Vegetarian Recipe: Baked Pasta Casserole

I've always been the type of cook that says, "I'm making what I want. If you don't like it, you can have a peanut butter sandwich." But recently, I decided that although this philosophy has led to kids who will eat kale and collard greens, it has also led to a lot of food waste. And while I don't want to stop offering them kale and collard greens, perhaps I could offer them foods I know they don't like a little less often.

So recently, I went through my recipes and cut out the ones that only my husband and I will eat. Out with the spicy, out with the "weird," in with a lot more pancakes for dinner.

Strangely, none of my boys like pasta. Hoping that it was just the recipes I was using, I decided to cut out most of my pasta recipes and try out some new ones. My first attempt was this Baked Pasta Casserole from 101 Cookbooks with only slight modifications (I used kale instead of spinach and rotini instead of shells because that's what I had on hand, and I didn't bake it because I was in a rush...Next time, I'll definitely bake it.)

Baked Pasta Casserole

Serves 8
Cost: $1.70 per serving

extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 pound whole wheat pasta shells
sea salt
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 cups well-chopped fresh spinach
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds, lightly toasted
zest of 2 lemons
8 ounces shredded mozzarella

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a large casserole dish.
• Cook pasta according to package directions.
• Saute the onion in olive oil. Stir in garlic and spinach. Cook just until wilted.
• Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of almonds and half of the zest. Add to pasta and mix extremely well.
• Sprinkle the bottom of a casserole dish with the rest of the zest. Add a layer of pasta, a layer of cheese, and so on, finishing with a layer of cheese.
• Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, until cheese is melted.
• Top with remaining almonds before serving.

I thought this had a very surprising mix of flavors - in a good way - but my boys still wouldn't eat it. It was one of those strange meals where they pick out all of the pasta and only eat the cheese and kale. Weirdos.

Do you have a favorite pasta recipe? Include it in our Meatless Monday link-up at the Green Phone Booth every Monday!

• This post was shared at Beauty and Bedlam.
  

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Why I Started Eating Meat Again after 12 Years as a Vegetarian

I'm over at the Green Phone Booth today talking about why I decided to add a very little bit of meat back into my diet:

This post has been in the works for about six months now, but I've been dreading sitting down to write it because of the possible backlash. I know how passionate vegetarians can be - I was one for 12 years. Some of this post also touches a little bit on my religious beliefs, which I generally like to keep personal and private. So please as you read this, keep an open mind, and be kind in your comments even if you disagree.

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the latest challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

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The K.I.S.S. Method for Saving Time in the Kitchen

The kitchen is usually my domain, and I have a hard time giving up control. But my non-vegetarian husband and I have had an agreement since the early days of our marriage that if he wants to eat meat for dinner, he gets to cook it himself. And that is why one night after I had remarked in passing that we needed a side dish to go with dinner, I sat down to a meal of sausage, eggs, and cucumbers.

My first thought: "Cucumbers are not a side dish..."

My next thought: "Cucumbers as a side dish!"

Ah, the beautiful simplicity of it. No chopping and steaming and seasoning broccoli. No peeling and cutting and mashing potatotes. No husking and boiling and scraping corn. Just a simple plate of cucumbers. Which weren't even peeled.

So the credit for the Keep It Simple, Stupid Method for saving time in the kitchen goes completely to my husband.

The idea is basically that you do things in the kitchen to keep your meals simple and therefore save time.

I know...duh, right? But when you're cooking from scratch and you enjoy cooking like I do, it's easy to let meal preparation take over your life. You thumb through cooking magazines and scroll through cooking blogs and your weekly menus get more and more complicated and then dinnertime rolls around and you've only got 30 minutes to prepare a meal that takes an hour or more.

And that's when it's time to take a breather and remind yourself:

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Here's how:

• Simple Sides. As I mentioned above, fresh vegetables make a perfectly good side dish - especially with a heavier meal - and require almost no preparation. Fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower...Mmmm.
• Simple Potatoes. There are a billion and one ways to cook a potato, but I'd wager the simplest is to bake it. If you've got your oven on for any reason, toss a few potatoes in, bake for an hour, and serve them as a side dish later in the week. No peeling, cutting, or mashing required.
  
