Vegetarian Recipes needed!

[JujuSatti]

I turned vegetarian about four months ago, and ever since then, I haven't really had a real meal. It's always been salads or veggie lasagna. I want something delicious and easy to prepare.

Thanks

Juju.

[Austin_]

I have a really great recipe for a flavorful, delicious, "Garlic Lovers" vegetable pizza. Hopefully you're not vegan. :P. Vegetables are sauteed with garlic and olive oil and placed on a homeade pizza dough with marinara and a special cheese blend. When it's done, its topped with some raw parmesan, crushed red pepper, and some minced garlic.

“Garlic Lovers” Vegetable Pizza
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, mashed and minced
1 cup of quartered artichoke hearts, drained
Small handful of sliced shiitake mushrooms
1 small red onion, halved, and diced
Salt and Ground black pepper, to taste
1 (10 ounce) can of pizza dough, rolled out into a large pizza shape
2 cups of good-quiality marinara sauce
¾ cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup of shredded parmesan cheese
¼ cup of shredded Asiago cheese
2-4 teaspoons of minced garlic, depending on how much you like
Grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish
Crushed Red Pepper, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat olive oil on medium heat in a medium skillet. Add garlic, artichoke hearts, cremini mushrooms, and red onion. Cook for about 5 minutes until tender, (if garlic starts to burn, take out immediately!). Season with salt and ground black pepper. Add marinara sauce and cheese to the pizza dough. Add vegetables. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and crust is golden brown. Take out and serve hot with a garnish of fresh parmesan cheese and red pepper as well as the minced garlic.

If you want to make your own dough that you can freeze and then thaw for up to a month, try this simple and delicious recipe for homemade pizza dough.
1 (.25) ounce package of dry yeast
½ teaspoon of brown sugar
½ teaspoon of sea salt
½ teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 cup of milk
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 egg, beaten
3 cups of bread flour
In a large bowl, dissolve the dry yeast, brown sugar, salt, and ground black pepper into the milk and let sit for about 10 minutes. Stir in the olive oil and the beaten egg, and stir together a few more times. Place the dough into a buttered bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise for 1 hour until it doubles in size. Punch down and mold the dough into a tight ball. Place in freezer until ready to use.

[shel]

Originally Posted by JujuSatti

I turned vegetarian about four months ago, and ever since then, I haven't really had a real meal. It's always been salads or veggie lasagna. I want something delicious and easy to prepare.
Juju.

Try making vegetable soups, look to Indian food recipes for lots of vegetarian dishes, try working with beans, pasta primavera recipes abound. Recently I posted a couple-three vegetarian recipes on this board: Margaret Fox's Black Bean Chile and Tandoori Dal Salad. I'm not sure if I posted this one:

SPAGHETTI SQUASH WITH ZUCCHINI CORRIANDER SAUCE

1 spaghetti squash (abt 3-lbs)
Zucchini-Corriander Sauce
1 Tbs unsalted butter
pinch salt
pinch fresh ground pepper
1 cup grated Gruyer cheese
½ cup fresh grated Parmesan

Cook squash.
While squash is cooking, prepare Zucchini-Corriander sauce through step 2
Cut squash lengthwise in half, remove and discard seeds, remove flesh of squash by scraping lengthwise with fork, creating spaghetti-like strands.
Melt butter in large skillet or sauté pan, add squash, season with salt and pepper, cook, tossing with two forks, until squash is coated with butter and warmed through.

Complete Zucchini-Corriander sauce.
Transfer squash to large platter, top with sauce, sprinkle with Gruyere cheese. Toss at table to mix. Pass parmesan separately

Zucchini-Corriander Sauce

2 large ripe tomatoes
1/4 cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil
1 cup grated, trimmed zucchini (grated in food processor so zucchini looks like spaghetti strands)
1 - 2 Tbs chopped fresh flavorful cilantro (corriander)
2 cloves garlic crushed into paste
½ - 1-Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tsp salt

Blanch tomatoes in boiling water for one minute, rinse under cold water, peel and core tomatoes. Cut tomatoes in half crosswise, remove seeds, purée in blender or food processor until smooth.
Heat oil in skillet or sauté pan over med-high heat until rippling, add zucchini, corriander, and garlic. Stir-fry until zucchin is wilted, add tomato purée, reduce heat to low, simmer, uncoverd, for about 3 minutes, remove from heat.
Just before serving, reheat sauce to simmer, stir in lemon juice to taste, season.

