meatless month

so, we were vegetarians for the month of may. for some background, josh and i sat down at the beginning of the year and had a meeting about what we wanted to do this year. you know, financially, professionally, spiritually... all that. but also, what we wanted to do this year to spice up our lives, make memories, be adventurous. we brainstormed and one thing that came up was trying out being vegetarian. not really for ethical reasons or for weight loss, (although those are both good reasons), but for fun!!! and i've been wanting our family to have more meatless recipes in the cycle, so i'm not making chicken recipes night after night. we set april as vegetarian month (lacto-ovovegetarians- so we still had dairy and eggs). april didn't work out, so we pushed it back to may. starting may 1st until 31st we ate no meat... the final report is we really enjoyed it!!! i personally did not miss the meat, and enjoyed trying so many new recipes. here are some things we tried (26 recipes, yo)...

WINNERS (i will make these dishes again):

vegetable lasagna, creamy tortellini, crusted quiche, bean mexi soup, pinto bean burritos, extreme veggie stirfry, squash casserole, italian soup, black bean burritos, fettuccine and homemade alfredo sauce, kale soup, lentils meatless meatloaf, curried squash risotto, bowtie pasta and basil creme sauce, tofu stroganoff, homemade four cheese macaroni, zucchini casserole

PRETTY GOOD, but probably won't make the repeat list:

alfredo lasagna rollups, veggi pad thai, shells peas pasta, oven fried eggplant, bocca veggie burgers, rice and beans, BBQ tofu, eggplant parmesan

FAIL:

korean bean sprout salad

lentils meatless meatloaf

i tried to keep our protein in with beans, nuts, soy. we had lots of yummy vegetable sides: almond green beans, sweet potato fries, veggies of all kinds (baked squash, steamed carrots, broccoli, cauliflower), peas, corn on the cob, spinach salads, asparagus, brussel sprouts.

we only had cheat/cop out food a few times: pancakes, ramen, pizza, peanut butter and honey.

it was funny, on june 1st just by second nature i made a vegetarian meal. there are about 4 meals i didn't get to, so i'll try those sometime. alas, i crave a good burger like the next american... so i don't think we're vegetarians for life, but we will be eating much less meat meals around here. it was a fun experiment. if any of those recipes sound appealing to you, let me know and i'd love to pass them on!!!