• Simple Bread. Bread by any other shape is still just bread. If you've got a perfectly good loaf of bread sitting around, don't waste time making rolls, breadsticks, biscuits, or flatbread (unless you're ultimate goal is to impress your kids). It might be shaped differently, it might even be a little boring, but it's not going to taste much different.
• Simple Stews. The simplest of all meals is the one where you throw a bunch of ingredients into a pot, simmer, and serve. It's extra nice if you can get your crockpot involved. As in this recipe for chili:

Vegetarian Chili

SERVES 4
COST: $1.17 per serving *

2 cups black beans (or 1 can)
2 cups kidney beans (or 1 can)
2 cups butter beans (or 1 can)
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup frozen corn
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. parsley
1 Tbsp. oregano
1 Tbsp. basil

• Drain and rinse beans if using canned.
• Combine beans, tomatoes, corn, green pepper, and onion in a crockpot.
• Season with chili powder, parsley, oregano, and basil.
• Cook on high for two hours.
  

*Note that all costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

How do you keep it simple in the kitchen?

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the latest challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays here.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

• This post was included in the Festival of Frugality #213 at Cooking Manager, All Things Eco #86 at Focus Organic, Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family, Frugal Friday at Life as Mom, and The Carnival of the Green at Enviroblog
  

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Vegetarian Recipe: Hummus

The final recipe from the cooking class I taught on Thursday..."Beyond Beans and Rice: Eating Beans to Save Money and Use Your Food Storage."

Hum-Dinger Hummus
from Big Snacks, Little Meals

SERVES 4

1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans
1 clove of garlic, peeled (I usually do less garlic)
3 Tbsp. tahini (sesame paste available in health food stores or the international aisle of your grocery store)
1 Tbsp. olive oil
salt
1 lemon, halved
water (optional)
paprika (optional)

• Open the can of garbanzo beans. Strain the juice and rinse the beans with fresh water. Put the beans into the blender.
• Add the garlic, tahini, olive oil, and salt to the blender or food processor. Next, squeeze the juice from the lemon into the blender.
• Put the lid on the blender, and blend away! You're going for a smooth mush. If you need to, stop the blender, and use the rubber spatula to push the ingredients off of the sides and into the center.
• If the mixture is too stiff, blend in a little water to thin it out.
• Scrape the hummus with the rubber spatula into a serving dish. You can sprinkle a little paprika on top. It looks cool and tastes great.

I serve this with raw vegetables and pita chips, and yes, we do have it for dinner sometimes. I'd really love to do some of those fancy flavors of hummus you can get at Whole Foods. Anyone have any amazing hummus recipes you'd be willing to send me?

As a side story, I ran out of cheese before the cooking class, so I had to stop at Food Lion on my way there, and as I've mentioned, Food Lion is sorely lacking in the organics, so I got conventional cheddar cheese and Kraft cheese slices.

The next day, there was still a lot of cheese left, so I made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with the Kraft cheese slices. First Son is super picky, so I make my boys try anything new before putting it on their plates to avoid wasting food and making myself angry. So I had them try the processed cheese, explaining that it is "weird cheese."

At dinner, I made tacos with the leftover bean burgers from the class, and First Son asked, "Do these have the weird cheese on them?"

"No, it's regular cheese," I replied, meaning cheddar cheese.

"Are you sure this isn't weird cheese?" he asked a few minutes later.

"I'm sure. I didn't use any weird cheese on these."

He studied his taco a little longer. "Then why is this cheese orange?!"

Ha, ha. That made me chuckle, and also reminded me of this amazing potato stand in the market in Cambridge, where I spent a semester in college. They sold baked potatoes with cheese, but my roommate and I always joked that it was really cheese with baked potatoes. We also got a kick out of the fact that the cheddar cheese was white.

Why do Americans feel the need to make cheddar orange?

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Vegetarian Recipe: Black Bean Nachos

Here's another reason to go veggie from Juliet Schor, a board director at the New American Dream:

A study on U.S. consumption from the University of Chicago estimates that if the average American were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, that would be the equivalent of switching from driving a Camry to a Prius.

And now to continue on the theme of "Beyond Beans and Rice: Eating beans to save money and use your food storage" that I will be teaching at a vegetarian cooking class at my church tomorrow...

