Vegan Meatless Mondays

I always see posts for people doing ‘Meatless Mondays’ and I’ve been thinking it would be a fun thing to do here on my blog too.  Kind of a fuel for running kind of thing.  The problem is, that feels kind of like cheating because I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 17, over 25 years now.

What to do?  I’ve decided to do my Meatless Mondays vegan.  I’m vegetarian but I eat way too much dairy (and other junk), it’s something I’ve been wanting to cut back on for a while but just haven’t bothered.  So here I go trying to make a pledge to myself and actually keep it – one day a week will be completely vegan AND unprocessed.  How hard can it be after all?

So here is my first Meatless Monday / Fuel for Running menu.

Breakfast:

The kids and I have been on an overnight oatmeal kick but I tried a green vegan recipe and I didn’t really like it.  The green part was good, but it was much soggier than when I use yogurt.  I’m hoping to find the perfect mixture and when I do I’ll let you know.

Until then it’s my usual quesadilla but I’ll use beans instead of cheese.  I made a crock-pot full of seasoned pinto beans (cooked with an onion and 3 cloves of garlic diced about to liquid in the Ninja, chili powder, pepper, garlic powder and a bit of cumin) Sunday so I’m ready to go.  Just spread some pinto beans, onion and jalapeno on a tortilla, sprinkle on some chili powder and throw it in the toaster oven.  Dunk it in salsa and you can’t beat it to start the day!

Lunch:

I’m either giving myself a pass here or I’m a horrible cheater.  I made a huge pot of goulash and then realized the whole wheat noodles I used where egg noodles.  I thought they where just shaped like egg noodles.  Fail!  For that I will have to eat more vegan meals throughout the week!  But for next time it will be easy enough to look at the label and make it vegan:

1/2 bag of pasta

1/2 a huge white onion

3 cloves garlic

A pound of fresh green beans broke into bite size

2 can’s diced tomatoes

1 can corn

Pepper, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, onion powder

I just browned the onion and garlic, cooked and drained the pasta and threw it back in the pan with everything else and cooked it about 10 minutes more. Not much of a recipe but I’m not much of a cook. Next time I’ll cook the green beans a little before adding everything together, they could have been less crisp!

LunchOK, that picture looks gross like it has seafood in it, but I swear it tasted good.

Dinner: Kale salad

Two kale leaves cut in thin strips (minus the stem)

Half a diced ripe avacado

Half a diced cucumber

Garlic, onion powder, oregano, basil, juice of a slice of lemon

I found out I LOVE kale salad as long as the kale is sliced nice and thin.

So there you go, my first vegan meatless Monday.  And now you know why I will never, ever be a foodie blogger. Or a cook.

Do you do Meatless Mondays?