Shel

[JujuSatti]

That sounds delicious.

They're all easy and do-able!

Thank you, Shel and Austin.

Much appreciated!

[siduri]

look into peasant foods from everywhere, since peasants rarely ate meat. to get full protein you absolutely have to combine grains with beans (legumes - peas, beans, chickpeas, lentils), grains with seeds or beans with seeds. Vegetable protein can;t be used by the body for making protein because the strands of protein molecules are nto complete. But by mixing these ingredients in the same meal, you can have protein as good as steak (and much more filling)
try this
chop a couple of cloves garlic, an onion, a carrot, a celery stalk, very finely, then fry slowly in olive oil, till it's all soft and transparent (don;t brown).
add lentils (a cup, maybe a little more) and enough water to cover them completely. start cooking, and add water if it gets too low. When they;re cooked (time is variable depending on age and type of lentil), add some fresh chopped spinach, and cook another five minutes.
toast some whole wheat heavy artisan like bread, and then rub with a clove of garlic. lay in your soup bowl, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, then ladle the lentil soup over it. voila complete (and very tasty) protein.

Or soak chickpeas half a day in cold water. do the same frying of chopped stuff, add the chickpeas and enough water to cover. cook till chickpeas are soft (these take a while, an hour, maybe?). Remove half the peas. puree wat is left, and then return the rest to the pot. Make sure it's a little soupy,. adding water if necessary - then add small pasta (ditalini, for example) and cook in the soup. delicious with freshly ground pepper and olive oil.

if you want to stay alive and healthy, i suggest Laurel's Kitchen, a cookbook for vegerians, because though the recipes are not all the greatest (some are, though) the explanations of nutritional needs are very very good, the best i've ever seen. My daughter is vegetarian, and i needed to learn to cook healthy - luckily italian food is very strong on the vegetarian dishes.

[shel]

http://www.passionatevegetarian.com/...te_recipes.htm

[shel]

Here are three more recipes that I'm starting to work with. Recently, I discovered edamame, and the last issue of Eating Well magazine (which I highly recommend) had several recipes that looked good. Here are a few, but explore their site for other interesting and innovative vegetarian recipes:

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/eg...mame_stew.html
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/ed...succotash.html
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/qu...ame_salad.html

Shel

[daniellepp]

I also struggled with what to make.....but i found a cooking class in oakland, ca that helped me tremendously. she also has a website compassioantecooks.com with a ton of great recipes. check out her podcasts too. now i am cooking with ease and have enve come up with my own recipes. we all need variety that is for sure! good luck to you!

[chris1980]

I love tofu pad thai, personally. Its a snap to prepare.

Rice noodle, boil water than put rice noodle in and let sit in the hot water off heat for 5 minutes or so until tender. Fry cubed tofu in oil with soy sauce, add in a couple tablespoons of General Tso's sauce. Drain the noodles, add, cook and toss in a chopped green onion. Top with sesame seeds just before serving.

[Ishbel]

Hello
The UK's Vegetarian Society is long established and their website is worth looking at! The recipes are written into metric, so you may have to convert it if you live in the USA.

http://www.vegsoc.org/

[americanwit]

You can find great vegetarian recipes here:
essortment.com/in/Recipes.Vegetarian/index

[Joyfull]

Adding to Siduri's suggestion of Laurels Kitchen. ( a good book by the way)

Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe is pretty good too.. Lots of helpful charts etc. Some good some not so good recipes like any other.
Its an old book (mines 1972) but you can problably find a copy at a used book store.
This book does include some cheese and egg recipes though. Just in case you are off those too.

There's also a companion book: Recipes for A Small Planet. But that one is pretty hard to find now..

Take heed of what everyone is saying. To keep yourself healthy, do lots of reading about getting proper protein, combining foods, amino acids etc..

[Breton Beats]

My favorite vegi cookbook is the Millinium Cafe book. It is a vegan fine dining restaurant, but vegan or not it has some great ideas. Some of the ingredients can be a bit exotic (hard to find vegetables) but most are adaptable.