Black Bean Nachos

SERVES 4
COST: $0.40 per serving (not including toppings)*

2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed)
1 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. salsa or taco sauce
1 small garlic clove
8 flour tortillas

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  
• Combine beans, 2 Tbsp. of water, chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, salsa or taco sauce, and garlic in a food processor. Process until smooth.
• Heat in a skillet (or even the microwave will work).
• To prepare tortillas, cut each tortilla into 8 wedges.
• Lightly brush the tortilla wedges with oil and bake 3-5 minutes.
  
• Turn each wedge over and brush with oil again. Bake 3-5 more minutes until lightly browned and crispy.
• Serve the beans and chips nacho style with lettuce, tomato, and cheese and whatever other toppings you like on your nachos.
  

*Note that all costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

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Vegetarian Recipe: Butter Bean Burgers

Every week, when I think about potential future blog topics, I always include a vegetarian recipe. And every week, when I get a little busier than I expected (or I played with my kids too hard and I'm too tired to blog), the first potential post to go is always the vegetarian recipe. The result being that despite my good intentions, I have posted very few vegetarian recipes to this blog.

Now, that's just not fair to all the great vegetarian dishes in my recipe files considering that eating less meat is one of the top four things you can do to lessen your impact on the environment. (The others are energy efficient homes, energy efficient transportation, and buying less.)

So coincidentally as I was feeling bad about that, greeen sheeep aka EnviRambo blogged last week about going veggie for lent and needing some vegetarian recipes. Plus, I signed up to teach a vegetarian cooking class at my church later this week. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to devote a few days to recipes.

My focus for the cooking class is Beyond Beans and Rice: Eating Beans to Save Money and Use Up Your Food Storage. Lots of bean recipes ahead...

So long-winded preface aside, here's the recipe I'll be teaching at the class:

Butter Bean Burgers

SERVES 4
COST: $.75 per serving (not including buns or toppings)*

2 cups cooked butter beans (or 1 can butter beans, drained and rinsed)
1 small onion, chopped
6 saltine crackers, crushed (or lately I've been using bread crumbs)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. vegetable oil for frying

• In a medium bowl, mash the butter beans with a fork.
• Mix in onion, crackers, egg, cheese, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
• Shape into burger sized patties. Makes about 5 patties.
  
• Heat oil in a large skillet.
• Fry patties until golden, about 3 minutes on each side.
• Serve on buns with the fixin's.
  

If you glance at my recipe index, you might easily come to the conclusion that 95% of the time, we eat bean burgers around here. Truthfully, we do eat a lot of bean burgers, and I can explain the reason why in one simple sentence: My husband is not a vegetarian.

My dear hubby is a meat and potatoes kind of man. He's happy with burritos (or anything related to a burrito). He enjoys some Italian now and again. Pizza is nice. But if I start throwing in too many nights of tofu or tempeh or any of those other strange vegetarian additions, he starts to protest.

So we eat bean burgers because they are sort of similar to eating meat and they go well with french fries.

*Note that costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

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Vegetarian Recipe: Macaroni Stuffed Tomatoes

I heard a fascinating interview on NPR today with Berry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill. He recently published a book called The World Is Fat, analyzing the amazing statistic that 1.6 billion people worldwide are overweight (compared to 100 million only 50 years ago). According to Popkin, there are twice as many overweight people in the world as are underweight or starving.

Explaining the rise in obesity, he said, "It's really a confluence of very rapid changes and accessibility to cheap animal foods, to cheap edible oils, to global sweetening of our diet, particularly the way we drink has changed remarkably..and at the same time the rapid shift in technology for how we move at work, at travel to work, at home, in producing food, and at leisure."

Here's a recipe to help you reduce your meat intake:

Macaroni Stuffed Tomatoes

Stuffing one food into something else somehow makes the meal seem so much fancier, but I admit that when I usually make this meal, I just chop up the whole tomato and mix it all together. From start to finish, this dish takes 15 minutes or so to make.

SERVES 4
COST: $1.75 per serving*

1/2 a box of macaroni
4 large tomatoes
1/4 c. olive oil
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups cooked pinto beans (or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
1/2 c. cheese

• Cook pasta according to package directions.
• Core the tomatoes. Scoop out the pulp and chop it up.
• Stir oil, vinegar, herbs, cooked macaroni, and beans into the tomato pulp.
• Stuff the tomatoes.
• Sprinkle cheese on top.

*Costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

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I Need...Eggs

Closely related to my post about dairy products last week is the subject of eggs.

