Meatless Mondays

A large portion of my time outside of the office, my bed,  and the yoga studio are spent in my kitchen. I have been blessed with a kitchen that is at least three times the size of the kitchen in our cardboard-box-of-an-apartment in Vancouver, with ten times the cupboard space. And as any good housewife should, I love to cook and bake. When Kevin and I nestled into our tidy little flat in Wellington, we incorporated the growing Meatless Monday trend into our weekly routine. 

Apart from the obvious and immense environmental and health benefits of this international movement, it has given me an unnecessary (and extremely enjoyable) excuse to scour my favourite food blogs to an even greater extent, trying to find a clever and delicious vegetarian meal that will satisfy my righteous carnivore of a male counterpart.

Below are a few of the best tasting Meatless Monday meals from the past few months. And there will be more to come, so long as Mondays still come around every so often.

This is a rendition of Peanut Soba Stir Fry from my absolute favourite food blog, Budget Bytes. Almost all of the recipes I have tried from this blog have been delicious, on top of the fact that she takes pictures at every step (I'm clearly a visual learner). I omitted the frozen vegetables for fresh, each time I put together a different concoction of what is left in my veggie crisper, and added tofu as a protein source.

No recipe link for this bad boy. But, on a fairly regular biweekly basis, Kevin and I indulge in some homemade pizza. The dough is a sporadic combination of yeast, sugar, water, flour, salt, and olive oil, and it tends to change each time. The base is a indescribably good double layer of a pesto-cashew cracker spread and a sweet chili cream cheese. And once again, a slew of random fresh vegetables, tofu (protein for my growing boy), and cheeses.

This is my new favourite recipe. Hands down. I am always up for the challenge of cooking Indian food, but so far it has never turned out quite perfectly. Until this. You won't even care that it's animal-less, for all you meat-at-every-meal kind of kids. This Lentil Chickpea Curry is worth the large number of ingredients and time it takes for the lentils to cook. And while it may not be the most aesthetic dish, the taste more than makes up for it.

Well, that's all for now, but I do hope to keep you all up to date with more Meatless Monday recipes. And hey, maybe you'll join the movement too! Hei konā!