Simple Vegetarian Healthy Ideas?

[Hopalong]

If anyone enjoys sharing food tips, I'd be so receptive to hearing about easy ways to assemble low-fat veggie meals. I "beep" instead of cook, and need to do better. I especially would love to hear all-day-low-fat crockpot recipes. I do eggs, dairy and cheese, just no red meat or fowl.

My biggest fantasy is to have 5 all-day-low-heat 5-minute-prep crockpot recipes for ONE-dish balanced meals. I'll share one I made up that works (it's sort of a more winter kind of recipe, though):

1 box frozen lima beans
1 box frozen corn
1 box frozen turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, or spinach
1 or 2 cans diced tomatoes...or 2
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 big swish of Mrs. Dash or some other herb blend
1 lb. cubed firm tofu, or turkey sausage if you like it, or chicken if you like that

Plop it all in your slow cooker in the morning, come home at night, stir and serve. Balanced dinner in a bowl! (A devout cook would at least serve it over brown rice...but that makes it 2 dishes, sigh...)

On edit: LOW-FAT, too! (Whoops on the eggs and cheese, but in moderation, no problem...I'm not demanding much, am I?) 

Hops

[lighter]

lol... I suppose 'the other white meat' is out, lol?

[Ami]

 I discovered raw food a year ago. If you eat mainly raw food-- you have wonderful energy. Your skin,hair, etc looks glowing. It is really amazing. I eat about 80% raw food and now love it better than cooked food.
  If you have any weight issues, they resolve themselves. The best thing is the energy .
  Raw is anything that is not heated or cooked. So,it is in it's natural state--- fruit, veggies- raw cheese.You can get raw food cookbooks that have all sorts of recipes,but they can be time consuming.
 If anyone does this--- let me know how you feel                          Love    Ami

[Ami]

Dear Besee,
   I love this subject b/c raw foods are so powerful. My skin is s glowing  . My hair nails ,teeth etc are very healthy. Woman always ask me what skin products I use.
  My energy is wonderful. If I eat a cooked meal, my energy goes down. This is b/c digestion of cooked foods makes your body work harder.
  I eat raw chocolate. However, I am not super strict on the raw foods diet. If I want something-- whatever it is--- chocolate , etc-- I have it What has happened now is that I like raw foods more than cooked.I have found that the most important factor in good health is good thinking. I ate very well,but was still sick b/c my thinking was not right(pain from my mother).
  It will probably take 3 days of raw food b/c you feel the energy  change., Your body will probably , also,start to detoxify and heal so you could have slight headaches etc,but it will all be positive.
 The other really important thing is to have water-- all day. Have a good quality water and sip it all day as opposed to gulping a full glass a few times a day.
  My avocation is natural healing. I would love to help on any issues.  Love    Ami

P.S look on the web about raw foods. It is fascinating
Also, a good way to get raw foods is to juice. You juice raw fruits and vegatables.

[Hopalong]

Wow, thank you! (More, more, she said greedily).

Really, these tips are terrific. CB, I can make a quiche! What a dingbat that I forgot about quiche. I can use Egg Beaters, too. Cilantro...mmm. They all sound great. And thank you MUCH (somebody else too mentioned it I think--thank you whoever you were) for the Whey Protein idea.

And raw foods? ENERGY? That's exactly what I've been lacking. Is whole grain bread verboten? Hmm. No cooked grains. Thank you, Ami...the energy thing really hooked me. Fascinating stuff.

Muchas thanks, y'all. I bought some Quinoa pasta and I'll try it as you suggest, CB...I do like chopping.

 
Hops

[lighter]

I love lentils with rice and a lovely time consuming chopped salad

The lentils are easy and you can make them with a loose recipe as follows:

Lentils (dried)
tomato, roughly chopped or canned
half onion roughly chopped
salt and pepper


Saute tomato and onion in plenty of olive oil till almost liquid
add water and rinsed lentils
add salt and bring to boil, reduce heat
simmer till tender



This is a loose recipe for the salad too (play with ingredients according to taste)

Tomatos diced small
Radishes diced/chopped small, (not fine)
Carrots diced small
Parsley chopped small
Dress salad with red wine vinegar and lemon seasoned with Nature's Seasons to taste

I pile my plate with lentils rice and smother it with the salad.  SOOOOO good!  Lots of lemon in the dressing for me!  I like big flavors.