I have found that people are more likely to feel bad about the treatment of cows than chickens in factory farms - maybe because cows are big mammals with huge, sad-looking eyes and chickens are small birds with sharp beaks. Or maybe it's just that people consume so much chicken (50 pounds a year) that they don't want to think about it. All I know is that when I tell people about the terrible treatment of chickens, the answer I most commonly get is, "Well, it's just a chicken."

I think that's sad, but since I've been trying to justify my own egg eating for years now, I don't have much room to talk. In some ways, egg-laying hens have it worse than chickens raised for their meat:

• Factory Farm egg-laying hens are packed into tiny cages that are about 18 by 20 inches with five to ten chickens per cage. Picture that! Even with only five hens in a cage that size, they would have no room to move, no room to stretch their wings, and they spend their entire lives in a cage that small. It's not like they're being let out a few hours a day to get exercise.
• The cages are stacked on top of each other, which means that the poop from one cage can fall into the cage below it. Besides being gross (the birds spend a lot of time standing in their own feces), this lack of cleanliness leads to disease in both chickens and humans.
  
• At the end of the lives of egg-laying hens, they are sent to a slaughterhouse. Because they are not raised for meat and spend their lives in cramped conditions, many hens have emaciated bodies and suffer from broken bones by the time they are killed.
  
• Salmonella poisoning is most commonly associated with eggs and poultry. Safe handling and thorough cooking can reduce the risk of food poisoning, but it's worth noting that salmonella is more common with factory farm raised chickens than traditionally raised chickens.
  
• Like cows, chickens are given antibiotics to increase their growth and prevent illness (remember that they're raised under germ-friendly conditions). The average chicken is given four doses of antibiotics a day. Overuse of these antibiotics are making bacteria more and more resistant, and both the antibiotics and the resistant bacteria enter our water supplies.
• Most poultry farms in the United States are owned by just a couple of companies, the biggest being Tyson Foods. Workers at these farms suffer one of the highest rates of injury in the U.S. and are paid extremely low wages.

For more information, check out Go Veg: Chickens and The Green Guide: Poultry and Eggs.

BABY STEPS

• Eat fewer eggs. Eggs make a great binding agent in cooking, making them hard to give up completely. But if you're in the habit of eating a lot of eggs every week, could you reduce that amount even a little?
  

JOGGING STRIDE

• Check your label. If you've ever gone shopping for organic eggs, you know that there are so many choices, it can be confusing. Should you buy certified organic, cage-free, free range, certified humane, pasture-fed? Well, it depends...Rather than repeating information already out there, I suggest you read this guide from The Humane Society or check out The Green Guide's guide to poultry and eggs.
  
• Know your producer. The only way to verify for sure how your eggs are being produced is to know the person who's raising them. Talk to the farmer at your farmer's market about how they treat their chickens, mentioning free-range, antibiotics, pesticides, and food.
  
• Raise your own chickens. If you have a backyard, you can raise chickens. Be sure to check the laws in your area, though (including the rules in your homeowner's association). If you're interested, look to Urban Chickens for all your backyard chicken-raising needs, including basic information on chicken care and the type of coop to choose.

MARATHON RUNNER

• Go Vegan. When I was a vegan, I found eggs a lot easier to give up than dairy products. The important thing to remember is to tailor your egg replacer to whatever you're making. For example, pureed tofu makes a good egg replacement in soft foods like breakfast burritos and egg salads while bananas or applesauce can replace the eggs in baked goods. Check out this guide for more information.

Tips for the Budget Conscious
Many mainstream grocery stores now carry their own store brand of organic or free-range eggs. However, no aspect of the commercial egg industry, including organic eggs, is perfect. For example, organic egg-laying hens are required to have access to the outdoors, but that doesn't mean they actually go outside. Also, male chicks are useless to a commercial egg farmer, so they are killed soon after birth with methods ranging from suffocation to grinding. If you're really concerned about humanely raised chickens and eggs on a budget, your best bet would be to raise your own.


Where I'm At
I buy my eggs at the farmer's market rather than the grocery store even though they're a little more expensive because I feel more confident that the chickens are treated humanely. Plus, I get the bonus of supporting a small family farm. Someday, when we are no longer in an apartment, I plan to raise my own chickens.

