooms, and broccoli and sauteed them up with butter, salt, and pepper until the broccoli was tender. We poured the veggies into a pie shell and topped with an egg mixture (4 – 6 eggs mixed with 1 – 1 1/2 cups milk) and some cheddar cheese. We baked at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the eggs were set.

What are you doing for Meatless Monday? Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request? Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet. It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Fried Mac & Cheese

May 28, 2012 By 7 Comments

Going meatless for a day, a month, or a lifetime doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun with your food.  I think that, in the South, there is a consensus that, if it can be fried, it should be fried!  Today, we are looking to fry Macaroni and Cheese!  Let me tell you, it felt almost sinful to take that bite into the crispy breading only to find that creamy, cheesy, comforting center.

Whenever we make our basic baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe, we know that we are going to have leftovers.  Sometimes, we just save it for leftovers.  This time we decided to plan ahead and save some for frying.  The process is very simple.  Let your macaroni and cheese cool down completely and slice into 1-2 inch cubes (I think mine were more rectangular because of the size of the dish).  Place them on a parchment covered sheet pan and put them into the freezer for 8 hours or overnight (you can cover with foil if you are worried about freezer burn).  Once they are completely frozen, pull the cubes off and toss into a zip top bag for storage in the freezer.

About an hour before you are ready to fry them up, pull them out of the freezer to thaw slightly.  While you are waiting, prepare your breading station.  You’ll need three dishes, about 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 eggs, a splash of water, about 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs, and some salt and pepper.  Put flour in one dish, eggs beaten with water in another, and bread crumbs in the third.  Season them all with salt and pepper.  At that point you can start getting your oil warmed up.  Take whatever you are frying in (preferably something a little deeper–I used a 3 qt saucepan) and pour in vegetable oil up to about halfway.  Heat it over medium-high until it hits about 350 or so.  Basically, if you put in a drop of water, it’ll pop right away.

To bread your Mac & Cheese, coat in flour, then egg wash, then bread crumbs.  Make sure they are completely covered, but dust off any extra.  Fry until golden brown and delicious, about 5 minutes or so.  Drain on paper towels.  Because they were frozen, the inside will be just warm enough to eat once the outside has cooled down a bit.  Server them as appetizers or with a side salad for a meal.  I hope that you enjoy!

What are you doing for Meatless Monday?  Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Pancake Dinner

April 16, 2012 By 3 Comments

Sometimes dinner on a Meatless Monday needs to be really simple. Pancake dinner fits that bill for sure. Our kids would eat pancakes for dinner every night if we let them. They love pancakes so dinner tonight was a hit for sure!

We … haha, that is funny! Brian tends to break out the electric griddle on pancake days. Making 4-6 pancakes at once sure beats making two at a time in a skillet!

Brian’s favorite pancake recipe is Alton Brown’s instant pancake recipe. The best of the recipe is that you can make a batch (or double or triple) the mix and then just store it in the cupboard. We do this. I can even manage the mix! In the years that Brian has been making this recipe, he has cheated on all of Alton’s steps in the recipe but does make sure to let the batter “rest” just as you do with a meat!

What pancakes do you like? Do you add to the pancake batter or put toppings on there? Our kids love cinnamon sugar on the top of their pancakes.

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Tapas

April 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

We are all about keeping our dinners simple, affordable, and tasty.  On the other hand, I’m still just a big kid who still likes to play with his food.  Sometimes, experimenting with new flavors or new types of food can really negate these factors (especially the tasty part).  This especially becomes a problem when, like me, you come from a household that adores meat and are now trying out meatless recipes.  These tapas are a great simple way to experiment a little, without all of the fuss.

The word tapas comes from the Spanish verb tapar, “to cover.”  The idea is that a piece of bread or meat or even a plate would be set on top of a glass of wine to keep stuff out of the wine.  These “covers” could then hold various other foods, leading to a long tradition of Spanish cuisine.  Our offerings today are quite easy and could even be accompanied by a small meat tapas for those individuals who “could never have a meal without meat.”

