Flexitarianism, Year One: A Recipe Retrospective

John and I began a largely vegetarian diet in 2011. We were newly married, building a life largely through our culinary escapades, and it started first as a challenge to ourselves--to learn recipes for dishes featuring vegetables that were filling. We had read a lot of Michael Pollan and he made sense to us, with his famous dictum "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Then, on New Year's, John grabbed me by the shoulders and said "Don't let me buy any meat this year." It was a resolution of sorts. The next day, when we had driven three hours home from our in-laws', exhausted and dehydrated from the previous evening's festivities, John said "I'm serious. Let's go vegetarian." Of course that whole story is already here.



I'm here to report back, over a year after this journey began. Now, we are not total vegs now; we still cheat at family gatherings and occasionally in restaurants when the right dish (aka pulled pork) beckons. But, by and large, we've eliminated meat from the grocery bill. After many, many recipes shared to Facebook, I had a few requests to recommend favorites, to gather together the recipes that worked.

So, without furthier adieu, here are some of the slam-dunks of our pseudo-vegetarian lives. The stars are for the superstars that we have made again and again since discovering.


Breakfasts
Roasted Pear and Chocolate Chunk Scones

Raspberry White Chocolate Honey Almond Meal Muffins

Zucchini Bread Pancakes

**Mascarpone Rosewater Pancakes
In my personal top five. These things taste like my dreams.

Orange Oat and Chocolate Chip Muffins
One of the best muffins ever!

Salads
**Spicy Squash Salad with Lentils and Goat Cheese
Definitely in our top ten. We make this one a lot.

Emerald Salad

Kale Salad with Butternut Squash and Almonds

Ravioli Salad with Black Olives

Avocado Salad with Carrot-Ginger Dressing
The carrot ginger dressing is what makes this.

Summer Pea and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad
The perfect meal for a scorching hot August day

Asian Cabbage Salad

Soups and Stews
Guinness Stew (recipe calls for meat, but we made it without and the stew is so incredibly rich you don't miss it at all!)

Carrot Soup with Miso and Sesame

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Smoky Minestrone with Tortellini

Pizza, Pasta, and Noodles

Ravioli with Herbed Walnut Sauce

Chile Corn and Cheddar Pizza
Believe me, you've been searching for this pizza your whole life. You just don't know it yet. It's love at first bite.

Vegetarian Pad Thai
My personal favorite, and a lucky first-try at Pad Thai. I was nervous about the sauce (I'm very particular) and this one was a slam dunk.

Ginger Scallion Noodle Bowl

Won-ton Mini Lasagnas
Not so much of a recipe as an idea: line muffin tins with wonton wrappers and fill like regular lasagna. Perfect for parties (they're always a huge hit at ours!)

Pasta al Pomodoro
Everybody should know how to make a perfect pasta dish for company. This is it. The pomodoro sauce is easy and packed with flavor.

The dreaded veggie burger and its brethren--meat masqueraders

Pumpkin Black Bean Burgers
I have three favorite veggie burgers and will not choose between them.

White Bean Burger with Rosemary and Sun-dried Tomato
We loved this one so much last summer we're now actually sort of sick of it.

**Walnut-Miso Mushroom Burgers
I cannot wax poetic enough about this burger.

Eggplant "meat" balls
This is not meat-apologist food. These things are flavor-dynamite, and make a great sub with marinara and fresh mozzarella.

Shitake Mushroom and Lentil Asian Tacos
I loved these, but the reaction wasn't unanimous in our house. They take a little adjusting to taste.

Other vegetarian main dishes

Spanakopita
Delicious, but there's a definite learning curve to manipulating the phyllo dough.

Butternut Squash, Red Potato and Quinoa Hash

**Tomato Bread Pudding
This is another one of our top five. Our definition of comfort food. Essentially what happens if your grilled cheese and tomato soup have a baby.

Moroccan Stuffed Tomatoes
Phenomenal, but be warned: these do not make good leftovers. They're best eaten immediately.

Paneer Makhani
Priya taught us some awesome Indian recipes this year, and this was a runaway favorite. It's so indulgently rich, and perfect when you have something to celebrate.

**Zucchini Parmesan
This is in our top five, for sure. Something about swapping the eggplant for zucchini is magical.

White Bean Ragout with Toast

Lentil Cakes with Pesto, Wilted Greens and Lemon-Thyme Zucchini Fries
We made this elaborate recipe for a super special occasion last year: my sister-in-law's graduation dinner. They were a huge hit, even among the veggie-phobic.

Sauteed Chard and Gruyere Swiss Cheese

Crushed Peas with Smoky Sesame Dressing

Shaksuka
This is one of those dishes that is sort of all over the place; a huge delicious mess in a pan.

**Zucchini and Yam Fritters
Make these immediately. Our lives would not be the same without these vibrant, flavorful, perfect, messy little patties. This is is probably the best discovery we made all year, and it never fails to perk us up no matter what kind of rough week we've had!

Root Ribbons with Sage
Shouldn't work as well as they do! The maple syrup seems wrong, but just a touch and it brings out the natural earthy sweetness of the roots.

Spinach Souffle
When I was little, I loved that Stouffer's Spinach Souffle so much I used to call it "Spinach Hooray." The homemade version gives us even more to cheer about.

Desserts
**Vegan Chocolate Cake
One of the best chocolate cakes, period.

Roasted Strawberry Coconut Milk Ice Cream
The secret is to puree the roasted strawberries before adding them in. And, if you're feeling really sassy, drizzle some melted chocolate into your ice cream maker as it's running.

Almond-Banana Smoothies
The nutmeg is really what makes this recipe sing. And it's so simple!

Oh my god. Shoes.

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Ok, so this is the same as the top shoe, in another color. Shhh.

