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What’s been bothering you about nutrition? Have a question you need answered?
Found a great healthy recipe?
What is a CiCo?
All that and more on today's megathread!
My wife decided to go mostly vegetarian and now I need to learn some new staple meals to make when she's tired. I got really good at timing chicken breast + two sides in the oven for lazy days and now I can't exactly do that. She also quickly gets bored of meals so I can't do a rice&beans thing nightly.
I'm down to clown with mostly vegetarianism but she's having a bit of a depressive episode I'm trying to step up a little more. I just don't have any ideas for meals that aren't american style "just sides" or hours of prep work.
Any ideas?
I'll never give up my morning two links of brown n serve sausage though. Give me processed meat breakfast or give me death.
I've posted this before, as its my go to, but: Minestrone soup
Brown onions, garlic, maybe some carrots and celery if you have some, in a pot with olive oil.
Add broth and tomato paste.
Add whatever veggies you want. I like to do zucchini, squash, and tomato, but most veggies can be good, really I just do whatever is cheap.
Add pasta (preferably bowtie), and white beans, maybe some spinach or arugula
Add some Italian herbs, salt, pepper, some lelom juice, maybe cayenne or chili powder.
Best served with garlic bread or biscuits.
Other soups or chili are pretty easy, and my v lazy meal is just a 'whatever' stir fry; just whatever veggies we have, plus maybe tofu or TVP, plus sauce/spices. Throw some rice in the ricemaker at the beginning, or throw some rice noodles in the wok near the end of cooking. My fav sauce style is thai, and I keep a large container of Thai Curry paste in the fridge for that purpose (tho its hell to find one I can eat with a seafood and nut allergy :/), my parter prefer teriyaki, w/ chilli sauce and a bit of orange juice (if we have it) for a general tso's type flavor.
Oven roasted veggies are super easy too, and if you want protein, you can easily do tofu or tempeh in the oven alongside it.
Veggie lasanga isn't that much work, considering the lasanga noodles that don't need to precook are cheap and work more or less fine.
Minestrone is a good idea. We've made chili with both real beef and impossible "meat" in the same pot and I'm considering just going with impossible meat. I like making chili because the only work needed is pre-cooking the onions and garlic and some cutting.
We have a decent stock of cumin powder, masala powder, and curry powder because her family makes a lot of curries and I'm thinking about learning to get good with that because she has some aversion to actually making curries for whatever reason despite making them well.
Obviously, this depends on your tastes, but I don't really like impossible meat or its competitors, and usually just make Chili by adding extra beans and/or quinoa. If I need the extra protein, my go to substitute is TVP, which, if you haven't used it, is just basically chips of soy protein. It doesn't have any real taste of its own, like tofu, but has a texture when cooked that is basically ground meat. Its also much, much cheaper than impossible meat. If you do use it, you have to go a bit heavier on spices and oil to balance it, but I prefer a bigger focus on the vegetables and spices.
IMO the main advantage of the impossible meat stuff is that you can 1:1 replace ground meat with it in recipes, and the dish will turn mostly the same. And if it works for you, keep using it! I just found myself buying it less and less and just using beans, soy, and seiten for most of my protein.
Sometimes we'll make variations on 'stir fry,' light on oil, using peppers, crimini mushrooms, onions, carrots, and garbanzos.
Cut everything into forkable-size pieces. Brown the onions first, then add carrots, and let em go until they're almost looking ready to eat. The carrots really add a lot but you gotta cook em long enough until they get soft and caramel-y. Add salt and pepper early on. Then add sliced mushrooms and peppers, wait a bit, then season them too. Garlic salt, oregano, doesn't hurt. Bonus points if you get some zaatar. Add some drained garbanzo beans and season the beans again, maybe cumin. Have with rice or not.
We also like 'ratchet ratatouille.' Get the long yellow squashes and zucchinis, cut them up about a quarter inch thick or less. Don't get too many or they won't all cook in the pan. Fry it up really hot, with onions works too. Trim the green off some slicing or roma tomatoes and fry them; just mash them into the pan and break em apart. Season similar to the above. You can also add garbanzo beans to this for protein.
If she still eats eggs you can make a frittata with whatever is hanging out in the fridge (bits of veggies or cheese). Just make sure your non-stick pan is oven safe, most are these days. Serve with a green salad.
If you can chop up some cucumber, onion, parsley and tomato: tabbouleh salad. You can find a million recipes online. It comes together pretty fast and tastes better after it sits for a while. Add some chickpeas or cooked lentils for extra protein.
If she still eats cheese, you can't go wrong with a grilled cheese and tomato soup. If she doesn't eat cheese, I hear there are some good vegan cheese options out there. I will let our experienced vegans comment.
Make chickpea salad sandwich (like a tuna salad, but with beans): Crush chickpeas with a fork or potato masher, add mayo, fresh chopped onion, pickle relish, a little mustard. Serve on toasted bread with a fat slice of tomato.
Those are just a few quick meals off the top of my head.
She still eats eggs and fish so thats helpful. The chickpea idea is interesting. I totally forgot about frittatas. I mainly cook with cast iron so they're good 2 go in the oven. I even got a killer deal on some enameled cast iron that wont get coated in egg.
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