Title says it all - for those of you who eat everything, what is your favorite vegetarian dish?
A long while back I started planning 1 vegetarian dish per week. I did so because I have a true love for animals, but was raised on meat. I don’t think I could go full vegetarian, and I would never go vegan, but I can sacrifice a meal a week. I am also very meticulous about saving meat. I always buy fresh, try for free range and humanitarian farming. I buy big packs, split them up into 4oz meal portions and freeze them. Really the only food I throw out is plant scraps and the occasional unripened fruit.
Some days, when I feel like the world is getting so crowded, I look at my dogs and imagine a day that they too would be on someone’s plate because perhaps one day that is all that will be left. So I buckle down and say FINE! I’ll have TWO meals a week, now I’m doubling my impact!
In my opinion, eggplant is not a food. It is completely inedible. If I want to go meatless I choose some form of beans. Today it was a bean and cheese burrito with sour cream. I know some would say I am imprisoning those cows and stealing their milk, but alas, I can’t give up dairy. At least the cow lives through it.
To each his own. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’ve never found a vegetable that I didn’t like (except for beets), and eggplant ties with spinach for my favorite. Eggplant parmigiana is my personal favorite dish, but my specialty is a vegetarian chili using shredded homemade seitaninstead of beef. Seitan is a meat substitute that’s easy to make and high in protein and B vitamins, but being made of wheat gluten, is out of the question if you have celiac disease or a wheat allergy.
Note on the seitan recipe I linked to above: If I’m making it for chili, I use cayenne pepper or paprika in place of the ginger. I also like to add a shot of tomato paste for color, and a few drops of liquid smoke for flavor.
I make what I call Vegan Succotash, although I don’t think it is really. But it’s spicy, beany, hearty, and vegan. I freeze it up and add it to stews or eat it as it, OR add sausage to it. Good over rice, alone, or in a burrito shell.
Chips and salsa is totally a meal at my house, too!
I’ve been eating a lentil stew recently. I add some Worcestershire sauce as well.
I make tacos with tofu crumbles. And I used to stir fry tofu cubes with apples, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and some other stuff, in teriyaki sauce.
