Vege recipes for meat-lovers
Medium
Bleepin’ Awesome Black Beans ‘n Rice
May 22nd
Ingredients:
- Large can of Black Beans (I suggest Bushes–they are usually vegetarian, but I always check just in case.)
- 1 Tomato thickly diced
- 1 White/Yellow Onion chopped
- 1 Green Pepper chopped (Green, but part of a Poblano will add some spice.)
- Corn off the cobb (if you like)
- Mexican Spice combo (or Chili Powder, Cumin, Salt and Pepper)
- Fresh Cilantro
Method:
- Saute the onions for a few minutes to soften onions
- Put beans in pot, with their juice
- Add tomato, corn, onions, peppers
- Add Mexican Spice–I use taco or chili seasoning. One packet of Taco or Chili seasoning is perfect–and super easy. If I don’t have this I used a mixture of chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper.
- Add Cilantro (finely chopped) after all other ingredients have been added.
- I cook the mixture on low to medium heat for about 10 to 20 minutes. If the heat is too high, the beans stick.
- It only take a few minutes, because the mixtures only need to heat through; the longer you cook, the more the flavors combine.
- I usually make rice to go with it. Most often I use Steam Fresh Frozen Rice because it can be heated quickly in the microwave.
- I top everything with fresh, smashed avocado, a little sour cream, and Mexican mix cheese.
- Plantains are nice with it too, if you like plantains.
- We like to bake some cut up tortillas in the oven (like chips) on 400 degrees for about 5-7 minutes for dipping.
- If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, or don’t want to buy them, Rotel Tomatoes and Chilies are great in the place of fresh tomatoes.
A Filling Vegetarian Breakfast (or Brinner)
Jan 24th
Ingredients
- Eggs
- Bread (for toasting)
- Morning Star Meatless Sausage Patties (the variety with Maple Syrup flavoring are awesome)
- Vegetarian Baked Beans
- Olive Oil
For home fries / potato scramble
- Small red rotatos
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 x Green Pepper
- 1 x Shallot
- Garlic salt (or other spices to your taste)
Method
You don’t really need to know how to make breakfast (we assume), so here’s the easiest parts:
- Start cooking your sausage patties first on the griddle, or in a pan with very little olive oil or non-stick spray. These will take the longest out of the simple ingredients.
- Cook your eggs any way you want them. We prefer fried Sunny Side Up (Nick’s Favorite) or fried Over Hard (Melody’s Favorite). This style goes much better with the other items on this breakfast plate.
- Vegetarian baked beans can be heated in the microwave fairly quickly…they only take about 3 minutes at the most.
- Don’t forget the toast.
Now for the potato scramble…
- Pre-heat the over to 400 degrees
- Cut up the potatos into small bite size pieces. If the red potatos are small already, you may be able to just quarter them.
- Dice the pepper and shallot, or at least cut into very small random pieces.
- You want the potatoes small enough so they won’t take too long to crisp up in the oven, and you want the peppers and shallot to cook very quickly in a frying pan.
- Dry the potato by placing onto a paper towel, and pressing as much of the moisture out as possible.
- Put the potatoes in a mixing bowl, and add enough olive oil to get all the pieces coated
- Then add the salt, pepper, garlic salt, and any other spices you want. You really can’t go wrong at this stage, but remember, you can always add some spice after cooking.
- Place the potatoes onto a baking sheet, and put into oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the pieces get crispy on the outsides. This will depend on how small the pieces are.
- While they are cooking, place the peppers and shallot into a frying pan with just a little olive oil or non-stick spray.
- Saute them until they are not quite caramelized, but this is your choice too. This will take about 10 minutes at the most, so start this step when the potatos are about half-way done.
- When the potatoes are done, remove from the oven, and place onto a plate (with the other breakfast elements that you’ve made).
- Add the peppers and onions to the potatos and mix around a little, making a nice scramble.
- Salt and pepper to taste, and you’re done.
