Cutting back on animals
June 30th, 2009 | by TJ |So, last week, Phil and I decided that we were going to eat completely vegetarian for a week.
There weren’t any normal vegetarian reasons behind it – we both like eating meat. However, as the person who does most of the cooking and list making for grocery shopping, I decided that I want to reduce our reliance on boxed/canned/frozen meals. Since we were going to be buying a lot more fresh food, I decided we’d also do vegetarian for a week because I want to cut back on the frequency and amount of meat we eat overall. The vegetarian week wasn’t a preparation for overall vegetarianism, but I wanted to see if we could come up with enough meals that weren’t so conspicuously vegetarian that we felt very aware of the fact that we weren’t eating meat. A solid week of eating no meat at all would force me to come up with more than just salads, and require some creativity, as I do not eat imitation meat products. There’s nothing wrong with them, I’m just not a fan.
The first thing that we noticed was that, when doing the shopping, the weekly grocery bill wasn’t significantly higher than it is when we buy our normal types of food. Since I had always assumed that buying fresh food was more expensive, I was pretty pleasantly surprised. The majority of the items in the cart were from the produce section, with a few frozen items like snow peas and edamame, a few general ingredient type things that obviously last for more than one meal, and some snacks and such. Fresh food can be more expensive when you have a habit of letting it go bad in the fridge, which we had in the past, but our grocery shopping is largely planned around a meal plan for the week, so nothing has really gone bad.
Secondly, the recipes we used were largely a success as well.
On Sunday, I did a normal stir fry with rice. We have my rice maker, we had sushi rice in the fridge and I brought my sushi vinegar carefully from Maryland when Phil told me months ago that he wasn’t really sure of the closest Asian market. It was an easy recipe with fresh ginger and just a ton of vegetables, and aside from making the actual sauce, I didn’t really follow the recipe. I mean… it’s vegetables. That one was nothing remarkable, but it was good, and next time I might cook it a little longer for squishier vegetables. Also, I made rice balls out of the leftover rice, and the grocery store on base – I’m sorry, the cooooooommissary – only had nori flavored furikake. Phil liked it, but we’re going to have to get some other flavors as well.
On Monday, I made this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. It was so easy, I actually got it right. After months of eating “almost right,” “only slightly fucked up,” and “hey, it’s edible, isn’t it?” renditions of recipes, I actually didn’t mess it up. And it was so good. Oh my god, Internet. It is so good. The only reason that this took as long as it did was because I took the time to cut up all the cucumbers, green peppers, celery, and carrots that we had bought so we could put them in salads throughout the rest of the week. Otherwise, it was an absolute breeze. It was so easy, but so good, that it will probably be the recipe I’ll use if I need to make food for other people or take food anywhere. After we make some friends. Which we might, some day.
Tuesday was another Pioneer Woman recipe and it wasn’t new to us. We’ve made these sandwiches several times and seriously love them. We must eat them at least once every two weeks or so, and will continue to, vegetarian or not. They’re a little tricksy and I have yet to turn out two perfect sandwiches, but I’m getting closer. We only burned one side of Phil’s sandwich this week. That is another one that you must try if you haven’t yet.
Wednesday was a flat out disaster that I don’t even really want to talk about. It was something I made successfully for myself in the past, Phil hated it but ate it anyway which just made me mad, I put my thumb through an egg, broke the yolk of another egg and burned myself. I couldn’t be spoken to for about 20 minutes and then Phil made me a peanut butter and jelly.
Thursday we had baked potatoes and salad, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but we’ve been using these Sargento potato finishers, which really make them pretty filling. I also usually pick pretty large potatoes as well, and we had big salads. They were definitely lacking something without using the included bacon, though, so we’ll be glad to have that back.
Friday we had our normal frozen pizza, which is our habit.
We decided to continue through Saturday just to make a full week of it, so I made us a whole bunch of scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast/lunch-ish. I made Phil his first EVER peanut butter and banana sandwich for a snack at one point. Seriously, he had never had one. Insanity. Then, for some reason Saturday evening, I decided I was going to bake bread. BREAD. From SCRATCH. And it actually worked, imagine that. It was delicious, and it’s mostly gone. I used this recipe, and we’re planning on trying a couple of different kinds in the future, though we also plan on getting a breadmaker at some point, though the whole world claims we’ll use it once and then never again.
Sunday, of course, we ate a metric asston of bread and decided it was finally time for meat, so we went to Outback.
