Looking to cut down the meat from your kids' diets? You are not alone. 

There are so many great reasons to introduce more vegetarian and vegan meals into your kid's diet: it's better for their health, it is a fun way to introduce new foods, it protects animals, but the biggest reason to feed your kid vegetarian meals is that it protects their future.

Every time we eat meat, we add to many of the world's biggest problems, issues our children will be desperate to solve after things have gone too far. We know that big agriculture, especially beef farms are causing dead zones in our water sources, waste huge amounts of land, water, and resources, and are a major contributor to climate change.

I know a lot of us are already feeling grief about the things our kids are missing right now, but the scary news is that because of climate change, their lives will get further and further away from what we imagine as "normal." We have to do something. 

We, like so many people out there, are using the New Year as a chance for a fresh start. After 4 years of declining eating, we are past due for a good detox from carbs. I love carbs so much, but apparently they do not love me back.

So, we decided to do Whole 30. I think the appeal is that we can manage anything for 30 days. We are already almost halfway there, thank goodness! 

But after years of cutting our meat consumption, I feel like we are reverting back. Our "health plan" is a constant encouragement to eat all the animals. It doesn't even allow beans! Seriously, how mad can you get about a good legume? Really, all that Whole 30 encourages is meat, carrots, and my tears.

So can you do Whole 30 and not eat a beefy meal three times a day? I sure hope so! Here are my favorite vegetarian Whole 30 meals out there. Because I can't be the only one pining for more vegetarian meals (and carbs... everyone on Whole 30 is pining for carbs). Right now, I am eating an egg, avocado, and potato pancake at least once a day. There has to be a better way! 

from 40 Aprons

from The Real Food Dieticians

I see buffalo cauliflower recipes all over the place while researching vegetarian recipes, but this is the only Whole 30 version I have seen. The Real Food Dieticians' recipe has a really simple recipe. And it uses ghee. Freaking ghee has taken over our house! 

The Real Food Dieticians also have a citrusy brussel sprout recipe that I want to try too. It looks so yummy, and I love a good brussel sprout, and our go to recipe definitely has bacon in it, so we have to find another strategy. 

from Fit Mitten Kitchen

I feel like one of the big challenges of whole 30 is that it takes away most of your food vessels like bread or tortillas (Oh Bread, I miss you so much),  This sweet potato waffle recipe from Fit Mitten Kitchen creates a pretty genius substitute for bread, and you could but all sorts of vegetarian combinations (see: Avocado) on it. 

from What Great Grandma Ate

Since we can't use beans, we have been leaning pretty hard on mushrooms, which are pretty protein heavy. I like this simple recipe for balsamic and garlic mushrooms from What Great Grandma Ate, because garlic is the greatest ingredient ever made. So healthy, so delicious. Thank you to garlic for not abandoning me in my time of need. 

from Natasha's Kitchen

One thing that always works for us is a simple tomato and avocado salad. It's so easy, and as long as you have a good avocado, it's going to be delicious- we basically do the same thing as this recipe from Natasha's Kitchen. It's not seasonal right now, but if you are struggling through Whole 30 (like me) it could be a big help!



Want more vegetarian recipes to try? Awesome! Adding more meatless meals to your diet is such a fun challenge and you can discover so many things you like. Check out this page for all of the Meatless Monday Recipe Round Ups!

It's February, and we are still going strong on our vegetarian eating one day a week! How is everyone else doing? Just remember, even changing one meal a week can have a positive environmental impact! Meat, come at a shockingly high cost for the earth around us. Producing meat products uses so much water, create so much waste (including plastic), and emits a lot of greenhouse gases.

Beef uses 11 times the water and produces 5 times the greenhouse gases of other animal proteins, so if you want the most bang for your environmental buck, that is where to start. 

We are still looking for vegetarian recipes to add to our arsenal, so I thought I would share some of our attempts and successes with you. My husband is an awesome cook, so I know we will find some good stuff to share. 


If you had told me a year ago I would be trying to talk anyone into mushrooms, let alone eating them myself, I would have thought you were nuts. Mushrooms are the devil's boogers.

 I am not going to say I love mushrooms, but I don't hate them with my whole heart, and I think that is a real victory for our semi-vegetarian home. This is the dish that changed my mind. It is delicious, and there are enough textures going on that you don't really focus on the mushroom spongey thing. Here is the recipe, thanks to the Boy.