Meatless Meatloaf
Jan 20th
Ingredients
- 1 large shallot
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 green pepper
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 x 12oz package of vege-crumble
- 1 x 12oz package of sausage-flavored crumble
- 2 eggs
- 4oz tomato sauce (with Basil, Oregano and Garlic for extra mmmmm)
- Ketchup
- 2 tbsp milk
- 3/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
- 1 x packet of meatload seasoning
- Non-stick baking spray
- 8″ x 4″ x 4″ baking pan (for making the loaf)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Dice the green pepper, shallot into tiny pieces
- In a small frying pan, saute the pepper, shallot with the butter on med/high heat until pieces are slightly browned
- At about 5 minutes into the sauteing, add the garlic powder, then cook for another 5 minutes (that should be enough time to brown the pieces)
- While the pepper and shallot are cooking, mix the vege-crumble and sausage crumble in a microwaveable-safe bowl. Heat this in the microwave for 4-6 minutes.
- Add two eggs to the crumble mixture with the tomato sauce and milk. Mix very well.
- Add the breadcrumbs to the mixture, and mix well again.
- Now add the sauteed vegetables, and meatloaf seasoning and mix throughout.
- Spray the baking pan with the non-stick spray, then pour/spread the mixture into the pan. It should fill almost to the top of a 8x4x4 pan.
- Smooth the top of the mixture…this will help make a crust on the top.
- Place into the oven for 20-25 minutes, depending on how crusty you like the top to be. You could always broil at the very end if you’re brave enough.
- Remove from the oven when you’re happy with it, cut into 1″ slices, add ketchup.
These meatloaf slices go really well on sandwich rolls, potato rolls, or just plain without bread. Salt and Pepper to taste as always…but this one is probably good without any extra seasonings.
Remember, experiment with the veges you add, the flavors you mix in, and you’ll be easily able to make this meatloaf your own.
Enjoy!
Wonton Salad with Faux Chicken Patties
Jan 2nd
Salad Ingredients
- 1 head shredded iceberg lettuce
- 2 stalks of chopped green onions
- 4 faux chicken patties
- ½ pkg. of wontons (just pick-up a bag of already cooked wontons from a Chinese Restaurant)
- ¼ cup toasted slivered almonds
Dressing Ingredients
- ¼ cup vegetable oil or olive oil
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. pepper
- 1 tsp. Accent seasoning
Method
- In frying pan, add all dressing ingredients.
- Heat on low-medium until all sugar is melted. When dressing is proper consistency, remove from heat. It should be room temperature when you add it to the top of the salad. Put in fridge to speed up process if you want. While it is cooling, you can do the rest of the recipe, which should time it just about right.
- Put chicken patties in oven (preferred) or microwave to cook according to directions on package. It’s best for these to be crispy for this salad, which is why the oven method is preferred.
- In big mixing bowl, add lettuce, onion and almonds. Mix well.
- Break up the wontons into manageable, bite size pieces, then add wontons to mixing bowl too. Mix well again.
- When chicken patties are cooked, cut them into long strips.
- If you’re serving the whole recipe, add the dressing to the mixing bowl, and mix well. If just making a small batch now, add salad to plate, drizzle dressing on top.
- Add chicken strips to top of salad.
- Eat!
Easy Cheezy Faux Cheeseburger Pizza
Jan 2nd
Ingredients
- Pizza Crust (pillsbury works well)
- 8oz (1 package) grated cheddar cheese
- 1 small onion (diced, sliced, chopped whatever you want)
- 1 package vege Crumble by Morning Star (or some version of soy burger crumble)
- 2 tsp sausage seasoning
- 1 packet McCormick’s Grill Mates Hamburger Seasoning (meatloaf seasoning can substitute if you can’t find the hamburger flavor)
- Sweet Barbeque Sauce (this will be your base, so enough to cover base of pizza crust)
- 2 tbsp Ketchup
- OPTIONAL: Bacos, Fake Bacon Bits, peppers (but dont put so much on that it takes away from the burger-like taste)
- OPTIONAL: left overs from sloppy no’s or faux meatloaf work well on this meal
Method
- Preheat oven to temperature for pizza dough to be cooked
- Take pizza dough, roll it out on cutting board with flour or corn meal to keep it from sticking
- Put burger crumble in microwave for a couple of minutes to defrost. You don’t want to cook it much at all, as this will happen in the oven. Just enough so that you can separate it and it is not frozen at all anymore.