This ankle strap is sexy.
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I have a huge crush on these shoes.
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Anybody want to give me about $300 for some new shoes?

Guestbook

I have seen so many brilliant and beautiful ideas for a wedding guestbook over the past year. For such a small details it's amazing to see the creativity of various brides in order to have unique keepsake from the wedding.

I knew a few things from the beginning; I have a hard time at weddings knowing what to write to the happy couple. Especially before I was married, it felt strange to be giving a couple marriage advice. Cliches like "Don't go to sleep angry" are used over and over again, and I always want to write something that will make them smile.

My personal solution was to give our guests prompts. The cards all had questions printed on them, from the generic (give us your advice for a happy home...) to the silly (draw a picture of us on our wedding day). I figured that prompts would help spur creative and entertaining responses.

The results? A decent amount of responses. Some that made us laugh, others that made us smile. All were thoughtfully written and such fun mememtos to look through in the days following the wedding.

The blog post

I had originally planned on submitting my wedding photos to the wedding blogs since I was so besotted with my photos, but I realized that I could tell a similar story on my own terms (and without our day being made super public). So here is my wedding blog-style post, with some of my favorite shots of the day. I grouped images by theme and color, so after all that painstaking work selecting them out, I think I'll just let the images do all the talking!

All photos by TooMuchAwesomeness:[http://www.toomuchawesomeness.com/danaandjohn copyright 2011 Kenneth Clunk]

 

A Wedding Story

My wedding was over a year ago now (hooray!), but I still cannot stop looking through the photos. They're absolutely breathtaking. One of the first albums I compiled consisted of detail shots taken throughout the day. I love how the stunning photos of these objects tell a certain story of the process of planning the wedding, so I wanted to share that story in photos with you.

I collected several vintage books to use for various things. Our officiant tucked the service into this book and read from it during the ceremony.

My shoes. I searched and searched for the perfect vintage-style teal shoes to use as my something blue, but eventually fell for this Seychelles pair. I thought they went beautifully with my dress and had some vintage-inspired details, from the peep toe to the teardrop cutouts and the gold trim.

My dress was by Jim Hjelm. It has a layer of champagne-silk underneath a soft, vintage-inspired all-over cotton lace from the bodice to the small train.

A close up of the incredibly detailed lace that was the apple of my eye.

Stunning at any angle. I love my dress.

My something old on one of our ceremony programs. The necklace was the same one my mother wore on her wedding day, and she believes it may have belonged to my Great Aunt originally. It has beautiful ivory pearls and crystals on a delicate silver chain.

I made earrings to match the necklace. I originally found those earring backs in a vintage store, but with gaudy pink crystals hanging from them. I replaced the pink ones with beveled swarovski crystals and now they look like a complete set with the necklace.

The earrings on. The bottom of the crystal was beveled and caught the light beautifully.

Our wedding bands in their "ring pillow;" a hollowed-out vintage book with a ring box placed inside that had a teal ribbon to tie the rings on to.

The ring-bearer book was called "Their Wedding Journey." I tried reading it before destroying it, but found it to be exceptionally boring. So I didn't mind cutting into it.

Our wedding rings. John's ring is sterling silver and mine is 18k white gold.

John's wedding band read "We will sail pathless and wild seas," which is a quote from Song of the Open Road, which we used for our vows and for the ring-exchange during the ceremony.

I carried my grandparents with me down the aisle in vintage lockets wrapped around my bouquet, since none of them could be with me on my wedding day.

John and his groomsmen all wore teal bow ties.

...and suspenders!

In lieu of writing our own vows to be read during the ceremony (since we used the Walt Whitman poem), we wrote letters to each other instead. We intended to read them aloud at the rehearsal dinner, but were so caught up in the fun that we forgot. So we sent them to each other the morning of the wedding as we were getting ready.

Our letters to each other.

The garter, handmade by my mother-in-law and I. We gathered champagne colored tulle onto elastic, then tea stained the applique, tinted it with watercolors and hand-sewed swarovski crystal bicones and champagne seed beeds onto it before attaching it to the rest of the garter.

It had such a nice sparkle.

My bouquet all dressed up with a swatch of lace from my Grandmother's collection and two vintage lockets that held photos of my grandparents.

The bouquet consisted of astilbe, peach cabbage roses, dahlias, and cream roses. Not only was it beautiful, it smelled wonderful; delicate and sweet.

The bouquet.

The lockets around my bouquet and the vintage lace.

The bridesmaids' bouquets consisted of purple alstroemeria with variegated pitt, wrapped in champagne floral lace.

The programs, whose design was taken from a vintage perfume label. I collected these antique images for months, taught myself photoshop, and spent hours on the invitations, the RSVP cards, the seating cards, and all the other paper goods for the wedding.

I was so in love with that Ceremony graphic, found on an antique page of wedding announcements. 

A program, nestled in a vintage handkerchief.

The program basket was a vintage suitcase, filled with vintage handkerchiefs.

I fell in love with my green and white striped twine and miniature clothespins, and tried to find all sorts of uses for them throughout the decor. 

The seating chart at the reception was similar to the program basket; a vintage suitcase filled with handkerchiefs and the seating cards hanging from green and white twine.

The dessert table was decorated with vintage cake toppers. This one was from John's parents!

The world's most perfect wedding cake from a local bakery. A grand total of $16.75 for one of the best cakes I've ever eaten! The rest of the dessert table was filled with homemade cookies for guests to snack on throughout the night.

The dessert table label (with a bride and groom cutting a cake, of course).

Our mini-collection of vintage cake toppers collected from family members and vintage shops.

My favorite cake topper, found in a vintage shop. I loved the real lace on her veil and the detailing on the boutonniere and bouquet.