Ok, it was delicious while we were eating it, but once we were home, we were some seriously unhappy campers. We were both sluggish and uncomfortable and unhappy.
While we still really LIKE meat and will continue to eat it, we learned a few things this week. One, it’s not significanly more expensive to eat fresh food as compared to our normal boxed/frozen/mix type food. Even if not all vegetarian, we’re definitely going to move more away from pre-prepared stuff. Two, there are plenty of good non-meat options available. One failure meal out of 7 is better than my usual weekly record, even. Three, it’s clear that while we don’t want to eliminate meat completely, we’re definitely going to cut back on the frequency of meat eating, as well as cutting back the amount of meat we eat on the days we do have it.
One week’s worth of recipes is not enough, however, especially considering one was a hopeless failure and one was us stuffing hot bread into our mouths. I especially need to find more side dishes than just rice or steamed vegetables, not that there is anything wrong with either of them, but with cutting down the amount of meat we will eat, we will need more filling side dishes as well.
So, Internet, whether you are vegetarian or not, I am certain you have some recipes and ideas that we can make use of in the future. I would greatly appreciate your input on the matter of cutting back not only on meat, but on our reliance on convenience foods as well. Recipes, vegetable-picking tips, and ideas with regard to replacing our taquito habit would be greatly appreciated.
Also, I seriously suggest you try the recipes I linked above, if I can make them taste good, I am sure you will be successful.
By Steve on Jun 30, 2009
The pasta and sammich recipes look fantastic, two that I’m gonna have to save for a rainy day. Thanks TJ!
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By Brett on Jun 30, 2009
this is for 1 person you may have to google name’s cause they may be different in the USA
1/2 good sized onion- finely diced
1/2 zucchini- diced
1/2 capsicum- diced
1 roma tomato – diced
1 chicken breast- diced
1/2 cup of tomato base pasta sauce
1 table spoon of good olive oil
basically heat the oil in a pan, throw in the onion till brown then throw in the chicken till almost cooked, then throw in all the other ingredients except the diced tomato cook on a low heat till the veggies are warmed threw then take of heat and throw in the tomato stir threw and serve- easy as!!
if you need any clarafication just ask:)
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By Andris on Jun 30, 2009
I’ve been making this tomato-fennel pasta for my wife for the past couple months — we get the fennel in our weekly CSA box, and she takes it in for lunches over the next several days, and maybe has it for breakfast or dinner, too. It’s really good.
1 Fennel bulb – chop off the stem-like parts, then cut the bulb into thin vertical slices, discarding the hard inside part — it should look a bit like half-slices of onion, but shaped funny.
4-ish Roma tomatoes, cut in 8ths
4-ish cloves garlic, minced
2T olive oil
1T balsamic vinegar
1t oregano
2T pine nuts, toasted
2T capers
1/2 bunch fresh basil, torn or sliced
Heat the oven to 400. Mix the fennel, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, oregano and salt and pepper, and spread on a baking sheet. (I use parchment paper under the sheet to limit the mess.) Roast for 40 minutes, stirring once or twice.
While the vegetables are roasting, cook some pasta — orichette works well, but there are probably a lot of other good ones, too. This recipe uses somewhere between 8-12oz of dry pasta, so there will be some left in a one pound container.
When the vegetables are done, they’ll all be soft and lightly browned, and smelling really good. Mix them with the pine nuts, capers, basil, and cooked pasta, and serve.
(Adapted from “eat, drink & be vegan” by Dreena Burton.)
Another great cookbook is “Perfect Vegetables” by the good folks at Cook’s Illustrated — it’s a compilation of recipes from various issues, and they actually test the recipes by making them 5 or 6 different ways, and then suggest the best way to make e.g. mashed potatoes or sauteed chard. This book was especially great when we were participating in a CSA program that didn’t give us much choice in vegetables — we found great recipes for both beets in a delicate wine reduction and roasted turnips when that was what happened to be in season.
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By Werner from easyrecipesvegetarian.com on Jun 30, 2009
Vegetable kabobs are wonderful when you are looking for quick and easy vegetarian recipes. One option is to chop up different fruits and vegetables, like bell peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and pineapple, brush with a marinade of teriyaki sauce, and grill over a pan on the stove or on top of some aluminum foil spread over your grill. Once the vegetables are cooked through, serve them on a plate of rice. Even better, if you don’t feel like cutting up all of the vegetables, a lot of grocery stores now are actually selling pre-cut vegetables that are ideal for making your own vegetable kabobs.