Below you can see, from left to right, a Spinach Artichoke Dip, Patatas Alioli (Potatoes with Garlic Mayonaisse), and Deviled Eggs.  We purchased the dip at the local big box store.  You could make your own, but this is all about being simple, right?  The Deviled Eggs…well, it’s after Easter right?  Most of us have a Deviled Egg recipe looming somewhere or can easily find one.  That will have to be another post.  The potatoes, however, were so good that I just have to include a recipe.

Patatas Alioli or Potatoes with Garlic Mayonnaise

This dish is a pretty traditional tapas and couldn’t be easier to put together.  We used fingerling potatoes, making it easy just to cut round little knobs, but you could easily cut a larger potato into long quarters and cut chunks from there.  Just use what you have.  Making the alioli can be tricky.  Whisking can make your arm tired, but get the hand blender going too fast and you’ll just have an oily mess (trust me on this one!).  If  you like more garlic, feel free to add more.

Ingredients

4-6 Cups potatoes, cut into 1/2-3/4 inch chunks
oil for frying
salt

2-3 large garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
1 Cup olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

Directions

Over medium-high heat, heat about an inch and a half of oil in a large skillet (make sure not to come up over half-way up the sides or you might spill over when the potatoes go in).  When the oil is hot (a potato fries immediately when inserted), add one layer of potatoes.  Fry for about 10 minutes or until the insides are fluffy when opened up.  Drain on paper towels and salt immediately after pulling them from the oil.

For the alioli, press or mash the garlic into a paste using the salt.  Add to a large bowl with egg yolks and whisk until well combined.  Slowly add the olive oil, whisking the whole time.  Add little bits at first, making sure that they are fully incorporated before adding more.  As you near the end, you can add larger quantities, but never more than 1/8 Cup at a time.

Serve the alioli on the side of the potatoes or fold the potatoes into the sauce in the traditional fashion.  Enjoy!

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

March 26, 2012 By 4 Comments

Sometimes after a long day, we just need a dinner that is quick, easy, and not too heavy.  We tend to keep pie shells, eggs, mushrooms, spinach, and cheese around at all times so it’s only natural that a quiche would find it’s way into our repertoire from time to time.

Quiche is basically a pastry crust filled with with eggs and meat, veggies, cheese, or any combination of the three.  Our version leaves out the meat, but maintains the light, but fulfilling nature of any good quiche.  The buttery, flaky crust with the creamy, custardy filling and chunky bites of mushroom and spinach all topped with nutty Gruyere cheese will tickle your taste buds with every bite.  Pair it with a side salad and you have a lovely meatless meal for a warm evening or a Sunday brunch.

From a Simply Budgeted perspective, the Gruyere will be your most expensive item.  We bought ours from the big box warehouse store for about $12/pound.  The nice thing is that Gruyere has a big flavor, so a little goes a long ways.  We only used about 1/4 pound (so $3) for the whole dish.  It should also only take you about 15 minutes of active cooking time, giving you time to chill out for a bit after getting home from work while dinner cooks itself.


Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients

1 9 ” pie shell
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups sliced mushrooms
salt and pepper
2 cups baby spinach
1 garlic clove, minced
3 eggs
1 cup half and half
1 cup Gruyere cheese, shredded

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.  Prepare pie shell in 9″ deep dish pie plate.  Set aside.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, add olive oil, mushrooms, and salt and pepper to taste.  Cook mushrooms until lightly browned, 5-6 minutes, and add spinach and garlic.  Cook until spinach is wilted and most of the liquid has evaporated, another 4-5 minutes.  Drain off the excess liquid and set vegetables aside for a few minutes to cool.

Whisk together eggs, half and half, and salt and pepper to taste.

Place vegetables into bottom of pie shell.  Pour egg mixture over the vegetables and top with Gruyere.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes or until quiche is puffy and golden brown.  Serve warm or at room temperature.  It makes about 6-8 servings.  Enjoy!

