If you eat little to no meat...

[Brit]

Can you give a few sample menus?

Meat is crazy expensive here, so we have been going low meat, like just once or twice per week. I have been cooking a variety of beans and lentils each week to make meals with, but I don't know if I'm getting it right. Please give me a clue.

A fairly typical day for me:

Breakfast: overnight oats with protein powder, milk, and fruit of some kind

Lunch: quinoa or bulgur, beans or lentils, veggies, and some kind of sauce or seasoning

Snacks: fruit, veggies, nuts, cheese (probably all of these, maybe omit the fruit in I'm not hungry or too busy)

Dinner: similar to lunch, but more often with brown rice or sweet potatoes b/c DD loves both of those

Is that close to ok? Suggestions?

Anything processed is super expensive also, not that I think this board would suggest that, but just throwing that out there.

[katietornado]

Hey Brit! Are you still in the place with the really limited "kitchen"?

Can you get/will you eat tofu? Tofu has been our go-to lately. Lots of it. It costs like $.50 per serving here for organic tofu (compared to $5 per serving for wild caught salmon, for example).

You can put any kind of sauce on it. We like these:
www.foodandwine.com/recipes/fried-tofu-with-spicy-ginger-sesame-sauce
bennydoro.com/chef/recipes/crispy-garlic-honey-tofu/#comment-64491
www.maangchi.com/recipe/dububuchim-yangnyeomjang

Throw in some brown rice (or not) and a big pile of veg (broccoli, green beans, asparagus work well), and you're good.

What about eggs? We have been going through dozens of eggs a week. I eat 4 for breakfast every day, and last night we had eggs for dinner too (with roasted sweet potato/red pepper/onion).

Also, what about yogurt? Awesome way to get in a big hit of protein.

[chw57]

That looks pretty similar to how we eat, although I do a lot with nuts (cashew cream sauce, almond butter on apples...)
I also have eggs at breakfast and cook a decent amount of tofu and tempeh

[sadlebred]

I post daily in the eating/exercise thread, but I eat pretty simply and hate to cook.

[Brit]

katietornado - I can get tofu here and it is super cheap, but I haven't seen organic tofu yet. There is a big organic food store here, so they probably have it, the question on that one will be if it is crazy expensive.

After my venture into duck farming, I have mostly stopped eating eggs. I guess I eat them in some things, but I rarely crack one myself. Eww.

ETA: H is also pretty against DD eating tofu at all. Not that I can't make some for my lunches, but it is out for family meals.

[labbie]

DH is veg, and while we do eat the processed meat subs, we try  to limit that to 1 or 2 times/week.

Here are 2 of my favorite recipes, and while not that fast for a weeknight, the leftovers are yummy so I'll make on a weekend and use the rest for lunch/dinners in the week:

Lentil 'meat'loaf (I serve with potatoes and a veggie side- we found that 1/2 a serving of this was plenty with sides):
thesimpleveganista.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-ultimate-vegetable-lentil-loaf.html

Vegetarian Shepards Pie
theshiksa.com/2012/03/06/vegetarian-shepherds-pie/

[spedrunner]

Lentil sloppy joes

Spaghetti squash lo mein

[vanillahip]

MH is a vegetarian so I keep a vegetarian kitchen for simplicity's sake, Quinoa tacos (season the quinoa like taco meat- it's my very favorite!), lots of bean-heavy soups and chili, and baked penne with silken tofu mixed into the sauce are my got-to dinners (but I understand why you'd limit soy for your kid). We eat a lot of Greek yogurt, nuts as snacks, tempeh stir fries, quinoa instead of rice always. We don't get near the protein amounts that "they" say we should but everyone is different. I really truly believe that not everyone needs it and trial and error will get you to a good place diet-wise

[jamalynn]

We always do breakfast for dinner once a week and we have eggs. I eat a lot of beans, tofu, lentils, and tempeh. You can make seitan for very little too. I do that a lot too!

[Brit]

Thank you for the ideas everyone.

jamalynn - How do you make seitan?

[jamalynn]

Jan 13, 2014 22:05:38 GMT -5 Brit said:

Thank you for the ideas everyone.

jamalynn - How do you make seitan?

I usually use the recipe from the Engine 2 Diet (got the book from the library and made copies of the recipes I wanted to try), but there is another 2 sites I have used before.

Baked Seitan

Baked Seitan 2

Good luck!