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By Brien on Jun 30, 2009
What kind of frozen pizza do you eat? I consider myself a bit of a frozen pizza connoisseur. I really like the Freschetta ones, and the generic Food Lion pizzas are actually pretty good. The best I’ve ever had was a kind they used to carry at Costco, but I don’t remember what it was called.
I put a pizza stone in the oven while it’s preheating and unpack the pizza onto a piece of aluminum foil. When the oven’s preheated, I slide the pizza and foil onto the stone (the foil means you don’t have to clean the stone).
I’m glad someone else eats frozen pizza as much as I do :)
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By james on Jun 30, 2009
How can phil have never had a peanut butter and banana sandwich!! the mind boggles…
hint: toast the bread and spread with butter before applying the main ingredients.
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By Mike on Jun 30, 2009
Easy tip on the sandwiches to not burn them: finish them in the oven. Use a higher heat on the stove top and flip them quickly, and then put them on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven…easy way to not burn the heck out of the bread.
I also suggest for two good and easy veggie recipes
Pasta Primavera
(just look up a few on allrecipes.com and pick one that looks good…sautee veggies and add pasta…not much to it
Veggie fajitas
You can cheat and use the big can of taco seasoning mixed with some oil on the veggies, or
soy sauce
olive oil
worcester sauce
salt
garlic
in a big plastic bag in whatever mix your taste prefers (mostly the first two, a splash of the 3rd, and the 4th and 5th to taste) I could give arbitrary amounts here, but you want enough liquid to cover all of your veggies when they are cut.
cut up peppers, onions, mushrooms and whatever veggies you like and toss them in the bag. toss the bag in the fridge for a bit.
you can either grill them over medium heat (preferred way personally) or do them in a big cookie sheet under the broiler. about 2-5 minutes per side on the veggies depending on what “medium” and “broil” mean to your grill and oven.
Once they are done:
slather butter onto one side of a tortilla
put the tortilla butter side down on a pan on whatever setting you do your sandwiches on (pan should already be hot)
load with veggies and spicy cheese of your choice (since you like them diced green chiles)
butter up another tortilla and place it butter side up on top.
flip when the bottom is brown…only takes a few minutes. And if you do this while the veggies are still hot you won’t have to worry as much about melting the cheese without burning the bread…the center will already be warm and help you out there.
And you should make your own pasta. If you can make bread you can make pasta, and it tastes way better than what comes in a box.
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By Vronak on Jun 30, 2009
Along the lines of frozen pizza… if you can make bread, you could make your own pizza dough. And maybe sauce. And use up some of those pre-chopped veggies at the end of the week :p
(No, I don’t have a recipe, that’s what the internet is for!)
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By burttrub on Jun 30, 2009
At Brien: Home Run Inn pizza is the best frozen pizza, without question. Its the only kind we eat (we are from New York and Chicago). Its incredibly hard to find in most parts of the country.
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By Three of IV on Jun 30, 2009
That pasta dish looks great. I think I am going to try it next week after we go grocery shopping. I like the idea about grocery shopping while planning for the week ahead, seems far more efficient.
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By Awlbiste on Jun 30, 2009
I cannot help because I hate to cook. I don’t really eat a ton of meat though, not by choice there’s just not a lot of meat I like eating, when I do it’s 80% chicken.
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By Chaninn on Jun 30, 2009
I’d suggest going to this website:
http://food.alltop.com/
LOTS of recipes and food discussions. Some of the recipes are amazing!
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By Stephanie on Jun 30, 2009
I’ve been a vegetarian for around 20 years now, but have only relatively recently stopped relying on meat substitutes and processed foods.
Anyway, I started a second blog to help myself remember all the recipes I tried and it’s here: http://veggiebeans.blogspot.com/
I’ve enjoyed almost everything I’ve made and I’m about to update it too after a cooking day last week.
Anyway, excellent blog, I’ve no idea how I stumbled across you, but it’s great :)
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By TJ on Jun 30, 2009
@Brien: For Friday dinners, we have California Pizza Kitchen Pizza, which I only bought extremely rarely back in MD due to the highway robbery prices, but they’re actually quite reasonable when purchased on base. As for frozen pizza in general, we have a stock pile of my long time personal favorite for my lunches: Mama Celeste Pizza for One.
