Vegetarian Meals Part 2 (Photo Heavy)

andresconejo

green lasanga



butternut squash and smoked gouda macaroni

AMazing meals and photos! I would like te recipe for these and if possible the nutritional info? pleasee

thanks!

pocketmole

andre - the green lasagna recipe is on my blog (goudamonster.com) and the butternut squash mac and cheese is... well, i don't really have a recipe for it right now. i made it months ago and don't remember exactly how i did it. i can tell you that i cooked and pureed butternut squash, then blended it with a bunch of fresh sage, salt and pepper and combined it with a smoked gouda cheese sauce that i whipped up on the stove. smoked cheese takes it above and beyond i think

i've been craving mediterranean food so tonight i decided to try and make baked falafel. they are made with chickpeas, fava beans, cilantro, parsley, lemon, cumin, pepper, wheat flour, and some other things i can't recall off the top of my head. i cut small cubes of feta cheese that i stuffed into each one, then pressed the balls into a preheated baking mold. i also made some makeshift tabouleh with quinoa, lemon, olive oil, mint, parsley, and tomato. the falafel balls are 75 calories each and crazy addicting. i meant to only have two but ended up eating twice that

pocketmole

A couple more pics! One is healthy and the other is umm... well, it's delicious

A reduced calorie lasagna (324 cals for 1/4 of the pan) at the request of my boyfriend. I alternated thinly sliced grilled squash with lasagna noodles so I needed less pasta. Made a vegetarian "meat" sauce for it. Turned out awesome.



My best friend's 30th birthday was yesterday and when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted he made a somewhat sarcastic response of "a chocolate cake covered in ganache with a creme brulee embedded in the middle". I decided to run with the idea and came up with these bad boys. It's a chocolate cupcake filled with dark chocolate ganache topped with a vanilla custard and salted caramel frosting, then garnished with caramelized sugar shards and spun sugar spirals. I haven't input the recipe into MFP yet but I estimate them to be around 45,268 calories a piece.

Steph_in_Mississippi

bump for inspiration. Beautiful pictures!

pocketmole

Unfortunately the place where I normally take my food pics was taken over by my boyfriend, so I've had to shoot several photos outside. Here are my last two dinners:

Baked portobello mushrooms stuffed with leftover vegetarian chicken enchilada filling on a farro salad:



Tofu and vegetable stir fry in a spicy peanut sauce:

crista_b

I love stir-fry, and that tofu and veggie one looks sooooooo good!

pocketmole

It was great and easy to make

Orange cherry polenta breakfast cake for a Sunday morning:



Bean and chipotle cheddar enchiladas with avocado (terrible pic - boo)

Mslmesq

Will you marry me?

inspirem

Love how yummy these looks...been looking for recipes to reduce the meat consumption in my home!

pocketmole

Will you marry me?

As long as you propose with a ring made of cheese. 8)

I made a salad that's a little different. It's a celery salad - super fresh and crunchy and satisfying to eat. It was easy to make as well. I ate it on the side of some veggie chicken fingers and a handful of cherry tomatoes. There is a honey mustard sauce for dipping, but that was for my boyfriend.

The salad is several stalks of celery, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice, about a tablespoon of lemon zest, a couple of tablespoons of chives, a quarter cup of chopped parsley, 1 cup of garlic parmesan roasted chickpeas, a handful of toasted walnuts (about 1/4 cup), and about an ounce of crumbled good parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Divided it between three of us.

EarthyEm

these look fabulous!

munkymoo

Wow your recipes are so inspiring! I've been veggie for 17 years and always fell into the trap of eating cheese topped carbs! Now I'm 30 and starting out on my MFP journey (after a failed first attempt a while back) I'm so happy I discovered your thread and blog. Thank you so much, though it has made me rather hungry! Lol :-)

missyahall2

bump

pocketmole

Thanks, all :]

I'm pretty excited because for my birthday my friend bought me a nice table and a storage unit for keeping my food photography stuff organized. Previously my setup was kind of a huge mess as I was just taking over the dining room table with all of my junk. Now I have a nice little station that's easier to shoot at and keeps my excess props in one place.

New area (and my cat Smudge):



I also went to the home improvement store and bought the materials to make another fake table top prop. I bought a plain board and then stained, painted, and beat it to make it look weathered. My first test shot with it as a background. Really pleased with the result.