Photo by angela7dreams

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I Need...Dairy

When I wrote my post about going vegetarian a few months ago, it was the first time I'd thoroughly researched reasons to be a vegetarian in several years. Researching the subject reconfirmed my decision not to eat meat, but it also left me feeling really guilty that I still eat dairy products and eggs.

I tried going vegan early on in my years as a vegetarian, but that lifestyle change was short-lived, lasting barely a year. Frankly, it was just too hard. There are hidden animal products in foods you would think have no reason to have animal products in them. Like cold cereal, for instance. Bread. Tortillas. Even some so-called vegetarian cheeses are still made with rennet, which comes from the stomach of a cow. It took me forever to go grocery shopping because I had to read the label of every product I picked up off the shelf.

Then there were the intense cravings for cheese and ice cream every time I ate around non-vegans - including my husband who still kept cheese in the house and indulged in the occasional ice cream treat. I honestly don't crave meat like some vegetarians, but giving up cheese and ice cream was painful. And SoyDream just does not do the job.

So I gave up my short-lived veganism, rationalizing that my dairy consumption was a necessary, though admittedly bad, habit.

The problem with being a Conscious Shopper is that once you're aware of the dark side of something you're doing, it's hard to rationalize it as necessary. Dairy consumption is inextricably linked to the meat industry, and also has a list of problems all it's own:

1. The bucolic image of a field of cows is a thing of the past. Most dairy cows today spend their lives in huge manure-filled feedlots or sheds where they are fed grain that has been treated with pesticides and fertilizer.
   
2. To be able to produce milk, the cows are repeatedly impregnated through artificial insemination.
3. After a cow gives birth, her calf is taken from her within a day. If the calf is a male, he is moved to a veal crate, where he will only live for a few months before being slaughtered. If the calf is a female, she'll grow up to be a dairy cow like her mother.
4. To get the cows to produce more milk, many factory farmers inject the cows with a hormone called recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). The FDA approved rBGH for use in the early 1990s with no prior safety testing, relying on the results of one study conducted by Monsanto, the creators of the hormone. In recent years, use of rBGH has been correlated to tumors and cancer in humans, although the health risks associated with the hormone are still being disputed. It is indisputable, however, that cows treated with rBGH have an increased risk of infected or inflamed udders, ovarian cysts, and reduced pregnancy rates.
5. Dairy cows raised in factory farms have an average lifespan of 5 years, a quarter of the lifespan of a traditionally raised cow, and their lives generally end in the slaughterhouse.
6. Unlike human waste, treatment of animal waste from factory farms is not adequately regulated. Animal waste is pumped into huge open pits where it releases methane gas, and much of the waste ends up running into water supplies.

For more information, check out these resources:

Go Veg: Dairy Cows
The Green Guide on rBGH
Pollution Locator: Animal Waste
101 Reasons to Go Vegetarian

So what's a dairy-loving eco-conscious animal lover to do?

Baby Steps

• Avoid recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). Many brands of dairy products are now labeled as rBGH-free.
• Eat less dairy. Try eating more Asian or Indian cuisine, both of which tend to use less dairy.

Jogging Stride

• Buy organic. Organic dairy cows are not given hormones or antibiotics, must be fed organic feed, and must spend a certain number of days in pasture.
• Support a local small farm. Small farmers have trouble competing with the big factory farms, especially those that use growth hormones. Give a guy a chance!
  
• Give organic soymilk or goat's milk a try. It takes fewer natural resources to grow soybeans or raise goats. You can even raise your own goats – I hear they make a great fossil-fuel free lawnmower!

Marathon Runner

• Go vegan. I tip my hat to all the vegans out there, and if you think you can do it, go for it!

Tips for the Budget Conscious
Many mainstream grocery stores are now selling their own store brand of organic dairy products. They're still expensive, but cost less than the name brands. You can also save money by trying out some DIY projects such as making your own yogurt, soymilk, and even cheeses.


Where I'm At
I've started buying organic cheese, but I'm also trying to decrease the amount of cheese my family eats overall. In the past, we've tended to think, "If it tastes good, it will taste even better with cheese!." Also, being a mostly vegetarian family, we are big fans of the beans and cheese combination. To get around this, I started buying a smaller package of cheese, and when we run out, that's our cheese quota for the week.