@Three of IV: Planning a menu before you go grocery shopping is the only way to shop. Even with doing that, we throw so much random crap into the cart. I’d hate to see what we’d come home with if I didn’t go in there with an actual plan of what we were eating. We’d probably have 6 blocks of the Tillamook cheese that Phil sneaks into the cart when I’m not looking, chicken fries, a box of frozen french toast and a magazine from the check out line that has Jon and/or Kate Gosselin on it. Definitely try planning out dinners for a week and buying only the ingredients for those, as well as what you need for breakfast and lunch.
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By Caroline on Jun 30, 2009
If you want more meatless meals, try looking for recipes with beans. When my boyfriend was laid off, we ate a LOT of beans–even the canned ones are much cheaper than meat.
Here are some easy meals that both my boyfriend and I like:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Texas-Black-Bean-Soup/Detail.aspx (it’s awesome, because you throw everything in a slow cooker/on the stove and let it sit and then it’s done–I do it before work, and it’s like magic!)
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-Ziti-II/Detail.aspx (this almost made my boyfriend’s mom like me)
And a non-vegetarian dish:
Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken:
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 package of taco seasoning
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup salsa
Put the chicken breasts in a slow cooker (even if they’re frozen). Sprinkle the taco seasoning on top. Dump the soup and salsa on top. Cook on high for 4 (ish) hours or low all day.
This is another magic dish–it takes me 5 minutes in the morning before work, and then there’s food when I get home!
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By Elleiras on Jun 30, 2009
I don’t know if you’ve found it yet, but there’s a huge Asian market (the size of any ‘normal’ grocery store, with every Asian country you can think of represented with its own department!) called Lee Lee’s in Mesa, in the vicinity of Dobson & Warner.
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By Kat on Jun 30, 2009
Make your own furikake! http://justbento.com/
Also, I cannot recommend the Veganomicon cookbook enough. It does have some fake meat stuff in it – but it’s got a huge amount of other things as well. I have yet to run into a failed recipe for C and I.
Especially try the potato and spinach enchiladas. omg so good.
Another good thing to do is make your own pasta sauce. We make about a batch a week and use it for pasta – and recently pizza, but it might need to be thicker for that.
1 can fire-roasted tomatoes
1 tiny can tomato sauce
balsamic vinegar, basil, oregano, bay leaves, thyme, crushed red pepper (we like the spicy), cinnamon (just a tiny tiny bit), sugar if you like a sweet sauce
Let simmer until you can’t stand it anymore
Serve over whole grain pasta of whichever shape you prefer
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By HokieJayBee on Jun 30, 2009
i, of consuming as much meat as humanly possible at every instance, can try and shed some light on the situation at hand. first off, no orientation jokes please, i mean eating meat in the purely consumable fashion that TJ speaks of, for caloric intake only.
i travel for work, sporadically in the sense that it’s 3 or less times a year, but it’s for a ~month or two~ when i do. eating what you can make from the storage available to a hotel fridge and hot plate drastically changes one’s creativity. even a devoted flesh eater can only eat drive through KFC or microwave hot dogs so often.
this, combined with a wife that, as per you and Phil, “likes meat, but maybe not all day every day and could cut back some” – makes meat/non-meat recipes a fancy of ours.
so, my advice, try and find some recipes that you like, that are good, with or without the meat added. like the pioneerwoman pasta. that would be great with some sliced sausage thrown in too. so it’s a great recipe you can use whether you’re in a meaty mood or not.
your sushi/rice/stir-fry night is a great one too, whether or not you add the store-pack of sweet ebi or not. these could be good for nights when say you’re not feeling like the possible onset of post-outback steakhouse syndrome, but Phil is. for me and the misses, it’s about not having to prepare two distinct meals.
other recipes we like to make:
*pasta salad. cook rotini. cool it. mix with halved cherry/grape tomatoes, diced celery and cucumbers. douse it in italian dressing. add diced grilled chicken breast or not.
*fruity/nutty spinach salad. buy a pack of fresh spinach. add cashews and raspberries to your heart’s content. douse it in a sweet vinagrette. add diced grilled chicken breast or not.
*kabobs. as someone else mentioned. grilled kabobs are perfect for us to have a meaty meal [me] and a non-meaty meal [the better half] in the same prep time/set-up.
for those counting: yes, my first post on TJ’s site contains, “meat”, “sausage”, and “breast”.
