Four days this week I went meatless. I prepared vegetarian meals. That is right, the four days. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. I knew that whatever I made had to taste good. I figured as long as it tasted good, I could eat it and maybe just maybe not miss the meat. I did this because one of my co-workers is vegetarian and it was my turn to make meals for the group. I thought it would be fun to broaden my horizons and culinary expertise to do this. Plus I am certain there are many health benefits gained by doing this. Maybe a week isn’t long enough to reap them, but it is a start.
Day #3
Lunch was a black and white bean quinoa salad. Yes, apparently I was on a black bean kick this week. I love quinoa. I omitted the cucumbers, onion, jalapeño (because I did not have one), and used cannellini beans instead of navy. I tossed it with my honey vinaigrette (this was the last of my honey. I made this salad before the farro one). This was light and refreshing. I served this salad with a side of watermelon because I did not think it would be filling enough. I was wrong, it was filling. But the watermelon did not go to waste.
Dinner was cheese tortellini with tomato sauce. I used veggie crumbles instead of ground meat. This tast
ed just like my usual pasta tomato sauce dishes, so there was no surprise with this one. I thought I took a picture, but I did not. So the picture posted is not my actual dish, but it looks just like it. I used frozen cheese tortellini and a tomato
sauce with garlic and basil. The veggie crumbles were not seasoned. When using crumbles beware that many are high in sodium. I am relatively new to the meatfree table so I have not actively searched for a low or lower sodium brand. Plus since my sauce was highly seasoned I really did not notice that I wasn’t eating meat. Shredded parmesan cheese would be a nice touch-real cheese not the baby powder stuff in the green can.