And onto more food... this was just a snapshot near the window, nothing special, but I bought my boyfriend "big franks" for our anniversary (he's obsessed) and decided to make jalapeno cheese stuffed pigs in a blanket with them. Made a whole wheat flaky dough to wrap around it. They were pretty huge and not exactly low calorie ;P



Then on my birthday I wanted to try out my new table so I had to cook something. I ended up making mini pumpkin spice cakes with a cream cheese rum glaze. Even though I made them with whole wheat flour they were super soft and moist. About 90-95 calories each.

veggievixen79

bumping for inspiration!

FixIngMe13

Umm can you just like move in with me? I mean seriously, every single thing there looks TO DIE FOR!

I was seriously gonna ask her the same exact THING!!!! My kids would definitely eat healthy then! The presentation of each one is sooooooooo awesome!!!! I'm hungry now! lol

jenilla1

I would eat everything here except the quorn. It all looks so scrumptuous. Bring on those banana rum pancakes! :drinker:

GoRun2

bump vegetarian meals - yummy!!!

dazzer1975

You need to write down your recipes, publish it, then tell me where i can buy that book.

I am not even joking.

MrsFowler1069

This all looks fantastic! I would love any recipes you would like to add to the thread, but I understand what you mean about taking the time to do it. Thanks for sharing the ideas!

MrsFowler1069

You need to write down your recipes, publish it, then tell me where i can buy that book.

I am not even joking.

Not a bad idea!

christelberg

I'm in love with this sweet chill baked tofu! My friend Krystle has a blog where she puts up veggie recipes and I'm obsessed with this. Def could go easy on the sauce due to the high sugar.

http://www.vegucatedinvancouver.ca/2013/06/27/baked-sweet-thai-chili-tofu/

arewethereyet

Thanks:drinker:

Jettisson

Did I just die and go to veggie heaven???

plantgrrl

Veggie food porn you say?! Why thank you.

Angeloftheshore

I want to follow you! Seriously I have wanting to go the direction of vegetarian and your recipes look delicious!!

Kennedyjules84

This is amazing. I wish ALL of this were on your blog. Especially all the soups, casseroles, polentas, enchiladas, and other hot comfort food-like recipes...because recipes for those types of meals are sometimes hard to come by in the salad-y world of vegetarian cooking. It's also nice to find a food blog that contains recipes with calorie counts--very helpful for MFP people.

tm82001

Do you want to adopt me?? Yummy stuff!

pocketmole

Thanks, everyone! Seeing all of this positive feedback really inspires me to update my blog again. I tend to fall behind on it because I feel like nobody cares about my silly food, haha. Whenever I hear someone propose the idea of me releasing a cookbook it makes me feel like maybe I'm wrong, and that people really are interested.

Dinner a couple of nights ago - asparagus and green pea risotto - turned out amazing. Could be made vegan by swapping in olive oil for the butter and either omitting the parmesan or submitting a bit of nutritional yeast. Risotto doesn't get it's creaminess from the cheese and there is only 1/4 cup in the recipe - so leaving it out shouldn't have a big impact. I used 3 tablespoons of butter in this recipe, which is a little on the high side, but I think you could easily reduce it to one. Just cook the onions and rice in the butter and then steam or roast the veggies, and skip adding the extra tablespoon of butter at the end.

1/5 of the recipe was 395 calories. We ate it along side the caprese salad, but if you're not eating anything else a more filling dinner portion would probably be 1/4 of the recipe (494) calories.





Process: I cooked about 1/2 a small onion and 3 cloves of minced garlic in a tablespoon of butter then stirred in 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice. After a couple of minutes I added 1/4 cup of white wine and stirred until absorbed. This is the beginning of the process that most people hate about making risotto, but it's really not so bad. Add in 1/4 cup of warm, prepared vegetable stock every time the previous batch is absorbed into the rice. I would say I ended up using 4 cups of stock, but I had 6 cups on hand just in case. Stir often for ultra starchy goodness. In another pan I cooked about 2 cups of chopped asparagus in a little butter - not too soft, leaving it green with a little bit of crunch. I turned off the heat and added in 1 cup of frozen green peas - the residual warmth of the asparagus will thaw them and the chill of the peas will stop the asparagus from overcooking. It works out nicely. When the risotto is finished (taste for doneness, it will be creamy but still al dente) stir in a tablespoon of butter, 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, the cooked veggies, 1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley, 1/2 cup of toasted walnuts, a generous crackling of fresh black pepper, possibly some salt depending on the sodium level of your stock, and if you like (i do!) a bit of fresh grated nutmeg. Traditional risotto is usually a bit "soupier" than this, in which case you could always add a little more stock than I did - but the guys preferred eating it in this style.

gemdenham

You need to write down your recipes, publish it, then tell me where i can buy that book.

I am not even joking.

Agreed!