Ingredients
2 lb cremini mushrooms, chopped
1 tbsp oil
1/4 cup taco seasoning
3/4 cup water

Our Usual Salsa Ingredients
Green onion
Red onion
Tomato
Jalapeno
Something Sweet (Mango, Nectarine, etc)
Cilantro
A Teeny Bit of Garlic

1. Chop all of the mushroom and saute with 1 tbsp oil.

2. Once they are cooked through, add taco seasoning and water.

3. Put on tortilla, add salsa, cheese or sour cream, avocado or guacamole.

See? So simple. You can do this. And if you aren't a mushroom person (like me), consider trying this one. With all of the strong flavors and textures of a taco, you really can't tell that you are eating mushrooms not taco meat. I loved it. So good!

It's February, and we are still going strong on our vegetarian eating one day a week! How is everyone else doing? Just remember, even changing one meal a week can have a positive environmental impact! Meat, come at a shockingly high cost for the earth around us. Producing meat products uses so much water, create so much waste (including plastic), and emits a lot of greenhouse gases.

Beef uses 11 times the water and produces 5 times the greenhouse gases of other animal proteins, so if you want the most bang for your environmental buck, that is where to start. 

We are still looking for vegetarian recipes to add to our arsenal, so I thought I would share some of our attempts and successes with you. My husband is an awesome cook, so I know we will find some good stuff to share. 

In college (and grad school), when things were particularly stressful, I would head to the baking aisle and buy one of those little frosting jars. My flavor was rainbow chip, and it tasted like a slight numbing of my academic pains. I loved that frosting, and I had so much trouble stopping when I opened it up.

Now, my feelings have changed. When I have opened one of those cans recently, I smell the chemicals. Also, if frosting is basically butter with some sugar in it, why would it not decompose?

It is not like me to turn on anything cake-related, but those cans of frosting are more chemical than they are food. It takes 4 ingredients to make vanilla frosting- powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla. Let's look on the back of this Pillsbury frosting, shall we?


So I count 17 ingredients. Maybe it would be slightly less if it weren't pink.

But before we get any further, let's all read that last line-

PROCESSED WITH GENETIC ENGINEERING

What?!? I mean, wait, what?!?!?!?!?!? What in frosting could POSSIBLY require genetic engineering? What kind of crazy radioactive spider bit this pink frosting? What did they do to those poor frosting cows?

Part of it probably has to do with making this stuff last. Because frosting should not be good for so long. It should go bad sitting in a cupboard with no refrigeration (try leaving a stick of butter just out- things go badly pretty quickly. As it should. You will notice none of the food God made stays all that long.

So the frosting people hire somebody to figure out what to put in their sugar goop so it tastes and feels like real frosting, but is unnaturally long-lived, so we can have backup frosting in our fridge and so on. Plus, it's easy to do in a way that people are still psyched about, because no matter what, you are mostly eating sugar.

Want more substantive information than my general shock and disgust? Check here.

This kind of thing bugs me more and more. I look at the rising numbers of diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer, and it's hard not to feel like the chemicals we ingest out of toxic chemical containers are related. None of us are perfect (myself included, I will throw a homemade frosting on a box cake if we are in a rush), but it is worth it to replace the synthetic with something natural (water instead of pop, etc) anywhere we can.

And for frosting, we so can. It is easy enough that you can have it done and in the fridge way before that box cake comes out of the oven. No more can frosting, let's do this:

1. Make it yourself!

There are lots of things that buying it tastes about the same and works just as well than the homemade stuff (looking at you, pie crust), but once you are used to frosting you made, those jars do taste kind of gross, like there is just a touch of nail polish remover in them. Homemade frosting is freaking delicious in all of its horribleness for you.

As long as you have a mixer (hand, counter, any mixer will do) you can make frosting in about the same amount of time it takes to open the can and mix those little sprinkles in top in. Look up recipes, you can find so many good ideas, but they are basically all soft butter and powdered sugar (I do not love the crisco ones nearly as well, but as always, do you). I use the same vanilla recipe for most everything, and it generally is well-loved. This is my vanilla frosting recipe:

Put a cup of unsalted stick butter, softened and 4 cups of powdered sugar into the mixer.
 Mix it up.
Add about a teaspoon of vanilla and a half cup of milk. Mix it up.
Add some more sugar. Mix it. Taste it. Repeat this step until you like where it is at (I usually only add another cup, so about 5 in all)

That's it! I am no master baker, but that recipe works every time, and I can always find variations when I need another flavor.

Mine usually comes out pretty stiff, and I like to put it back in the fridge to make it even more so. If you like that, cool. If not, you can always leave it out for the butter to melt OR add more milk. At no point should you need to call a genetic engineer.  It takes 0 skill and it uses mostly things you already have in your kitchen. This business is so easy.