- Combine ketchup, spices and burger crumble, then microwave for 1 minute.
- Put as much BBQ sauce as you want on your base of the pizza. Remember, more BBQ sauce means more hot liquid when you bite into the slice, so be careful how much you pile on there. Try putting some on the outside of the crust too, so some cheese will stick to it and make it all delicious.
- Put thin covering of cheddar cheese on the pizza base. Yes…put the cheese on first.
- Put burger crumble mixture onto pizza base…as much as you want.
- Put onions onto pizza
- Cover with thin sprinkling (or as much as you want) of cheddar cheese. The less you put on, the better the underneath will cook in the oven. IE: dont put so much cheese on that the cheese burns before the crumble and top of the pizza base cooks properly.
- Put pizza(s) in oven and cook according to instructions for crust.
Vegetable Fajitas
Jan 2nd
Ingredients
- 4-6 medium sized flour tortillas
- 1 small white onion (sliced)
- 1 red pepper (sliced)
- 1 yellow pepper (sliced)
- 2 portabello mushrooms (sliced)
- 2 chopped tomatoes (could use small can of tomatoes)
- 1 tsp Cumin
- 2 tsp Seasoning Salt
- 1 tsp Chilli Powder (more or less depending on your preference for heat)
- 1 handful of fresh diced cilantro
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup of water
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- OPTIONAL: spanish rice, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, sour cream, guacamole, salsa
Method
- Heat olive oil in large frying pan on medium-high heat
- add onions, cook for a few minutes
- add peppers, mushrooms, spices to pan
- add water to pan, mix all ingredients well to distribute spices and seasoning
- lower heat and cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat
- add tomatoes and cook for just a few minutes until tomatoes are warm
- while tomatoes are cooking, wrap tortillas in wet paper towel, and microwave on high for 2 minutes
- Remove pan from heat, remove tortillas from microwave
- Add vegetable mix to each tortilla…do not overfill
- top with lettuce, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, salsa…your choice
Creamy Pesto Ravioli
Jan 2nd
Ingredients
Ravioli
- 1 package of 4 cheese ravioli or portabello ravioli (you pick the brand)
- 1 small white onion (chopped)
- 1 tbsp pine nuts
- 2 tsp capers
- garlic to taste
- 1 tsp olive oil
Sauce
- 8oz can diced tomatoes with basil & oregano (Hunts makes a good one)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp flour (any kind will do)
- 1.5 cups Milk
- 1 packet pesto seasoning (we use Simply Organic Pesto Seasoning, but any pre-made pesto will work)
Optional Sides
- Garlic Bread / Texas Toast
- Caesar Salad
- Red Table Wine
Method
- Put water onto boil and cook ravioli per instructions on package (add salt to water to speed things up)
- It takes about 10 minutes to make the sauce, so time it depending on your ravioli cook time.
- Combine and warm the butter, olive oil and flour in another sauce pan
- 1 minute after butter melts, add milk
- Warm mixture for a couple of minutes, then add pesto seasoning and tomatoes
- If you prefer your sauce to be thicker, cook longer. If you prefer a lighter sauce, add more milk
- Turn to lowest heat possible, and leave to simmer
- In another pan, saute the chopped onion, pine nuts, capers, and garlic with a little olive oil
- Layer ravioli on plate, then add sauce, then add saute mix
- Pair with red table wine, garlic bread/texas toast and a caesar salad
Leftovers?
- When reheating in microwave, add a little water to the container to keep the pasta from drying out.
- Add additional vegetables to the mix, serve cold, and enjoy a pasta salad.