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By Xian on Jun 30, 2009
If Phil liked the peanut butter and banana sammich..
If you are ever camping pick up a pie iron..( http://www.pieiron.com/what.htm for those who don’t know what that is.
Toasted peanut butter and banana or grilled cheese done this way are pretty epic
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By TheWicked on Jun 30, 2009
If you like PB and Banana sammiches you gotta try adding some marshmallow fluff to them. Not a lot of marshmallow fluff just a little. It gives them just a little bit of extra sweetness that takes the sammich from superior to epic.
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By KT on Jun 30, 2009
Baking bread is great. I love baking my own bread and I’ve never even considered getting a bread machine. It’s easy enough to do on your own (a lot of the time is just letting it rise and then baking it so you get to take lots of breaks!)
One idea for finding interesting side dishes is to just look in the cooking magazines when you’re at the store for ideas. Most of them have an index where you can just look at the list of sides for ideas. If you really want to be a cheater, for some of them you can look up the ones you like on Epicurious without getting the magazine. :P
Also, if you do want to invest in a cooking magazine, Fine Cooking is one of my favorites. They are really focused on teaching how to cook, rather than just giving recipes and have lots of article on technique, what’s in season, and do things like give basic instructions for making a generic dish and then give lots of ideas for variations.
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By Xian on Jun 30, 2009
@awlbiste…”when I do it’s 80% chicken.”
what kind of freak chickens you got that are only 80% chicken… ;)
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By Kagedtiger on Jul 1, 2009
Here is my favorite veggie chili recipe! It’s really easy to do, although it takes a little time, mostly because it takes so long to cut up the veggies. But it’s totally worth it! (It also contains a fake meat product, but not really as a meat substitute, just to add texture and an interesting flavor. I recommend keeping it in the recipe, because it makes the chili nice and hearty.)
* Peel and cut into small pieces: 4 large carrots, 5 stalks celery, 1 green pepper
* Chop 2 large onions
* Chop/crush 4 cloves garlic
* Sautee onions in olive oil at the bottom of a large stewpot until they start to shrivel and become reddish-brown
* Add the garlic, continuing to sautee
* Add the following spices: 3 tsp chili powder, 3 tsp ground coriander, 2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp paprika
* Stir until onions are coated with spices
* Add 1 pack Morningstar brand Griller Recipe Crumbles (available in the frozen foods section)
* Sautee the crumbles until they are defrosted and coated in the onions and spices (add more oil to the sauteeing if necessary)
* Add carrots, sautee several minutes
* Add celery and peppers
* Sautee until veggies are coated in spice/oil/onion mixture
* Add 1 bottle beer (alcohol will boil off – the beer adds flavor)
* Add water (roughly 1 cup, with optional tbspn of vegetable broth powder) until the ingredients are just sitting in the liquid (not completely submerged)
* Add tamari or soy sauce (or salt) until the broth has the salt taste level of a soup
* Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat, and then simmer with the pot covered for about 30 minutes (until the veggies, in particular the carrots, are soft) – add more water (with optional broth powder) as necessary to keep the liquid from boiling out (ingredients should always be just sitting in liquid, but never submerged)
* Drain and rinse 2 cans red kidney beans and 2 cans pinto beans
* Add beans to chili, stir into mixture
* Continue to heat until beans are warm
* Tamari/soy sauce or salt to taste
It may look a little complicated, but it’s really not, especially if you have all the ingredients ready ahead of time. You pretty much just sautee it all in the bottom of a stewpot, then add the liquids and let it simmer for a while, then add the beans in right before the end. It’s one of the best chilis I’ve ever had, and goes great over small pasta like ditalini or rotini, or over rice if that’s how you like your chili. You can also change the type and amount of chili powder if you want it to be spicier – this version is pretty mild. I hope you enjoy it, and good luck with your healthier eating! (Hoo ha! Nerdfighters!)
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By Furbsthebear on Jul 2, 2009
Portobello mushroom burgers!
If you can find a nice fat portobello mushroom, they work quite nice as a burger patty. We usually marinate em in Italian salad dressing for a few hours in the fridge, then fry em up in the pan til soft and delicous. Add whatever burger toppings your like. Avocado and cheese are favourites, just remember that the mushroom can be slippery, so burger construction is essential, otherwise its just messy. Cut up a yam into thin slices, cover em in olive oil and bake in the over at 350 for about 20 mins. Mushroom burger and Yam fries. YUM.
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