[lighter]

MMMmmmmmm CB.  Yummy, I'm starvin and reading this thread is making it worse, lol.

[moonlight52]

Hey CB,

Your salad sounds a lot like Greek salads ...
We have Greek salads at least 2X's a week around here Mr.Moon is Greek
and his grandfather had a restaurant .(Mr m is a good cook)
We do not use butter on cooked veggies just a teaspoon of olive oil.

I do not know the last time I had a steak easily years we almost never have beef
oops we did have hamburgers a few weeks ago but that was the first time in ages .
If I knew how to get all the protein we need for our family I would be vegetarian.

We have lots of salads with feta cheese and lots of cooked veggies with feta cheese and olive oil.
I will be looking on this thread for good idea's and maybe come up with some myself.

love to you
moon

[Hopalong]

Oh YUM. Divine couscous, veggies, Greek salads, ooooooo and lentils yesss!

thanks to all of you!

I think another thing I can do is put in a couple hours on the weekend.
Most of these suggestions would do fine cold, too, and that would ease
my feed-Mom stress.

delicious friends, thanks.

love
Hops

[Ami]

You can make a great soup in the crock pot. One that is really good is red lentils and tomatoes. Split pea soup is great, too and very,very easy                                                             Love  Ami

[WRITE]

my leek soup is- fine chopped 2 onions, soften in tablespoon butter or olive oil whilst washing two sliced leeks, soften leeks a couple of minutes then top up pan with water, add two peeled chopped potatoes bring to boil. Simmer 90 minutes until reduced and everything is soft, switch off, add can evaporated milk, ground pepper. Stand 20 minutes before serving! Simple...

Someone bought me 'the meat and two veg vegetarian cookbook' ( I think that's the title ) a while back, for veggie comfort food.

I still make that garlic/tomato/green pepper soup you suggested every time I get a cold btw!

[JanetLG]

Hops,

How about this one:

BAKED SQUASH WITH CRISPY CHEESE TOPPING

For each person:
half a butternut squash
one tomato
two sticks of celery
one parsnip
half an onion or leek


Dice all of them, about 3/4 inch square (not too small - they don't 'mush down') , putting them in a mixing bowl as you go.

Sprinkle half a teaspoon of dried thyme, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper over. Mix it all together with your hands, then 'plop' half of it into an earthenware dish that you'll serve it in (individual dishes are best if you're doing this for more than one, as it's 'untidy' when served up, otherwise). Sprinkle a scant half handful of grated cheese on it at this point, then put the rest of the diced mixture in. Sprinkle another good handful of grated cheese over the top, and another half teaspoon of dried thyme.

Put in the oven at about 200 degress for 50 minutes.

The chopping takes 10 mins, so it's really easy to do, and is really tasty (anyone who says that vegetarian food doesn't taste of anything needs to try this one!). The juice from the squash means that you don't need to add any water to this to stop it being dry. I tend to serve this with a teaspoon by the side of the dish, as well as a fork, as the 'gravy' is too good to waste!


Janet

[Hopalong]

That sounds scruptious, Janet...thank you!
Butternut squash, leeks, yummmmmm...

Hops

[lighter]

OH OH OH OH OH!  I forgot that you have to do equal parts chopped cucumber to the tomato in this salad!
::thumping forehead::   You can also put in olive oil if it's a little stiff for your taste.  It really is good: )


Tomatos diced small
Radishes diced/chopped small, (not fine)
Carrots diced small
Parsley chopped small
Dress salad with red wine vinegar and lemon seasoned with Nature's Seasons to taste

I pile my plate with lentils rice and smother it with the salad.  SOOOOO good!  Lots of lemon in the dressing for me!  I like big flavors.