Meatless Meal Plans

I shared a little about why I decided to have an overhaul of my diet plans in my other blog. I am convinced that it was no coincidence neither was it by chance that I felt deeply within me that a drastic change in my dieting habits was necessary.

With that, I am following the principles laid down in the book, "What the Bible Says About Healthy Living", I've worked out a weeknight dinner meal plan for the entire month of May. I do not believe in a complete vegetarian diet would be the key to healthy living but I am making a deliberate effort to be mindful of the ingredients I choose to cook with. While I have set out to a meatless diet for weeknight dinners, on the weekends we will consume meat mainly chicken and fish and occasionally beef. It will be based on the following principles -

• Eat only substances God created for food. Avoid what is not designed for food.
• As much as possible, eat foods as they were created - before they are changed or converted into something humans think might be better
• Avoid food addictions. Don't let any food or drink become your god.

As for what in specific I choose to and choose not to eat, you might want to read in detail from this link.

Here's our weeknight dinner meal plan for the month of May.

I took about a day to carefully select the recipes and work into the meal plan ensuring that it's something my family would find palatable yet adhere to going meatless. Some of the recipes can be found on the internet (which I will leave a link to them) while others were picked out from some of the recipe books I have in my own collection. Most of which would be adapted or adjusted according to with as little processed ingredients/seasoning as possible.

Here's our grocery haul for this week (mainly ingredients for our weeknight dinners). The overall total was kept within a budget of $50. I must say, going meatless helped with keeping our budget low.

Our dinners this week
Monday

Long Bean Omelette (can't go wrong with this dish, it's the family's favourite)
Nonya Vegetable Stew (packed with loads of vegetables; I have switched to mushroom sauce instead of oyster sauce in the recipe)

Tuesday

Fried Bee Hoon (one of my favourite one-pot meal!)

Wednesday

Vegetarian Tofu (simple but tasty)

Broccoli & Cauliflower Stir-fry (easy peasy dish done just by frying it with minced garlic)

Thursday

Meatless Fried Rice (Fill us well and satisfied!)

Friday

Stir Fry Chinese Mustard Green and Stir Fry Bean Sprouts with Miso Tofu Soup
(I've made a slight tweak to Friday's meal, as I've some ingredients left over which was meant for my lunch meals of the week. Not wanting to keep them over the week, decided to just use them up).

Update:
We've survived five evenings of fully meatless dinners and I must say it was tempting to want to swap one of the dishes to a meat dish *hah* but I reminded myself just keep to it and we can do it! 

I've also made it a point not to consume anymore food after 8pm, yes, not even fruits or a healthy snack. I (just me alone) fasted from 8pm all the way till the next day 12noon and within this period I just drank water. This fast kept me alert and I was able to accomplish a lot more things within the day before the kids were home from school, it was amazing! I've also noticed that I have lost a few cm all around my body!!! Oooh I am so loving my new diet and I know I can get use to it! 

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Here's another inspiring story by a fellow blogger friend who's embarked on the healthy eating and healthy living journey for the past few months. Read her story and pick up a new tip or two, she's got loads of wonderful information to share!

[Recipe] Fried Bee Hoon - Meatless

I used to always think in everything that I cook I MUST add meat unless it's stir-fry vegetables or a pure vegetable dish.

For as long as I've been cooking meals for my family, I've never once fried bee hoon without meat. I didn't think fried bee hoon would be tasty without any meat, so I was a little apprehensive at how this meal might taste.

I wasn't disappointed! With a wide variety of colours in the fried bee hoon, it was already very appetising even without eating!

To prepare this meal, it was SO simple. I love loads of colours in my meal because I know it is first very appetising, secondly, since we are not having any meat within the meal, I need to find substitutes for the protein that we will be lacking from. Thirdly, with a wide variety of different vegetables, we will have a vast amount of different nutrients drawn from them. So even without meat in our meal this evening, we were still able to have loads of good stuff packed within it.

Recipe for 4 pax
Ingredients
Dried rice vermicelli (bee hoon) (rehydrate it by soaking in water till soft)
1 Carrot (julienned)
1/2 Zucchini (julienned)
100gms Bean Sprouts (roots plucked)
6 Shitake Mushrooms (thinly sliced)
2 Eggs (beaten and fried as an omelette then shredded)
1 Red chilli (seeded, julienned) - you may replace it with red bell pepper
4 Cloves garlic (minced)
2 Onions (thinly sliced)
1" long ginger (skinned and flattened)
3tbsp light soya sauce
1tbsp dark soya sauce
1/2 cup Water
Salt & Pepper to taste

Process
1) Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a wok then saute the aromatics (ginger, garlic & onion) for a minute
2) Add all the vegetables except bean sprouts, stir-fry the vegetables for 2 minutes then add 1tsp of salt. When the vegetables are almost cooked down, add in the bean sprouts and stir fry for another minute.
3) Pour in the water followed by the rice vermicelli, add the seasoning (light and dark soya sauce)
4) Toss the vermicelli to even out the seasoning till it's well combined.
5) Taste to test if the seasoning is sufficient otherwise add a tsp more of light soya sauce if you prefer.
6) Turn out the heat and combine the shredded omelette into the mixture and serve with spring onions/red cut chilli (optional).

