April 12, 2010

Meatless Monday Recipes

It's Monday, time to share readers' favorite meatless recipes.

Meatless Monday is a nonprofit organization that encourages people to eat less meat, for their own health and the health of the planet. According to their website, "Going meatless once a week may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save fresh resources like fresh water and fossil fuel."

Click here to learn more about the movement, and if you sign up to go meatless on Mondays, they'll send you a weekly email packed with delicious meatless recipes.

And now for some reader suggestions:

Frugal Gravy like canned beans, diced tomatoes, corn, spices and Mexican hot sauce on Navajo tortillas. That's a super-easy suggestion that you can whip up in no time.

Simple in France recommends crepes filled with spinach and mushrooms, quinoa salad with apples, carrots and raisins, or sourdough pancakes. All great ideas! I think I'll try a simple crepe recipe and post about it here.

Ellen at Within My Means loves potato bars, and suggests mixing it up by doing sweet potatoes instead of regular ones. That's right up my alley, because I LOVE sweet potatoes. I usually eat the dark orange ones, which I think are actually yams.

I also got a couple of great ideas for using up greens on my CSA post last week that are definitely meatless, like this recipe for Spaghetti and Greens from Laura at Thinner and Wiser. Laura says they eat a lot of greens and it's one of their favorites.

And Magdalena offers this simple soup that she made for Easter: Take 4 cups of broth and heat to simmering. Add 3 cups of any kind of chopped green and simmer about 3 minutes. Have ready a cup of freshly grated parmesan or other hard cheese, a Tablespoon of flour, and one egg, all blended together with a fork. Turn up the heat under the broth, and as it comes to boiling, stir in the cheese/egg mixture. It will separate into little flakes, like egg drop soup. Add 1/4 cup chives or other mild leafy herb, fresh ground pepper and a pinch of salt. Serve immediately with good homebaked bread. Magdalena says it makes an excellent lunch or first course. That sounds delicious!

Thanks readers for all your terrific ideas! If YOU have a simple meatless recipe you'd like to share, please tell us about it in the Comments section and I'll include it in the next Meatless Monday post. And click here if you want to peruse the recipes in previous posts.

3 comments:

Alea Milham said...

I appreciate your bi-weekly meatless meals round up. There are always so many delicous ideas! When I was visiting my Dad this weekend, my stepmom made the most incredible vegetable lasagna. My first thought was "this is the ultimate Meatless Monday meal". There is prep work involved, but my step mom did it the night before. I will let you know when I get the recipe typed up.

Simple in France said...

Oooh--I've been craving those sourdough pancakes, I may need to do that again.

Today I'm making a meatless meal for my in-laws: spinach and mushroom quiche! I think I got the original idea from the Moosewood cookbook and then adapted it.

But the vegetable lasagna Alea mentions sounds really good! Yum!

And thanks for the mention!

Angela said...

Alea- Yes, I can't wait for that lasagna recipe with cream sauce and will definitely use it for a special MM post. I love this so much, I've gotten so many great ideas from readers that I could cook without meat every night very easily if I wanted to.

Simple in France- Spinach and mushroom quiche is my favorite! Maybe I got it from Moosewood too, because that's what I used back in college. I've only recently been branching out since I loved it so much it was the only kind I made for years.