Veggie meals

[crasher]

I've not tried any of Linda McCartney's stuff- to be honest, veggie sausages always look a complete let down,

I can tell you Linda' veggie sausages are singularly toothsome. Love 'em. Go well chopped in a hearty veggie casserole for instance.

To the OP - don't forget you can do just about anything with pasta. For instance. chop up an aubergine, drizzle it with oil and roast it in the oven. Then throw it in with pasta, tomatoes maybe olives or capers and loads of herbs, pepper. Grate some veggie parmesan on the top.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Chicken dhansak, without the chicken.

Cutting out meat from you diet won't do anything to help lose weight.

Keep the chicken, cut out the toast, pizza and potatoes.

Chicken dhansak, without the dhansak.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Chicken dhansak, without the chicken.

With the new year arriving the wife has decided that we both need to lose some weight. An idea that we have talked about is to have 1 dinner each week where we don't consume any meat.

However after beans on toast, cheese & tomato pizza and Jacket potatoes i ran out of ideas for acceptable meat free meals for dinner. Do the wonderful people of NSC have any suggestions of meat free food we could add to our menu without resorting to Quorn or some other nasty meat substitute.

Thanks in advance

Eat sensibly and do some exercise and the weight will come off.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Ri...=1484859795&sr=8-1&keywords=river+cottage+veg

PS. The Linda Macartney range tastes dreadful

 

[moggy]

Cutting out meat from you diet won't do anything to help lose weight.

Keep the chicken, cut out the toast, pizza and potatoes.

Exactly
Cut out carbs and just eat protein for a month and no sugars anywhere

 

[BrightonCottager]

Hugh Fearnley Whiitingstall can be an irritating little Eton-educated t**t but he does some good veggie recipes like this pumpkin risotto: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pumpkinrisottowithcr_13723
He did a series with (of course) a spin-off recipe book which has some great recipes (https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/River-Cottage-Veg-Every-Day/1408812126). [edit - just noticed Cheshire Cat also recommended this]. Most of our meals are veggie and many vegan although I eat fish and my daughter and wife eat meat. I really don't miss meat at all and coould happily eat dhal every day. The chickpea is the prince of pulses. Try frying a sliced red onion with garlic, then a tin of chickpeas, then adding ground cumin and juice of half a lemon just before serving. Yum. We eat it twice a week.

 

[portlock seagull]

Maybe not, but it won't do him any harm, even if he went full veggie (which I don't think he's aiming for).

To the O/P:

I cook a cauliflower & chickpea curry regularly, which is WELL nice

Jesus, how do you stay grounded?! Nice idea in principle but...my god, the gas, the gas!

 

[dazzer6666]

Exactly
Cut out carbs and just eat protein for a month and no sugars anywhere

Yup. Keep your meat, but ditch potatoes, rice, bread, pasta and sugar. Boring but effective.

 

[Pantani]

I take exception to that. Stuff like shepherd's pie, chilli and spag bol are classics whether they use meat or a meat substitute.

As I've already said, we have plenty of meat substitute-less meals, but I love the ones where we lob Quorn in too.

If you are normally a meat eater you are going to be disappointed if you just make a normal meat based recipe and chuck quorn in. That seems pretty obvious to me. If a meat eater wants to cut out meat one day a week it is completely pointless replacing it with mushroom protein in meat shapes.

Some actual recipes that do not have meat, or pretend meat in and are super simple:

Blue Cheese and Spinach gnocci:

Wilt 250g spinach in a frying pan, melt 150g of dolcelatte in to the spinach, add 50 to 100ml of cream to this. Small squeeze of lemon, loads of pepper and a small grating of nutmeg. Add to cooked gnocci. Chuck in to a small baking dish bake until top is golden. Serve with bread, or a salad or both.


Brocolli Pasta:

Fry two cloves of minced garlic, some dried chilli and 50g of anchovies (leave anchovies out if you are a real veggie) gently until garlic is cooked as anchovies have disintegrated. Meanwhile boil 250g of farfalle, or oriechiette or some sort of flat ish pasta shape, halfway through cooking time chuck in a heads worth of brocolli florets cut quite small. Drain pasta and brocolli, mix with anchovie, garlic and chilli oil. Add a bunch of parmesan, or pecorino.

 

[Bozza]

If you are normally a meat eater you are going to be disappointed if you just make a normal meat based recipe and chuck quorn in. That seems pretty obvious to me. If a meat eater wants to cut out meat one day a week it is completely pointless replacing it with mushroom protein in meat shapes.

I agree wholeheartedly. But I wasn't saying that was I? I had already given a couple of suggestions for a 'meat free day'.

There, I was merely responding to this point "Veggie meals can be really good, and they can also be crap, especially those that literally substitute the meat for quorn or another meat substitute." which, as a full-time veggie of 25 years or so, I disagree with. Meat substitute meals are part of what we have, but certainly far from all we eat.

 

[OzMike]

You can make any Indian curry you like and substitute the meat with vegetables.
Potatoes, cauliflower, courgettes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms or even boiled eggs, the result is always good.
I do this several times a month,I used to go to Bombay Aloo when I lived there, everything was vegetarian and I had no complaints.
I find that Linda McCartney sausages taste just like the ones we used to have for school dinners at Moulsecoomb Secondary and they were nice.
Wasn't there a bit of a controversy about them having an amount of meat content not that long ago ?

 

[Wellesley]

I am around 96% vegetarian. I probably eat meat for less than one hour a day.

 

[knocky1]

I'm not a veggie, but cook plenty of stuff without meat. I've not tried any of Linda McCartney's stuff- to be honest, veggie sausages always look a complete let down, but I think it's a bit of a myth that vegetarians exist on Quorn and meat substitute products. The only Quorn product I've used is the mince, and it's all about what you flavour the dish with. It makes a perfectly decent chilli or spag bol, so long as you season and flavour it properly. As I previously mentioned with the cauliflower & chickpea curry, loads of Indian dishes, for example, are vegetable based. I've never found myself sitting there thinking "what this REALLY needs is lamb".

Each to their own, of course

Exactly most Indian meals are vegetarian, as it's a country with around 800 million vegetarians and vegans.
That cauliflower and chick pea is pure gunpowder and the wife never cooks it the night before her yoga classes.

 

[BBassic]

Sweet potato and asparagus Risotto is something my other half does and it is basically the best thing I've ever put in and around my mouth.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Exactly most Indian meals are vegetarian, as it's a country with around 800 million vegetarians and vegans.
That cauliflower and chick pea is pure gunpowder and the wife never cooks it the night before her yoga classes.

Really? I've never found it to be a particular issue

Agree with earlier posters though. Cauliflower is a cruelly underrated vegetable.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Thanks every one, well most of you, a good few meals to start with.

For what it's worth I don't think we need to lose any weight, as she likes to tell her friends I still wear the same clothes I did as a 15 year old.

Me too. I can still squeeze into this t-shirt.

 

[Wellesley]

Exactly most Indian meals are vegetarian, as it's a country with around 800 million vegetarians and vegans.
That cauliflower and chick pea is pure gunpowder and the wife never cooks it the night before her yoga classes.

Apparently, the Indians add 'Asafoetida' to help combat this problem. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know Asda stock it next to the ground chilli and herbs bit.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

If you want to lose weight avoid Linda McCartney products as they have a high proportion of fat.

Another vote for Quorn chicken pieces here. We use them in curries and they're delicious.