Posts Tagged: vegetarian

Diet / Fast Food — No Comments
10
Mar 10

10 Amazing Vegetarian Fast Food Choices

Eating at fast food joints can be quite the hassle for selective eaters.  However, there are vegetarian fast food options at most national chains.  Some are only good enough to get you to the next meal, but many are legitimately tasty!

As an experienced fast food restaurant scrounger, I’ve experienced both the good and the bad.  Take a look at the list below for the best vegetarian fast food choices.

1. Bean Burrito, Taco Bell
The bean burrito is a staple of my fast food diet.  It’s cheap, not that bad for you, and tasty.  It now comes with a fresco alternative (which is vegan) that substitutes peppers and onions for the cheese.  Taco Bell is a solid eating location for a veggie on the go.

2. Veggie Delight, Subway
It’s just like making a sandwich at home except you don’t have to stock your fridge with twenty ingredients.  Mix your custom bread with your custom toppings, and a custom sauce or dressing for a quality treat. My personal favorite includes American cheese, banana peppers, and yellow mustard combined with the typical sub toppings.

3. BK Veggie, Burger King
When your omnivorous friends proclaim that they ‘MUST’ have a burger,  the BK Veggie is your way to get a full meal. It’s a tasty veggie burger, although I’m personally not thrilled with the occasional, giant water crest that’s inside.  Pro-tip: go sans mayo.

4. Side Salad, Hardees
Figuring any grease-loving, monster burger restaurant would treat a side salad as a second class citizen, I was honestly surprised by the Hardees side salad. The lettuce was fresh and crispy and the toppings were pretty solid.  Not the best salad, but really good for what it is.

5. Grilled Cheese, IN-N-OUT Burger
This is more or less a cheeseburger without the burger.  You can get all the normal burger fixings on a bun, grilled, with cheese.

6. Mandarin Oranges, Wendy’s
A delightful cup on mandarin oranges might be just what you need to brighten your day when you’re out and about.  Although not nearly a meal in itself, a cup of oranges is nice to see making its way into the fast food market.

7. Caesar Salad, Boston Market
Boston Market is a bit of a fast food stretch in my opinion, but they have quite a few meatless options.  The Caesar salad probably isn’t all that healthy, but in my experience it’s fresh and tasty.

8. Garden Vegetable Soup with Pesto, Panera Bread
This is a relatively new soup at Panera.  I love the combination of flavors, especially when combined with a lovely slice of french baguette.  There are a couple other veggie soups too.  I can’t speak for the tomato yet, but I find the black bean to be way to salty.  If all else fails, the bakery is stocked full of delicious breads and pastries.

9. Apple Slices with Caramel, Sonic
Much like the mandarin oranges at number 6, it’s nice to see fruit making it to the menus.  The apple slices seem much fresher than their McDonald’s equivalent and they come with a great caramel dip.

10. French Fries, Everywhere
Purists will scoff at the inclusion of fries on this list, but purists always do.  French fries are a debated food in the meat-free circles because they’re cooked in the same pans as the burgers and most restaurants will not come out and say whether they contain any meat products.  However, they’re delicious and I don’t think any of the ingredients are actually animal derived so I’m okay with them.

Honorable Mention: Thickburger-no meat, Hardees
This is a thickburger sans burger.  I haven’t personally tried one, which is why it didn’t make the list of ten.  But I hear good things and it’s on my “To Eat” list.

Cooking / Diet — No Comments
5
Mar 10

A Vegetarian Diet is Boring (but doesn’t have to be)

Well, it doesn’t have to be…but mine is. I’m not a good cook and I feel like I don’t have time to learn. No one else in my family is a vegetarian so any recipe that I try is a shot in the dark.  The result is that I pretty much have 10 meals that I rotate through based on what I feel like eating each particular night.

I don’t feel like this is a vegetarian problem; it’s more of a lifestyle problem.  Luckily, I think my problem is solvable.  I just need to be open to new ideas and trying new things.

If you’re suffering from the same dinner plate boredom, here are 6 ideas to spice up your vegetarian meal plan!

1. Try a new recipe from a book you already own

You know, the books over there gathering dust.  You purchased them with the best of intentions, but after an occasional glance the first couple days you never mustered up the courage to give that daring recipe a try.  I’m not the stocked kitchen kind of guy, but I’m sure that you can find one in there that you already have the ingredients to.

2. Get creative with a potato

Start with a baked potato.  Take a look in your cabinet and assess the situation. Select one can of beans of the type you have the most of.  Select a vegetable that will also accompany the meal.  This is where you get to be creative. Beans aren’t creative, but the type of vegetable you pick can be.  Go wild, choose something you don’t think will go well on a potato.  Now that you’ve made your selections, cook all three items separately, spicing as desired, and then top the sliced baked potato with your beans and vegetable.  Add other potato toppings as desired.

3. Focus the meal around an unusual item

The problem new veggies have with cooking is that they used to prepare a meal by thinking of a main item (that being the meat) and then thinking of items that go with it.  You can still think the same way, you just have to focus on a different center item like I did with the potato above.  For example, imagine three of the most delicious slices of tomato lying in the center of a plate. What two or three other items could you mix in or add on the side.  Personally, I think I’d chop the tomato and mix it with spinach, chopped potato, and a small amount of salsa.

4. Add flare to one of your regular meals

Choose something that you eat fairly regularly, but haven’t had in a couple of days. Substitute one of the regular ingredients or add in something extra.  I quite often eat spaghetti with marinara sauce.  It’s easy to make and cheap, but it’s not exciting anymore.  To spice it up I could add veggie crumbles (a vegetarian ground beef substitute) or do something as simple as switching to spiral noodles.

5. Speaking of which, don’t be afraid of meat substitutes

…to create your old favorites. Although I in no way crave animal products anymore, I still have brushes of desire for specific meals that my mom prepared when I was growing up. Use substitutes to try to recreate the recipe.

6. Trust your instincts

Remember when your grandmother would just grab a pinch or handful of something and throw it in the pot?  I was always baffled, but she had the confidence to know that it would turn out well. Pretend as if you absorbed that ability.  Don’t be afraid to toss some corn into that pasta dish or add a spice that isn’t on the recipe card.  The worst that happens is you learn not to do it next time :)