Where's the Beef?

I posted a while back that we were going to start going meatless at dinner twice a week. Ryan informed me that Sundays would count as one of ours meatless days: we have a family tradition of eating popcorn, fruit and cheese in front of the TV while watching AFV every Sunday evening. He also informed me that chicken and fish were borderline vegetarian to him as well. What can I say - the man likes his beef.

So, I planned our dinners accordingly last week.

He had band practice Tuesday evening and found his own dinner between work and practice, so I made vegetarian pizza for me and the kids. Their half was plain cheese pizza and my half was spinach and artichoke pizza (and no, we didn't eat it all in one sitting - Sydney and I ate leftovers for lunch the following day):




To avoid too much sugar, I didn't use jarred or canned pizza sauce. Instead, I combined half a can of tomato paste and a tablespoon of canola oil (Dr. Oz says to use olive oil, but I'm allergic to olives).

Wednesday was our official vegetarian night. I made lentil or "healthy" hamburgers as Sydney likes to call them. I found the recipe on allrecipes and we all scarfed them down. Sydney had American cheese and ketchup on hers while Ryan and I had Swiss cheese and fresh spinach leaves on ours. I couldn't find sweet potato fries (a healthier alternative to regular fries that we usually bake in the oven) at the grocery store, so I opted for veggie chips instead for the side:






This recipe is definitely a keeper despite the fact that the patties tend to fall apart a lot more easily than beef ones.

Thursday was also semi-vegetarian. My friend Tory suggested that we give spaghetti squash a try instead of eating traditional wheat pasta. I'd tried it before and Sydney turned her nose up at the "crunchy spaghetti", but this time she gobbled it up. I made my own spaghetti sauce, again from allrecipes and made meatballs to appease my carnivore husband.




Two thumbs up for this one, too, especially since the sauce recipe made enough for two meals. We now have a canister of yummy sauce in the freezer for another night. Score.

So, the experiment is going well so far. I haven't decided what we'll do this week - perhaps a spinach quiche. I can't wait for it to cool off a bit more so I can break out the soup recipes!