They've been vegetarian longer than me

A few months ago I discovered an email list of Vegetarian Mormons.  It's not high traffic, but friendly with lots of ideas.  For example, right now there's some emails being exchanged on vegan food storage.  I wasn't on the list a week when I learned that Protein Combining (eating a vegetable with a whole grain, frex, at each meal to get a "complete protein") is unnecessary.  Which everyone else figured out in 1988.

MormonVeg is a discussion forum for Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who wish to understand the reasons to reduce the consumption of meat and other animal products or get help in doing so. Participants do NOT have to be vegetarian, vegan, or even LDS to subscribe or participate actively. A genuine interest is all that's necessary.  (emphasis mine)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MormonVeg/
I won't be reposting any of their emails here or elsewhere, of course.  That would not be cool.

Go Meatless On Monday

Whenever I am asked how to go flexitarian without your family declaring mutiny, I answer the same thing:

Go Meatless on Monday

Your family could use a meatless meal after that traditional Sunday roast. Besides, if they are not thrilled with dinner that day, you can still look forward to Family Night treat. If things go well then make 2 nights meat-free at your house.

Eating Well Magazine apparently agrees with the Meatless Monday. They ran a list of vegetarian recipes under the title Go Meatless on Monday. You can find them here.

Another great spot to check for recipes is Meatless Mondays.com. Find them here.

Tonight I made a batch of Italian Vegetable Soup from a recipe I found on the Better Homes & Garden's website. I doubled the recipe and added a can each of chickpeas and corn. You can find the original recipe here.

Last of all, another great source for recipes that I love is on the blog 101 Cookbooks. 231 vegetarian recipe and counting. Just click on the title to go there and scan the recipe link for the vegetarian section.

Tacos Sans the Meat

My cousin gave me this idea. I love it.

You substitute the meat for black beans mixed with Taco Seasoning.

You will still have your shells or tortillas, cheese tomatoes, olives, lettuce, etc.

I add broccoli sprouts. They are delicious and taste great, better than lettuce.

Simple, tasty, and much easier to store than meat (both the bag and the can).

Give it a try and let me us know what you think.

The Secret Ingredient to Mac'n'cheese

So, my usual method for making home-made mac'n'cheese is to not measure anything (just like my grandma taught me). After the noodles are cooked I just add in butter, flour, milk, cheese, and sometimes *gasp* green vegetables (tonight it was spinach, I totally did not go for anything vegetable wise in my mac'n'cheese until my sophomore year of college), and stir until all the cheese is melted. At any rate, it usually turns out pretty good.

My Handsome was making the mac'n'cheese tonight and wanted more exact measurements. So I got out the cookbook, but the two recipes were for baked mac'n'cheese (people make baked mac'n'cheese for stuff other than potlucks?). But, both recipes had nutmeg in them. So I ended up teaching Handsome how to make mac'n'cheese my way and just added a couple of dashes of nutmeg at the end. It was delicious! It added just a hint of sweetness to the cheese sauce, and made the flavor more interesting and complex. Definitely doing it again.

By the way, the type of cheese we used tonight was a colby and monterrey jack blend, although the recipes in the cookbook used cheddar and parmesan.

Some ideas

Things are going well at our house. I'm successfully having meatless dinners about 4 or 5 times a week. DH has noticed, but I don't think the kids have. And, as an unexpected bonus, I've lost about 3 pounds in the last two weeks. Not sure if it's the meatless meals or the bronchitis that I've been battling, but in any case I'll take it. ;o)

Here are some things we've eaten lately, in case you are in need of some ideas.

Salad and veggie soup

Black Bean soup (mine was similar to this, but without the rice) and cornbread muffins

Burritos/tacos with refried beans

Black bean quesadillas served with chips and salsa and sour cream

Broccolli Gratin (recipe here)

Brie sandwiches on baguette with lots of veggies (tomatoes, spinach, cukes, sprouts)

Tortellini soup

Spinach Quiche

What type of vegetarian are you?

These definitions come from about.com.

1. Pescatarian - The word “pescatarian” is occasionally used to describe those who abstain from eating all meat and animal flesh with the exception of fish. Although the word is not commonly used, more and more people are adopting this kind of diet, usually for health reasons or as a stepping stone to a fully vegetarian diet.