In the milk department, I've decided to splurge on the Maple View Farm milk. It's a dollar more expensive and not organic, but I discovered that I can buy it at the farmer's market and return my glass bottles there. Plus, it tastes really good. I also discovered this week that my kids are big fans of soymilk. First Son actually begged me to buy it for him at the grocery store today.

I'm still trying to work out the ice cream issue...

Photo by JelleS

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Recipes for Sweet Potato Lovers

Sweet potatoes are plentiful at the farmers market down here in Raleigh, and they make a perfect side for a holiday meal. This recipe for Stuffed Sweet Potatoes is my favorite way to serve sweet potatoes for the holidays. They are filling enough to make a good "main dish" for a vegetarian who is making a meal of side dishes. They're also sweet enough that they could work as a dessert.

If you're like my husband and prefer your sweet potatoes savory, just bake for 50 to 60 minutes at 400 degrees and serve with butter and salt and pepper.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

12 small sweet potatoes
3/4 c. butter at room temperature
3/4 c. packed light brown sugar
2 c. pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 1/2 c. mini marshmallows
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper

• Place potatoes on baking sheet. Pierce in several places.
• Bake at 400 degrees for an hour.
• Meanwhile, stir together butter and sugar until well-blended. Gradually stir in pecans, marshmallows, and flour until mixture forms loose crumbs.
• Remove potatoes from oven. Cut a slash lengthwise in each one using oven mitts, gently push together ends of each potato to open slash.
• Season potatoes with salt and pepper.
• Stuff opening with marshmallow mixture.
• Return to oven and bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 400 degrees.

Sorry there are no pictures today. I fully intended to make baked sweet potatoes for dinner tonight, but being sick wipes out all of my motivation for cooking.

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Alternate Thanksgiving Recipes

You probably wouldn't see the following recipes at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but hey, if you're eating vegetarian, you're probably not traditional anyway!

Walnut Oatmeal Burger
(from the Laurel's Kitchen cookbook)

This recipe won't fool anyone by the taste, but it sure looks like hamburger and has a meat-like texture.

SERVES 4
COST: $1.00 per serving (not including buns or toppings)*

3/4 cup walnuts
1 c. quick oats
2 eggs
1/4 c. milk
onion, chopped fine
1/2 tsp. sage
1/2 tsp. salt
black pepper to taste
oil to brown patties
2 c. vegetable stock

• Grind walnuts in a blender and combine with oats, eggs, milk, onion, sage, salt, and pepper. Form about 6 patties.
• Brown patties on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the stock into the skillet and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.
• Serve on buns with "the fixin's" or crumble and use as you would hamburger in chili beans, spaghetti sauce, etc. (We also eat it with gravy like in the last recipe.

Vegetarian Collard Greens

Traditional Southern-style collard greens are made with smoked ham hocks. This recipe makes up for that flavor with smoked sesame oil and red pepper flakes. It's delicious!

1 bunch baby collards
water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon smoked sesame oil
2 vegetarian boullion cubes
2 tsp. garlic
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

• Wash the collard greens in a big sink of water.
• Cut the leaves from the stems, chop the leaves, and place in a large pot.
• Fill the pot with water. Add the rest of the ingredients.
• Bring the water to a boil and then simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally. When done, the greens should be tender and dark green.
• Drain and serve.

Roasted Potatoes

1 1/2 pounds of new red potatoes, cubed
1 onion, sliced
2 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. garlic
1 tsp. rosemary
2 tsp. oregano
salt and pepper

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
• Combine potato and onion in a baking dish.
• Mix together oil, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, oregano, salt and pepper. Drizzle mixture over potatoes.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender and brown on the edges.

*Costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

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Go Veggie for the Holidays

Ever since reading Garbage Land, I've been mulling over one particular quote that really stuck out for me:

“According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which made exhaustive studies of consumers' environmental impacts, the things that make the biggest difference to planetary health are transportation, housing, and meat-eating.”

Who would have thunk: meat-eating?

I saw a statistic the other day that the average American eats ½ a pound of meat a day. That's phenomenal!

I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that number gets even higher during the holiday season, starting with the gluttonous turkey feast known as Thanksgiving and ending with the New Years Day brunch. So I'm proposing a radical idea: Pick a holiday, any holiday, and eat less meat. Or go whole hog, pardon the metaphor, and skip the meat completely.