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Macaroni and Cheese

March 12, 2012 By 4 Comments

Having a meatless meal does not mean sacrificing comfort.  Macaroni and Cheese is one of those meals that takes just about everyone back to some point in their childhood.  Unfortunately, as a nation, we have taken to using those electric orange yellow powder packages of cheese dust in lieu of taking a little bit of time to make it from scratch.  Whether as a main meal or as a side dish, “real” mac and cheese is actually very easy to make, takes just about as much active cooking time, and is so much tastier than that boxed stuff.  On top of that, it can be a great foil for introducing veggies that may not be as popular on their own (can anyone say “broccoli mac and cheese”?).

Here is the four-step process to making great Macaroni and Cheese:

1.  Cook the noodles.
2.  Mix in cheese sauce and veggies (if using).
3.  Top with bread crumb mix.
4.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Simple, right?  Use whatever noodles you want.  We used a mix of shapes because we had them and they looked fun.  For the cheese sauce, just use the one we introduced last week in our Meatless Monday:  Baked Potatoes post (I thin it out with just a little extra milk because that’s how I like it).  If you are using veggies, I would saute them first and then add them in.  For veggies like broccoli, just add them to the water when you boil the pasta.  Veggie options might include peppers, mushrooms, even spinach.  Use your imagination or just clean out your fridge!  Mix everything together and pour into an appropriately sized baking dish.  For the topping, mix 3 tablespoons of melted butter with 1 cup of breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the dish.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and you are all set!

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Baked Potatoes

March 5, 2012 By 4 Comments

Ok, so I know that we did Twice Baked Potatoes last week, but potatoes are a great multipurpose staple, and, if you shop on a budget like us, you are likely to buy them in 5-10 pound bags.  Potatoes keep for a while, but not indefinitely, so it’s smart to plan a few meals around them.  This week we made up a batch of baked potatoes.  Need a quick recipe?  Here goes:

1. Wash them
2. Oil them (rub them in some olive oil)
3. Poke them (3 or 4 time with a fork)
4. Salt them
5. Bake them (350 right on the rack for 1 1/2 hours or until they squeeze easily)

Easy, right?  Once they are baked, the sky’s the limit as far as toppings go.  If you want a side or a light meal, simple butter and sour cream can be nice.  If you are looking to make it a full, hearty meal, you can use the basic potato as a vehicle for some of your leftovers.  Here we have a potato with broccoli and cheese sauce (recipe follows) and another with some leftover Chili Soup, the same cheese sauce, and sour cream.  One of the great things about this is that, since we had the oven on anyway, we just baked up about 10 potatoes.  We had whatever we were having for dinner, leaving plenty of easy to microwave potatoes for quick lunches later in the week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheese Sauce

This sauce starts with a bechamel (one of the French “mother sauces” that so many other sauces are based off of).  Learning to make this sauce gives you some basic techniques that you can use for future dishes.  This is the same cheese sauce you would use for Mac & Cheese!  If you find it to be a little thick, add more milk.  Not cheesy enough…well, you know what to do!

Ingredients

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Directions

Melt butter over medium-high heat.  Add flour stirring continuously for 2-3 minutes or until paste cooks a bit, but is not browning (this part is making a roux and takes some practice to get just right!).

Add milk, stirring constantly and bringing it to a boil.  Lower heat, add salt and pepper, and let cook for 2-3 more minutes.  (Stop here for a bechamel, continue for cheese sauce)

Add cheese and melt thoroughly.  Adjust seasoning and remove from heat.

We hope that you enjoy!  Let us know how it turns out!