2. Flexitarian/semi-vegitarian - You don’t have to be vegetarian to love vegetarian food! “Flexitarian” is a term recently coined to describe those who eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but occasionally eat meat.

3. Vegetarian (lacto-ovo vegetarian) - When most people think of vegetarians, they think of lacto-ovo-vegetarians. People who do not eat beef, pork, poultry, fish, shellfish or animal flesh of any kind, but do eat eggs and dairy products are lacto-ovo vegetarians (“lacto” comes from the Latin for milk, and “ovo” for egg).
Lacto-vegetarian - is used to describe a vegetarian who does not eat eggs, but does eat dairy products.
Ovo-vegetarian - refers to people who do not eat meat or dairy products but do eat eggs.

4. Vegan - Vegans do not eat meat of any kind and also do not eat eggs, dairy products, or processed foods containing these or other animal-derived ingredients such as gelatin. Many vegans also refrain from eating foods that are made using animal products that may not contain animal products in the finished process, such as sugar and some wines. There is some debate as to whether certain foods, such as honey, fit into a vegan diet.

5. Raw Vegan/raw food diet - A raw vegan diet consists of unprocessed vegan foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). “Raw foodists” believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost a significant amount of their nutritional value and are harmful to the body.

6. Macrobiotic - The macrobiotic diet, revered by some for its healthy and healing qualities, includes unprocessed vegan foods, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and allows the occasional consumption of fish. Sugar and refined oils are avoided. Perhaps the most unique qualifier of the macrobiotic diet is its emphasis on the consumption of Asian vegetables, such as daikon, and sea vegetables, such as seaweed.


Huh. I'm a Flexitarian. Well, if you want to get all techie about it, I am a
Primarily-Localvore(ish)-Flexitarian/Pescitarian.

Protein: Shopping in your kitchen

Before I decided to become a vegetarian, getting enough protein was a major concern. I've done Weight Watchers' Points plan before and since I didn't eat enough lean meat, and couldn't eat half the foods I normally did, the new diet would give me headaches. It felt like a pair of big ice tongs were squeezing the sides of my head. Sure, I lost some weight, but I was miserable. Which is better, skinny or happy?

Only after I found out how much protein I actually needed, and that I could get enough without eating meat, did I decide going veggie was a possibility for me. Those links on the sidebar about protein - they're all mine. I wanted them close by for future reference.

Since I'm between the ages of nineteen and forty-nine, I need 45 grams of protein a day. The challenge now is eating enough protein-rich foods to meet that requirement. I decided to look around my kitchen and see how much protein I had hanging around.

First the cereals: I have five kinds. Here's the amount of protein for each.

Kellogg's Corn Flakes = 2 grams per 1 cup serving
Total Whole Grain = 2 grams per 3/4 cup serving
Rice Chex = 2 grams per 1 cup serving
Kellogg's Raisin Bran = 5 grams per 1 cup serving
Post Grape-Nuts = 6 grams per 1/2 cup serving

I was happy to see that Grape-Nuts, a.k.a. Colon Blow or "Avoid the middle man and just pour it in the toilet," did so well for protein and fiber (7 grams). I do put sugar on it, but I figure it's better to eat it with some sugar than not eat it at all.

In the freezer I found, along with all the frozen meat I'll have to figure out what to do with, a bag of shelled walnuts and some single-serving bags of sweet peas. Here's the breakdown for those:

Diamond Shelled Walnuts = 5 grams per 1/4 cup serving
Birds Eye Steamfresh Singles - Sweet Peas: 5 grams per bag

That's pretty good. Buy more peas. Nuts are a little fatty (20 grams), but it's good fat, right? We're supposed to have more good fat than bad fat, aren't we?

I also found some Umpqua vanilla ice cream in there but sadly, the package had been manhandled to the point that the protein gram statistics were no longer visible. It's probably just as well.

