20. Go Vegetarian for a month-Part 2

So it has been a month since I have completed my month of no meat. I also did a cleanse which, I was going to include in this post but feel like it deserves it's own post. But no meat went over so well. I truly felt better, I was really excited to try new recipes and think it definitely help me unearthed a love of cooking I never realized I had. (Back story: My mom is a cook. And if you know me, you know I tend to go against the grain on anything and everything. So when my mother tried to "teach" me how to cook, I formally protested the whole thing. In fact I stood by guns so adamantly I moved into a house without an oven/stove).

 The only thing that could prevent me from go full on meatless forever is bacon. And when I say this to folks, everyone agrees. I know logically is just made of pork but in my soul I'm convinced its actually made of equal parts magic and crack. Nonetheless, I was completely ready to swear off meat forever until we did this cleanse, which involved basically swearing off all things not fruits and veggies for the first 10 days and then adding in chicken/fish on day 11. By Day 11 I needed something tasty so chicken came back. I also ate way more fish than I have ever in my life, which was also odd.  

When we finished the cleanse I thought, I'd go back to no meat and I believe A LOT less meat is my end goal however, we decided to do the post-cleanse program as we reintroduce food back and I'm not prepared to go back to a vegan lifestyle until I can eat everything again.

So far of the 2 List items I've tried, this had the best and most surprising outcome.

20. Go Vegetarian for a month-Part 1

February is the shortest month, in case you didn't know. So that is part of the reason we(the hubby and I) chose this to be the month we go meatless. I don't consider it cheating so you shouldn't either. Day 18 and not completely unhappy with the lack of meat in my diet. I had intended to write weekly on this particular item but as they say, life gets in the way.

So, we have tried some interesting substitutes for meat. Seitan was good, a tad salty and Tempeh(Soy) was not so good. Could very well be the recipes we made, I'd be willing to try each differently. We also gave lentils a shot, which wasn't too bad either.

One would think I should have like 18 new recipes that I have tried but one would be wrong. We did a lot of Subway and some other restaurants where their menu was very extensively vegetarian, ya know with like just black bean burger as non-meat option. But here are the new recipes we tried and respective reviews of each.

Margherita Pizza- We were hungry and lazy and didn't make our own dough but this was pretty good. I could have crushed the tomatoes more but there is something about fresh mozzarella that makes everything better. This is easily an 8 out of 10.

Mmm... cheese...

Tempeh Stir-Fry with Black Bean Sauce-This one took some trouble as I couldn't find the black bean sauce in question for a bit. This was definitely not my favorite recipes so far. I don't care for snow peas and I expected kale to be similar to spinach, which it's not so overall I was disappointed. I'll give it 2 of 10.

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew-I didn't hate this one at all. If fact, went back for seconds and ate it for lunch the next day. Though, not a huge curry fan it was a nice change from our norm. The hubby actually prepared this one and said it was pretty tedious with the chopping and such and wouldn't make it again. And I'm probably ok with that. We included some Naan with it as well. A solid 5 out of 10.

Lentil Walnut Burgers- This came from the Moosewood Cookbook, which is no longer in print, booo. These burgers were pretty good, similar texture to a black bean burger but a very different taste. I don't like the texture of mushrooms or walnuts typically but since they are minced and squished with the lentils I hardly noticed it. I would definitely make these again and try them fried instead of the broiled. An easy 8.5 out of 10.

Spicy Enchiladas - This recipe calls for chicken but I replaced it with Seitan. This one was very good and not too difficult to make. Seitan has a weird feel to it in preparing the meal but cooked and mixed with everything else, tasted just fine. I'd called it a 9.5 out of 10.

Overall, I am not missing meat, other than bacon too much and could see this continuing though, we shall see how the husband feels about all that.