Meatless Meal Planning

We signed up for a meal delivery service a few weeks ago. This one is called FreshPrep, is based in Vancouver, and offers meals with no animal protein (no meat, fish, eggs or dairy). It's a bit of an experiment and we only get two meals a week but... we are trying to wrap our heads around tofu and... so far, things are going well.

Our first meal was Sweet & Spicy Tofu Stir Fry with Snow Peas, Mushrooms and Sriracha Teriyaki Sauce. We were a bit skittish about this meal since it had (a) tofu with which we have had bad experiences and (b) mushrooms which we both hate with a passion. But... we soldiered on and gave it a try. I cut up the tofu into centimetre chunks and while the recipe called for sliced mushrooms... I seriously diced them into near invisibility. What you can't see or chew won't hurt you! And.... as we gingerly chewed our way around the tofu... the verdict was... YUM!! We actually both loved it. The mushrooms were practically invisible and the tofu texture was palatable. Kind of like well-cooked chicken.

Our second meal with FreshPrep was a Spring Vegetable, Lentil & Quinoa Salad with Sweet & Spicy Cashews. Score two for two! It was seriously yummy as well and introduced us, in a nice way, to fennel. We had tried a fennel lemon salad (a la Jamie Oliver) a few years ago and found it... inedible. But... this version through FreshPrep was very good and we would definitely do it again.

See, that's the thing... you order these meals from the delivery service, figure out if it's yummy or not and then... you recreate it from scratch whenever you want... easy peasy way to try out new recipes and, for us, new ingredients.

We aren't 100% reliant on the meal delivery service... obviously. I've been trolling through the internet looking for good recipes and we had some plant-based recipe books from the library during the Covid-19 lock-down... so we have a good dozen recipes that are our go-to meals at this point...

Last week, when we gave away our stash of frozen meat, our friends asked us... but how do you plan a meal without meat? I get it... without meat at the heart of a meal... how do you figure out what to cook??? Well... we kind of go by what legumes we're in the mood for... or what flavours we are looking for. Do we want to go Mexican today? Or have a curry? Or maybe some sushi. A lot of it depends on how much time we have as well, since we eat our main meal at lunchtime. I don't want to spend most of my weekday mornings cooking... so we do a lot of cooking and freezing on the weekends.

Some of our favourites are:

Pita Tostadas with Butternut Squash, Black Beans and Avocado.

This recipe is super easy and super yummy... the biggest time factor is baking the butternut squash but... you only need about half a squash so we just bake it, mash it all up and then save the remainder for next-time tostadas. If you have mashed frozen butternut then whipping this together is a breeze.

We particularly like the freshness of the lime juice in the beans and the yogurt drizzle. And yes... we found that almond yogurt, while not really edible on its own, makes a good substitute for the drizzle.

A couple of tips... this is insanely messy to eat so we have learned to wrap the rolled-up tostadas in aluminum foil like they do with donairs... way less messy.

Coconut Curry Lentil Stew with Spinach & Currant Salad

We got this recipe from GoodFood last year. It is super yummy and one of our staples. We make it in a double batch and freeze the leftovers. It's relatively easy but one does need a few key ingredients like curry paste - which we buy in a jar (we use Patak's mild curry paste). We also go easy on the coconut milk as it is fairly rich in the bad saturated fats. We sometimes just put a tiny can in instead of the 400 ml can the recipe calls for... and we don't save any for the end. Red lentils are easy to cook with and don't require any soaking beforehand. Plus... we try to get a variety of legumes in our diet so... this ticks the red lentil checkbox! The recipe calls it a stew and serves it as a stand alone but we usually have it with rice or farro or some other grain.

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas with Avocado-Cilantro Cream Sauce

This receipe came out of the Oh She Glows cookbook and is one of our standbys. [I couldn't find the real recipe online but there is a version of it here...]

It's a bit trickier to make because you have to make the enchilada sauce from scratch which takes extra time. We usually get at least two and a half meals out of this recipe so it's good value for time!

We love the avocado-cilantro cream sauce... which is just avocado, cilantro, lime juice whizzed up in the food processor with some salt and garlic powder. Again... the lime juice just adds a bit of vibrancy to everything.

Coconut Chickpea Curry

I found this recipe online and it has become one of our favourite staples. It uses Garam Masala as the main spice blend which you can buy in any store.

Again, we tend to go easy on the coconut milk and the recipe still works. It's super easy and quick as most of these curry recipes are. Just be sure to have a few cans of chickpeas and diced tomatoes.

We like to add chopped up cilantro and peanuts onto the tops of our curries. The cilantro adds a nice little burst of flavour and the peanuts add some nice texture.

Ultimate Lentil Walnut Loaf

Another recipe I pulled offline, also from Oh She Glows. while we didn't eat a lot of meat loaf back in the day... this lentil walnut loaf has become a serious staple in our lives. It freezes really well and defrosts quickly, so it's great for those days when you go "oh shit, forgot to take something out of the freezer". Mind you... it is seriously labour intensive - there is a lot of chopping and measuring involved in this. But... given that one loaf makes four meals (eight slices of loaf)... the time investment is worth it. The recipe says 40 minutes of prep time but that is not accurate... more likely an hour. It goes quicker if you have two sous chefs working away at prepping the ingredients.

https://camillestyles.com/food/pita-tostadas-with-butternut-squash-black-beans-avocado/