Meat free week - an update

Well it's been a month since we embarked on meat free week in our household. It was mostly a success, with meat only being consumed twice during the week - and each time when I was out and someone else cooked for me.

A huge thanks to everyone who provided me with recipes, inspiration and support! Especially twitter friends @brocklesnitch, @CeliaFigJam, @Bittersweet_Qld and especially @_JulieGoodwin, who emailed me her favourite meat free recipes [and by her favourite, I mean the ones all the carnivores in her house love. Perfect.]. While I didn't use all your recipes, they certainly gave me loads of inspiration, as well as a great repertoire for future meals. Thank you.

Hard to go wrong with a breakfast of mushrooms, haloumi and an egg. When I'm extra hungry I'll add a piece of toast with avocado too.

So, what did we have. Well, breakfast was the easiest of all, thanks to our chickens. Most days I had eggs, and often with sautéed mushrooms and haloumi. To tell the truth, I could eat this most meals. Lunch tended to be leftovers from the night before's dinner, and dinner, well, that varied.

We started on a Friday night, and I deliberately chose a weekend when we had Mr12. He is a massive carnivore [just like his dad] and not known for his love of the veggie [fortunately, very unlike his dad, who loves veggies]. However I must say, he has been a lot more accepting of trying new food and eating veggies over the last 12 months, which gives me no end of joy.  Particularly as I didn't believe I would ever see the day.

A favourite of Mr12's [and all of ours], is a Thai green curry, previously always made with chicken. I made a veggie version, and the look on his face was priceless when he realised there was no meat. But not as priceless as I'm sure mine was when I realised I had WAAAAYY overdone things with the green curry paste. A cup of yogurt later and mine was edible. Hubby loved it [sans yogurt], Mr12 looked like he was in pain [he wasn't prepared to try it with yogurt], so I relented and gave him a blueberry and spelt muffin to eat. No curry paste in those!

 

The killer Thai green curry

Veggie meals could only improve from there!

Saturday night I made one of the most gorgeous meals I've ever cooked. Massive thanks to whoever suggested this one, straight from the VeggieNumNum site. This veggie korma kofta took a bit of time to make, but was so worth it. The leftovers for lunch the next day were even better. It was also the first time I'd ever deep friend anything [yes, I know!].

The korma in this dish was absolutely sublime. I'll definitely be making it again and using it as the base for a bunch of dishes, with and without meat. It was also incredibly easy to make.

The veggie kofta - made with sweet potato and carrot. No pic of the whole meal as it was just gobbled down. SO GOOD! 

However the winner of the weekend, and possibly the whole week, were these little bites of awesome. These vegetarian sausage rolls, made with oats, walnuts, fetta and a bunch of other good stuff come courtesy of Cindi O'Meara's website. Mr12 went back for thirds, saying "anything wrapped in pastry is good". Talk about a massive light-bulb moment for me! I'll be making these again next weekend when we have Mr12, but adding in a zillion more veggies. Mwah hahaha [insert evil cackle...].

Thank you Cindi, but mostly thank you to the 4-5 people who told me about these! 

The week couldn't go by without eating vegetarian versions of my favourites - a toasted wrap, this one with spinach, cheese, tomato, mushroom, capsicum and a couple of felafel. And of course, pizza, but this one vego. And not on a Friday night.

A toasted wrap is a regular lunch fixture for me - great way to get in a couple of serves of veggies, and also to use up leftover meat. Or not, as in this instance.  

Pizza is my all time favourite food, and something I could eat almost every day. But I don't. 

So to wrap up, the week was a success. Since then I've tried to be a bit more adventurous with my meat free cooking, and am trying to have many more meals without meat.

Did you participate in meat free week? How did you do? And how are you faring now that it's over?

Meat free week - need your recipe inspiration!

I've been trying to eat a lot less meat lately, with varying degrees of success. Late last year someone alerted me to Meat Free Week, on from 18-24 March 2013. I was intrigued and thought what a great idea.

We'll be eating lots of these during meat free week!  

And these...

Well, it's almost that time. 

Eek!

I'm not at all organised, and need some serious help in getting together a tasty repertoire of meat-free meals to feed myself, my mega-carnivore hubby [who, unless he reads this blog post, won't actually know what's happening until it does... mwah ha ha...], and my ultra-mega-carnivore and super picky 12yo stepson.

Our week of meat-free awesomeness is going to run from Friday 15 March - Thursday 21 March.

This is a meat-free fave 

And so is lentil-bol

Needless to say, I'm quite pleased wine is meat-free. Particularly as we have Mr12 here for half of that time.

I'm really curious to see how we all go.

If you have any meat-free favourites, please let me know. The more "meaty" the better. And if it has tofu or tempeh please don't bother sending it. Absolutely can't stand either of them.

THANK YOU! And stay tuned to see how we fare...

Food challenge - my first foray into jam...

I decided that this year I would challenge myself a bit more with food. Make a few things that had previously scared me. High on that list is {was} jam.

Seriously folks, this is so easy. I don't know WHAT I was scared of!

I decided to give it a go when I received a HEAP of plums and nectarines in my CSA box. There is no way I was going to eat them all {who was I kidding - I wasn't going to eat even 1 plum! Not my favourite fruit...}, so, a perfect excuse for jam.

I also called on twitter for help! My friend Johanna (@johannaBD) who recently moved to Tassie {and who has seriously discovered her inner jam and preserve making self! Just check our HER blog!} and my BlogHer Food bus buddy, Marisa from the US, who writes the very inspiring Food In Jars blog, answered my call!

I used:

1.5kg mixture of plums, nectarines and a couple of squishy peaches {washed, stones removed and chopped}
1kg  sugar
2 lemons, juiced but throw the squeezed lemon bit in the pot too!

On advice from twitter friends, I didn't bother peeling any of the fruit. However if I had more than 2-3 peaches I may have peeled those.

Everything in the pot! SO EASY! What WAS I scared of??

Throw it all in a heavy bottomed pot {I used a Le Crueset given to me a few years ago as a combined Christmas and Birthday gift for about 2 years! BEST GIFT EVER} and bring it slowly to the boil, stirring so the sugar all melts. Once it's boiling {after about 20 minutes}, turn down the heat and simmer for an hour, with the lid off, stirring every 15 minutes or so.

Bubble, bubble, bubble...

After an hour give it the saucer in the freezer test. Place a spoonful of jam on a saucer, place in the freezer for 5 minutes. If it's wrinkly when you run your finger through it, it's good to go. If it's runny, let it keep simmering. Give it the saucer in the freezer test every 20-30 minutes until it's done.

OK so technically this didn't really pass the wrinkle test, but I was ready for bed! As a result my jam is a bit runny. But just as tasty!

CAREFULLY pour the jam into sterilised jars, seal and leave overnight {take out the lemon pieces}. There are a few ways to sterelise jars - the easiest is to pop them in the dishwasher for a cycle, then fill them with jam while they are still hot.

Serve the jam on crusty sourdough with butter and a cup of tea.

A perfect Sunday afternoon snack while catching up on the papers

The only challenge I now face is what to do with my 8 jars of jam? I really don't have a sweet tooth... as the 2005 use by date on the strawberry jam in the fridge will attest to... if you're in Brisbane let me know if you want a jar.

Is there a dish that used to scare you until you made it and discovered how easy it is?