As a new vegetarian I was told that one of my major food problems would be staving off boredom. I actually haven’t found that to be true. My number one problem has been forcing variety. I could happily eat the same dinners in rotation every week for months on end without getting bored primarily because I usually make dinners for myself that are foods I really enjoy. Where I struggle is in working into my diet foods that aren’t necessarily my favorite, but that I know I need to eat, such as quinoa and brown rice.
Knowing that I needed to work on relying less on legumes and add more grains I went in search of new recipes to convince my taste buds they were worth the effort of cooking and eating in forms not related to bread or pasta. The quinoa recipe I settled on is called Ridiculously Easy Curried Chickpeas and Quinoa from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen (link to the right). The chickpeas are an added protein bonus and so good. This recipe is everything it advertises. It is delicious and quite easy. My favorite way to eat it is stuffed in a whole wheat pita with a few pieces of romaine lettuce. It makes a great quick dinner or a fantastic jealousy-inducing lunch at work.
My new brown rice favorite actually came from a reader. Jenny H sent me her lentil and carrot casserole recipe (see the Recipes page), which also includes brown rice. This recipe really pleased me on three points: 1) it’s super easy, 2) uses inexpensive ingredients (and many things I normally keep on hand), and 3) tastes amazing. It does take a bit of time to cook, but the bulk of the time is unsupervised baking. This is another great one for leftover lunches for work, providing a great dose of much-needed protein in the middle of a long day.
My new favorite snacks are Lundberg whole grain rice cakes. I’m eating the organic brown rice cakes and organic wild rice cakes. They’re low salt, low fat, low calorie and the perfect thing to satisfy the afternoon munchies and keep me from hitting the vending machine at work. YUM!
Question: Do you have a favorite vegetarian recipe or healthy snack you would like to share with other readers?
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I love stir fry and fried rice!
ReplyDeleteI saute veggies (fresh or leftovers) and add frozen or thawed brown rice. I even had leftover tofu from take-out Tofu Yakisoba. (They were very generous with the amount of tofu included and it was more than I wanted.)
Add a little soy sauce and it's ready. It's really easy, inexpensive, yummy and a great way to use up leftovers.
I like to bake the brown rice in large quantities so that I always have it available. I can easily add it to soup or even eat it cold in a salad.
P.S. I loved the Curried Chickpeas. I used brown rice (because I had it) instead of quinoa. But next time I'll think ahead and make quinoa.
My favorite vegetarian healthy snack would be...........pickles. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe stir fry sounds great. And so versatile!
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