At my house, we are big fans of portobello mushroom burgers. Grilled portobello, caramelized onions, blue cheese in a toasted Kaiser rolls. YUM.

Also being that we have great warm weather all year long, we like to use the grill as often as possible. Colorful peppers, onions, squash and zucchini with a drizzle of good olive oil and balsamic vinegar make good ingredients for tasty veggie sandwiches.

Another bit of advice…don’t change all at once. Start by with mixing it half and half with cooked ground beef or the carnivores in your family will complain.

We also eat lots of casseroles with small amounts of meat. Turkey smoked sausage (like keilbasa), turkey bacon, and boneless chicken breasts bought in a huge bag at Sam’s Club are pretty healthy options that I can use about $2 worth to feed my family (6 of us–four kids ages 14 to 19). Add a starch (potatoes, brown rice or even corn tortillas), a sauce (usually white sauce with whatever seasonings are appropriate), and whatever veggies you have on hand, top with saltine crumbs or shredded cheese, and you have a casserole for usually under 5 bucks that is much healthier than frozen pizzas or nuggets. Another benefit to this kind of cooking is that you can assemble your casserole early in the day or even the night before and throw it in the oven anywhere from 30 to 120 minutes before you want to eat (depending on the temp you set the oven on).

We were eating eggs as a meat substitute, but now they’re almost as expensive as meat–I bought 3 dozen egg’s at Sam’s Club yesterday for $6, but at Kroger they’re $2.50 for a dozen medium.

My family also likes split pea soup. It’s easy to make, and really cheap–about 50 cents a pound, I use 2 pounds to feed my family plus have leftovers for a few lunches. It has a bacony flavor even without adding any bacon. Potato soup is another favorite, but since I save my ham bones to make broth to cook my potatoes in, I’m not sure if this would count as meatless. I add frozen broccoli and top with shredded cheddar and sour cream.

Another thing I’ve learned is to use meat almost as one would a seasoning. So a big batch of food might have meat in it, but not as much as most Americans have in a meal—not even as much as a deck of cards. It’s kind of fun. The only thing I’ve discovered is that if I don’t eat meat for a month I get queasy next time I eat it. So we have to monitor our meals.

Some of my favorite dishes are red or green curry with tofu and veggies, dal with red lentils, saag or mattar paneer with tofu in place of the paneer. All of the above are good with rice, stir fried tofu with veggies.

Black bean soup with lots of veggies in the Vita Mix is a favorite, as is other types of canned beans. Chana Masala with canned chickpeas. Sauteed spinach with garlic, a can of fire roasted tomatoes and cannelinni beans. Veggie lasagna, garden burgers, veggie chili with lots of types of beans and soy crumbles, refried and black bean soup. Omelettes, even, with things like spinach, goat cheese, mushrooms. Frozen cheese pizza with our own sauteed spinach and mushrooms added to the top.

The list goes on! I am all about easy and quick, but healthy, and it is so easy to do that. We don’t miss out on meat at all, and we certainly don’t miss out on flavorful and yummy food to eat!

N.