When I shared this idea with my meat-eating husband, his response was a downhearted, “So I don't get turkey on Thanksgiving?” If you had the same reaction, how about this instead: Pick a few nights in the coming months and commit to preparing some vegetarian meals to offset the turkey and ham you'll be consuming over the holidays. And of course, make sure the animals you choose for your feasts are raised humanely.

So to help you out, I'm going to do a series of blog posts over the next few weeks with some of my super delicious vegetarian recipes that are sure to please even the most meat-loving crowds.

Today's subject: the Thanksgiving “turkey”

A few years ago, somebody asked me if I eat “tofurkey” on Thanksgiving. I generally stick to side dishes, but their question got me curious, so I spent the day before Thanksgiving hopping from Whole Foods to Trader Joes to the local food co-op in search of a tofurkey. I finally found one, ate it that Thanksgiving, and decided to go back to eating side dishes.

If you really feel like you need a “meaty” main dish, you could try making your own tofurkey (I still say steer clear of the store bought varieties), or you could try this:

Golden Chickpea Patties with Gravy

This recipe makes enough for my family for a regular night's dinner. If you're making this for thanksgiving, I suggest doubling or tripling it, depending on your crowd.

Golden Chickpea Patties

SERVES 4
COST: $0.45 per serving*

2 c. cooked chickpeas (or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
3/4 cup quick oats
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 Tbsp. oil for frying

• In a food processor, process the chickpeas with 1/2 cup of water to make a smooth, thick paste.
  
• Place the chickpea puree in a mixing bowl andd add the garlic, salt, and pepper.
• Mix well, adding additional water or oats as necessary to make a mixture that keeps its shape.
  
• Shape into patties. I usually get about six patties.
• In a frying pan, heat a small amount of oil.
• Fry the patties until golden brown, about 10 minutes on each side, adding more oil as necessary.

Vegetarian White Gravy

SERVES 4
COST: $0.20 per serving*

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste

• Melt the butter in a frying pan.
• Slowly whisk the flour into the butter, adding a little bit of flour at a time and stirring constantly to keep it from getting lumpy.
• Let the flour and butter mixture bubble for a minute, stirring constantly.
• Add milk a little bit at a time, whisking well after each addition to keep it from getting lumpy.
• Continue stirring until the gravy starts to thicken. This is a runny gravy so it will not be too thick.
• Add salt and pepper to taste, or alternately, you can add a vegetable bouillon cube.

Serve chickpea patties with mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls:

*Note that costs are estimates based on prices in my area. Your costs may vary.

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Save the planet! Go vegetarian!

As my children and I drove across the country earlier this year, my First Son spotted a truck of piglets driving past us and shouted gleefully, "Look, Momma, piggies!" Oh, to have a child's innocence. Unfortunately, I knew where those piggies were really going, so seeing a truckload of them didn't fill me with glee.

I've been a vegetarian for 11 years, and although I've often said that I would never force anyone to go veggie (including my own children), I sincerely wish more people would make the choice.

There are many, many reasons to choose a vegetarian lifestyle. Mine was because of the inhumane treatment of animals in modern factory farms. Chickens are crammed into ridiculously small cages with conveyor belts underneath to catch the eggs. Cows spend most of their time standing on cement slabs (rather than in pastures) where they are fed a corn-based diet (rather than grass). Cows are also given drugs to make them grow fatter, or in the case of milk cows, to make them produce more milk, and they often grow so fat without any ability to exercise that they become crippled under their own weight. Check out this recent article from CNN. Why do we think it's okay to treat animals like that?

But even if you're not moved by the treatment of animals, there are plenty of other reasons to choose from. Consider that 70 percent of the grain grown in the U.S. is fed to animals. Consider that 20 vegetarians could live off the land required to feed one meat eater. Consider all of the Amazonian rainforests that have been harvested to use the land for cattle. Consider the health benefits. Consider the poor working conditions and low pay of the people who work in slaughterhouses and factory farms.

Since this blog is about making buying choices that are good for people and the planet without going broke, I should mention that supposedly, a vegetarian diet is cheaper than eating meat. I wouldn't know. I've been a vegetarian my whole adult life. I briefly bought meat for a year or two after I married my meat-eating husband, but I gradually weaned him off of eating meat at home, and I have no memories of how much I was spending on meat then. But because I wish everyone would choose to go vegetarian, I'm going to agree with what I've read and say that eating less meat will save you money.

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