Moving on to the refrigerator:

Small curd lowfat cottage cheese (2% milkfat): 14 grams per 1/2 cup. YOW!
Whole dill pickles: NO protein. But at least they're also fat, sugar, carb and calorie free. What are they good for? Putting on your peanut butter sandwiches. You heard it here, girls.
Applesauce: No protein.
Gold-n-Soft spread: No protein there either.
1% lowfat milk: 11 grams per 1 cup
Large eggs: 6 grams per egg, but they provide 71% of your daily cholesterol limit, so I'll probably eat one a day, if that.

Looks like we're sticking with dairy. Now that I've gone veggie, I find myself craving lots of milk.

This post is long enough (some might say "too long") so we'll save my cupboards for another time.

Thanks for humoring me during my protein search. Happy Eating!

A Lazy Woman's Strategy for Feeding The Part-Vegetarian Family

Yes, I was once vegetarian too; now I am only half the days of the week. However, one of my daughters is a full-time vegetarian.

And once I flipped through food magazines and great cookbooks and made beautiful meals. I still love the family dinner, but I don't love the planning and creating time anymore. I'm all about dinner on the table at 6:00 night after night after night, so someone can help with the dishes and everyone can do their homework. Perhaps after a few years of rest I'll be interested in cooking again--right now we just need to eat.

Despite my avowed non-interest in preparing food, I've managed to get a lot of split dinners on the table for the last three years. My daughter went veggie at age 11 (ovo-lacto). I had been telling her to wait until she goes to college to become vegetarian, like her father and I did, but once she was taller than me the "stunt your growth" lie wasn't very effective. Though it was typical for us to happily have two or more vegetarian dinners a week, the entire family didn't want to be pulled into meatlessness because of one preteen. Hence the split meals: dinners that have a vegetarian and meat version at the same table.

For example, after church today we had pulao rice (a sort of saffron rice) [rice recipe] in the rice cooker, with an approximately indian tomato curry garnished with hard-boiled eggs [tomato curry recipe], and some rewarmed chicken leftovers. Served with some green salad and carrot sticks, each person in the family made his or her own plate, though I do expect the younger ones to have a taste of everything. And that simple meal, with pretensions to ethnicity, is considered a fancy one in my current reign of culinary laziness.

Here are some other split meals. I'm sure you've already done some of these, and I'd love to hear what other ones you've done that I haven't thought of.

Tacos--tacos are a natural meal for the vegetarian/meat loving family. Put out the beans and meat in separate bowls, along with the bowls for cheese, lettuce, and salsa, and let everyone assemble their own. imo, watermelon is always a good accompaniment to tacos.

Spaghetti--we went through a phase where one kid wanted spaghetti every night. Once a week is really over my limit. I bought frozen meatballs and cooked a few each time to supplement the meat-eaters, and provided scrambled eggs for the vegetarians. Hey, scrambled eggs with marinara sauce is really good. A couple times I was caught skipping the pasta. I love it with green beans and a green salad. Isn't it almost blue lake season?

Chili Dogs. I've got to have them every month or two. I don't make my chili--remember I'm lazy--I just keep a few commercially canned cans of vegetarian chili in the pantry. The young meat-hungry purist child wants a dog and a bun and wouldn't allow even ketchup--the vegetarian happily fills her bun with chili and tops it with cheese. I'm somewhere in the middle, with chopped onion and pickle relish.

Stir-fry. Remember how in all the recipes have you cook the meat, set it aside, stir fry the vegetables, and then return the meat to the pan? Stir fry for a split family means the meat and vegetables each get their own pan, then maybe a small third pan for a little stir-fried egg or tofu. I love it when I can splurge on commercial vegetarian spring rolls or pot stickers as a side, or follow up with family-pleasing fortune cookies from a box.

Pumpkin pancakes. I love pumpkin pancakes. The easiest way is with a whole-wheat pancake mix--you just make it as usual and throw in a couple spoonfuls of canned cooked pumpkin and a dash of cinnamon. Fancier ways are to make the pancakes from scratch, and to throw in mashed winter squash leftover from dinner two nights before. I like to microwave a couple frozen sausage patties to serve with the pancakes. It helps throw off the non-vegetarians who are keeping score.

Hawaiian haystacks, a nostalgic delight. I did something with cream of mushroom soup and curry powder as the sauce, and offered the cooked chicken separately. No one but you will realize, it's just another form of taco bar.

