I wanna be a better vegetarian ...

Cmandy67

Just replace the meat with tofu in meals you used to love...

Not just tofu!

They also have amazing selections /w brands such as Quorn, Boca, Morningstar, and others. They can subsitute anything you can think of. This week I have some meatless sausage, chicken strips, and crumbles to replace ground chuck. These all go right into meals that are meant for meat but are still vegetarian friendly!

What is Quorn, Boca and Morningstar?

Cmandy67

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Especially like the vegetarian times, a great resource.

Cmandy67

My girlfriend cooks lentils sometimes in the rice cooker, if just as a side, and it comes out great, for being so incredibly simple.

If you have Netflix, check out "Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 Diet" Rip shows off a bunch of good recipes, including a great lasagna. The movie is worth your time just for the lasagna recipe.

I would use a crock pot ... but never tried lentils yet. I make chickpeas, from the bag dried, in the crackpot adding a ton of water ... and cooking them till tender. I freeze portions in resealable bags and store for convenience. I am opposed to using canned food but still keep a can or two on had in emergencies. I will try to find the website that tells you how to do beans in the slow cooker.

Cmandy67

http://crockpot365.blogspot.ca/2008/10/cooking-dried-beans-in-crockpot.html

happyfrogg

I am not vegetarian but my best friend from college is; living with her, I learned to cook a lot of different vegetarian dishes, and I still try to cook vegetarian at least once or twice a week.

My favorite lentil recipe: http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/curried-lentil-soup
(I use one sweet potato and one russet potato, otherwise I follow the recipe exactly and it is DELICIOUS.)

Other vegetarian ideas: meatless lasagna (just layer boiled noodles, jarred sauce, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, repeat); sesame tofu stir fry; frittata, quiche, and omelettes; tacos / burritos made with black and/or red beans, corn, peas, taco seasoning, onion, bell pepper, garlic, topped with avocado, salsa, cheese, etc; pasta w/ tomato sauce, cream sauce and veggies, or tossed w/ olive oil, parmesan, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil; stir-fry rice noodles, tofu, veggies and peanut sauce; make pizza using pita bread as the crust (or make your own dough) and top with whatever you want (spinach, sweet potato, caramelized onions, and feta sounds good); quinoa salads (just go to foodgawker and search "quinoa"); black bean and quinoa burgers (google it!).

verapamil

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What is Quorn, Boca and Morningstar?
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They are all yummy meat replacements. Quorn is made of mycoprotein (which is some sort of mushroom protein). I think it is the yummiest, it's slightly sweeter to me but made with eggs so I try not to eat it as much (I wanna be a vegan eventually). They have different chik'n patties (with and without bredding), nuggets and turk'y patties. Boca and morningstar are made of soy (I think) and have vegan and non vegan burgers, chik'n nuggets, chik'n patties, crumbles (like ground beef) and other bacon-sausage stuff that I'm not that familiar with since I've never liked bacon or sausage, even the veggie stuff.
Gardein is good too. It's made out of pea protein. To me it tastes the most like meat...but then again I haven't eaten meat in 15 years :laugh: The "beef tips" remind me too much of meat that I won't eat them.

Good luck being a better vegetarian! I need to work on my cooking skills more too and am glad you posted this. :happy:

Nickiii_123

Bump!

I know someone already mentioned fatfreevegan.com but I just want to say that I have used her recipes many times and love them! She includes nutritional information for most of her recipes so it makes things easy.

http://www.theglutenfreevegan.com is a good site too. Shes from Canada so it might be a good site for any Canadian vegetarians on mfp as far as stores and ingredients that she uses. I'm from the states and I haven't had any problem finding subs when needed though.

anthonyfoote

I can't believe this many post and no one has mentioned TVP or Textured Vegetable Protein. This stuff has saved me many time when making meals to pack for work. It is made from defatted soy flour and comes in dried little chunks. Kinda looks like those bacon bits but not red. In fact bacon bits are made from it (and some bacon bit brands are actually vegan too). When you make it you rehydrate it with about equal parts of liquid. You can use water and add some flavor to it and it will change the flavor of it as well. I really like to use it for bbq sandwiches, taco meat, chili, or spagetti sauce. it is delicious this way and a quarter cup dry is 80 calories, 7g carbs, 0g fat, and 12g protein.

Another resource to check into is seiten which is a wheat based protein that you can buy or even make yourself. VeganDad makes some sausages from it that are amazing. Here is the link

http://vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/03/homemade-sausages.html

InnerFatGirl

This is my current fave;

Quorn or a good meat sub.
Pasta sauce. Can make your own if you want.
Quinoa, bulgar wheat or wholewheat pasta/spaghetti
Green, red or brown lentils.
Mozarella.

These are the meals I have created with it. Pretty much all the same, but so darned delicious, quick and easy to cook, and full of protein and other goodies. And because I simmer the Quorn in the sauce with the mozarella, it gets perfectly soft and stringy, but not melty. Yum.

This was today;



The other day;





Green lentils. quinoa and quorn





This is with red lentils;





Be creative

Squidgeypaws007

some great resources here, just bumping so I have them saved! My experiments are "usually" edible