[Recipe] Vegetarian Tofu

This dish caught my attention as I was conscientiously trying to lift out all recipes that are mainly vegetarian/vegan/vegetable based from the cookbooks I have in my home library.

It's simple and I was able to adapt it by changing the vegetables that I fancy. The main thing that brought the dish together was the sauce. So this was a hit with my family that they asked for "repeat order" (ie. to have this in our next dinner meal in the near future).

With very simple ingredients everything can be pull off within minutes!

2 Pieces of Firm Tofu, sliced into approx 1cm thickness; then pat them completely dry

Pan-fry them till they form a crispy exterior - approx 5mins each side. Once done, set it aside.

Ingredients that I've used as the vegetable topping. Originally the recipe calls for baby corn, black fungus and mushrooms. Well I love my food colourful so these were the ones I've used - 1/2 pack of Sweet Snap Peas, Yellow Bell Pepper (thinly sliced into strips, Red Chilli (seeded & cut into thin strips), 1/2 Carrot (julienned), 2 Fresh Shitake Mushrooms (thinly sliced).

I cannot do without any aromatics in my dish, so garlic and onions are the usual aromatics I'll have in my cooking.

I've done away with the use of oyster sauce and even commercially made mushroom sauce. Have changed to the use of Natural Black Bean Sauce instead. Tasted just as good!

Recipe for the sauce:

1Tbsp Black Bean Sauce

2 Tbsp Light Soya Sauce

1tsp Sugar

1/2 Cup water

1-2tsp Corn Flour

*Note: Combine all the ingredients for the sauce together

Process

1) Pan fry the firm tofu slices till crispy on the outside and set it aside.

2) Heat oil and saute onions and garlic till fragrant

3) Add in all the vegetables and stir-fry till cooked

4) Add in the sauce and cook till the sauce thickens; turn out the heat

5) Serve by plating the tofu at the bottom of the plate and pour the vegetables with sauce over the tofu.

[Recipe] Meatless Fried Rice

Fried Rice has always been the easiest meal for me to whip up in a jiffy because it's one-pot and best of all it's just a huge marrying of all ingredients in one wok! Very little to think much about seriously when it comes to preparing a traditional yang zhou fried rice. However, it's a different story when it's meatless!

I thought long and hard how to make the fried rice tasty and still full of flavour with just vegetables alone without the enhancement of taste from chinese sausages and prawns.

Decided upon using the mushrooms and French beans to replace the protein that's missing in the meal. Sweet corn kernels was for the added sweetness to replace the chinese sausages. The rest of the colours were for the added fibre and nutrients and of course visual appeal. 

Fried firm tofu is entirely optional, but since I have a left over piece of it I just included it into this fried rice meal. This added a level of texture to the meal.

Don't these colours look attractive? I was salivating even before the rice was added.

Voila! It's Done!

Serves 4-5pax
Ingredients
1 pot of cooked Basmati Rice (or you may use regular Jasmine Rice)
4 cloves Garlic (minced)
1/2 large Yellow Onion (chopped)
8 stalks French Beans (cut into thin slices)
1/2 Carrot (julienned)
5 Fresh Shitake Mushrooms (sliced thinly)
Corn Kernels from 1 sweet corn
1/2 Red Bell Pepper (cut into cubes/julienned; may substitute it with red chilli that's been seeded)
1 Firm Tofu (cut into cube and pan fried - this ingredient is optional)
Salt to taste

Seasoning
2tbsp Vegetarian Oyster Sauce (commonly known as mushroom sauce - I have instead used an Organic Black Bean sauce)
1tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1tsp Sugar
*Note: prepare this seasoning in a small bowl adding all the seasoning ingredients.

Process
1) Saute Onion and Garlic till fragrant and onion has slightly soften
2) Add in all the vegetables and stir-fry till it's cooked down
3) Add salt to the vegetables and stir-fry till well combined
4) Tip in the rice and add the seasoning
5) Add the firm tofu ^(optional ingredient)
6) Stir and Toss till all ingredients are well combined
7) Serve it warm with a dash of white pepper