Vegetarian Soups of all sorts, serve with baked chicken or pork chop--from today or from leftovers--as an optional side. They say the meat-eaters only need a serving the size of a deck of cards anyway, and they don't mean an Uno deck. Add some whole wheat rolls and milk (we're not vegan) and we're all covered.

And finally, keep some gardenburgers in the freezer. For those days when someone just has to have broiled red snapper, or aunt lucy's casserole spam delight.

Vegetable Stock

You can buy vegetable broth to replace chicken or beef broth in your recipes, but since I'm cheap, I will probably make my own. Allrecipes.com has an excellent vegetable stock tutorial.

If it looks too complicated, you're basically throwing chopped veggies in a pot and boiling them in water, then straining the broth and freezing it for future use. This can be used as a base for soups or main dishes. The nice thing about making it yourself is you can flavor it the way you like it.

I love Honeybaked Ham's split pea soup, so one day when I was feeling all food-storagey, I bought a package of split peas without having the slightest idea of how to make the soup. They've been in my cupboard for a while, waiting for me to go buy ham hocks - what are ham hocks? - or a bone-in ham (my recipe called for ham hocks or a meaty ham bone). Now that I'm going meatless, I'm going to try it without the ham. Since the recipe also calls for chicken broth, I'm going to try the veggie broth instead and let you know how it goes.

Has anyone else done this?

The Lone Veggie

"Meat, and the world meats with you. Veg, and you veg alone."

More than one bloggy sister has mentioned that she's thought about becoming a vegetarian, or cutting out most meat, but hasn't because her husband or family won't. What to do?

Try it by yourself first.

To some people, going veggie seems to be a black-or-white, all-or-nothing, cut-all-ties-with-normal-life proposition. The new vegetarian must throw out beloved family recipes and buy cookbooks with weird ingredients and shop at gross-smelling health food stores and learn to cook new foods (or learn to cook, period) and force-feed her children and start obsessing over tofu and TVP and EVOO, and buy robes and oils and get new veggie friends. I'm here to tell you that I am way too lazy and cheap to take on anything like this.

The trick, as with anything else in life, is to stop worrying and start doing.

The other trick, as with genealogy (you like how I snuck that in there?), is to start with yourself.

For me, it started at the drive-through. It was a busy Wednesday night - Cub Scouts, soccer, Mutual - and we ran to KFC for a quick dinner. From my son Brennan's example, I knew that if I really looked at the drive-through menu, I could find plenty of veggie-friendly food: cole slaw, baked beans, mac & cheese, corn on the cob, biscuits, and my personal favorite, mashed potatoes and gravy. Lots of choices there, all of which would make me happy and full without involving meat (is it actually possible?). I had the potatoes and the cole slaw and enjoyed them. It was weird and new, but I loved how I felt afterward.

The rest of my family had chicken meals, and while I did ogle those lovely golden nuggets of chickeny joy once or twice, my lack-of-chicken status didn't make me feel deprived. Avoiding meat from this day forward was my choice, and I knew why I made it. It's important to know the "whys" of your decision. Otherwise, sticking to your plan will seem silly when faced with tempation. "Now, WHY am I not eating bacon again?"

If you've decided that going veggie is your course, take it one small step at a time. Buy a new veggie cookbook, research vegetarianism and nutrition online, read that nasty but very effective article Elizabeth-W posted about mad cow disease, stock your kitchen with more fruit and vegetables, check food labels for protein grams (you'll need to know how much you're getting from non-meat foods), hard-boil some eggs... many, many ways to start. Cut out the meat a little at a time, or jump in and go for it all at once - but give yourself room for messing up.

A word of caution: If you're going to go veggie alone, it's best to do it sweetly and peacefully. The goal is to keep your husband happy enough that maybe someday, he'll want to try your new lifestyle with you. Believe that as much crap as you give your husband about his meat-eating, it will come back to you in dump truck loads. When you're on a date with your sweet darling spouse and he orders a wonderful meaty entree, make no snide remarks. Give no raunchy statistics about "what's probably in that burger." Accept his freedom to choose, and be sweet about it.