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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Meatless Monday: Vegetable Minestrone

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Some days you just know that Monday night is going to be a little rough.  That’s when the good old slow cooker is worth its weight in gold!  So this Monday, we’ve pulled out our trusty copy of Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly and have made a Vegetable Minestrone.  The thing that annoys me about so many slow cooker recipes is all of the cooking that they sometimes require before tossing it in.  Let’s be honest, if I had time to cook, I wouldn’t be using my slow cooker.  This recipe has you just toss everything, except for the pasta, right in and turn it on.  After you add in the pasta and let it finish, you just ladle it into a bowl and eat.  How hard is that?

Vegetable Minestrone

In order to make this recipe vegan, we used a low-sodium vegetable broth, but because we needed to keep our protein levels up on a vegan diet, we added one can of drained white beans.  I also don’t keep dried basil on hand, but I do have Italian seasoning, so I subbed that for the basil and oregano.  On top of that, we didn’t have rotini, but we thought that the kids would like the bag of wacky shapes pasta that we had.  It was fun to watch them searching for the shells and wheels as they gobbled up this yummy soup.

Ingredients

4 C low-fat, low-sodium chicken broth
4 C low-sodium tomato juice
1 Tbsp. dried basil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 medium-sized carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
1 C fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
28-oz can low-sodium diced tomatoes
1 1/2 C uncooked rotini pasta

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients except pasta in slow cooker.

2. Cover. Cook on low 7-8 hours.

3. Add pasta.

4. Cover. Cook on high 15-20 minutes.

That’s it!  An easy vegan dinner customized for our needs and what we have available on hand.  I’m pretty sure that no one will miss the meat in this delicious, comforting soup.

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

 

If you are interested in owning a copy of Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly of your own, Amazon has great prices.  Check them out here:

 

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Meatless Monday: Stuffed Peppers

February 13, 2012 By 1 Comment

Finally, the hardest part of our journey comes to an end.  Our six-week vegan diet period is over, but we still have another six weeks of vegetarian fare ahead of us.  When we say vegetarian, we are including honey and dairy products (including eggs) in our diet, but all flesh are out.  No fish, beef, pork, or poultry for a while yet.  So far, I am down 24 pounds from the start of the year and Beth is down 14.  Those are good numbers for six weeks worth of dietary changes.  We are very happy to be able to include cheese back into our diets now.  Still, just because we can eat cheese, doesn’t mean that we should!

For this week’s Meatless Monday, we decided to base our recipe on the Zucchini Boats recipe from MeatlessMonday.com.  We actually tried the Zucchini Boats without the cheese a week earlier, but found that the zucchini was a little bland for us and didn’t cook through all the way, leaving it squeaky (that might be one of the worst descriptors for food).  The only change we made to the recipe was using a brown rice blend instead of just brown rice.  We loved the rice mixture and thought that it would be great in a stuffed pepper.

Since we had made too much of the rice mixture, we just used it the next week to fill some peppers.  All you have to do is slice the tops off of the peppers and pull out the seeds and white stuff inside.  Fill them up with the rice, but don’t pack it down.

I discovered too late that I did not have any pasta sauce anywhere in the house, so I found a can of diced, fire-roasted tomatoes, drizzled some of the juice over the rice (so it could seep down into the rice), and topped with a couple of spoonfuls of the tomatoes.

Pop them into a deep-sided pan or casserole dish, pour in about 1/4 inch of water, cover with foil, and place into a pre-heated oven set to 350.  Cook 30-45 minutes or until a sharp knife easily pierces the pepper.

Serve it with some bread if you like, or with cheese, or not.  At that point, it’s all up to you.

That’s it!  See how easy and tasty meatless can be?  Can’t stand the thought of going meatless?  Use this as a side or toss some ground beef in the mixture.  Either way, this is going to be a healthy, tasty dish that everyone is your family will enjoy!

Have a Meatless Monday experience, recipe, or request?  Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re up to!

Meatless Monday, a national nonprofit public health initiative, is all about incorporating more vegetables and less meat into our diet.  It’s about moderation, just one day a week, cutting down on meats high in saturated fat and increasing protein-rich plant-based foods — good for personal health and good for the planet.

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