2. Make a glaze instead

Ok, maybe you don't want to make frosting, you just want a little bit of moisture on top, you could make a glaze instead. For this, I usually use a fork to mix. Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Glaze

Put a bunch of powdered sugar in a bowl. Drop a little vanilla in. Pour in some milk. Mix and add more milk or sugar until it gloopy drips off the fork. It takes like 30 seconds.

Again, very scientific.

3. Melt some chocolate or peanut butter

I cannot vouch for the goodness of this, but a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter on it makes a lot of sense. And melted chocolate on top of cake also sounds delicious and awesome.

4. Powdered Sugar Designs

 I love this idea, so I am going to try it this week. What if you cut something out on a piece of paper and then decorated with simple powdered sugar? You could throw in cinnamon to be fancy, depending on the flavor of the cake. But even if all you do is cut out a heart, set the piece of paper on the cake, and sprinkle sugar on top, it will look pretty.

Plus, again, way less genetic engineering in your dessert.

So, this is such a simple one that hardly anyone does. Consider saying goodbye to that can and just trying a cake with your own frosting when you are making treats in the next few weeks. You won't be disappointed!



Want to make your home greener? No matter the size or location, you can limit your waste and make your house have a more positive impact on the environment. Check out the Green Home Page for thousands of ideas on how to do it.

Ingredients
1 cup diced carrot
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cups chopped brussel sprouts
3 cup chopped potato
2 cup chopped red beet
1 cup chopped golden beet
2 cup chopped rutabega

1 tbsp oreggano
1/2 tsp dried dill
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp pepper

For Salmon Hash Sauce
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill

Salmon



 1. Cut everything. It takes a while. Attempt about equally-sized pieces.

2. Boil potatoes, beets, rutabega, etc for about ten minutes to soften. Pre-heat oven to 425.

3. Mix everything together. The Boy does this in a big pot. This recipe makes a LOT so only roast what you need. Portion and freeze the rest. If you freeze them after roasting, it doesn't go as well. Add your herbs.

To make the Salmon Hash

 4. Cut salmon into cubes. Cook 2 cups of salmon cubes for 2 minutes. Add veggies and heat high.

5. Turn off heat. Stir in sauce.

 I love gnocchi, and they make me so happy, because I feel l like our kids can help make it in no time. We got our recipe from the Cook's Illustrated cookbook (Amazon has 65 used ones for sale, but you may be able to find it in bookstores or cooking stores as well), and those guys are both geniuses and super litigious, so if you ant to follow suit, I highly recommend the cookbook.

Ingredients

1/4 tsp red pepper
 1. Put 2 tbsp olive oil on medium heat, add 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper


2. Saute green pepers for 23 minutes until slightly soft. Then add red onion- saute 1 minute. Add garlic- saute for a minute or two.

 3. Add zucchini


 5. Once tomatoes are soft, crush them down with a soiin. Add oregano, 1 tsp dried basil, and whole basil leaves.


7. Blend the sauce and add more parmesan and spices to taste. Mix with gnocchi, serve.

Thoughts- Again, recipes that lean on tomatoes don't make a ton of sense in January. The Boy leaned heavily on cheese, and he says if he did it again he would probably use less. I thought it was delicious, and I think gnocchi is a pretty kickass addition to any kitchen's repetoire. Add a punch of seasonal veggies and you are basically good. Will definitely be doing this one again soon.

 One of our big goals for 2017 is to really get going on Meatless Monday. We are never going to be a vegetarian household, but like so many people, we could stand to get a little more meat out of our diet for our health and the Earth's. Meat, come at a shockingly high environmental cost. They use so much water, create so much waste (including plastic), and emit a lot of greenhouse gases. Beef uses 11 times the water and produces 5 times the greenhouse gases of other animal proteins, so if you want the most bang for your environmental buck, that is where to start. 

Ingredients

 1. Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring to boil.


2. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes
3. Blend.
4. Simmer again for 30-45 minutes
5. Season with salt, pepper, dill, and garlic to taste
6. You can top it with green onion, chives, or yogurt.

Thoughts for next time

 Our's turned out aggressively peppery, so The Boy added a little bit of butter and a cup of water to try to mellow the pepper. It did help, but he says he would use half the salt and pepper next time. I didn't think it turned out particularly carrot-y, but the pepper really was powerful. Like I said, sometimes you have a winner right out of the park, but others need a little work.

What vegetarian meals are you trying this week?