Falafel, zoodles with pesto, mujaddarah, imam bayildi--gosh, there are so many. I rarely eat meat anymore, just a chicken whenever I run out of stock, and usually a fair amount of the chicken goes into the stock pot along with the bones.

ETA Actually, I guess the pesto doesn't qualify, since Parmigiano-Reggiano is made with real rennet.

Fettuccine alfredo without chicken

Black bean carrot veggie burger

The poster didn't say vegetarian, just meat free, so I think the pesto qualifies, as does pepe e cacio and macaroni and cheese.

I also make lentil soup, a pasta with a mushroom sauce, pasta primavara, butternut squash ravioli, various quiches and frittatas, eggplant parmesan and shakshuka.

We enjoy various Ethiopian foods like Atkilt and Tikil Gomen, a lot of Ethiopian dishes are vegetarians or even vegan. I also have a recipe for "Million Vegetable Stew" which doesn't have a million vegetables, but a lot of them. I serve that over polenta for Elery, he likes it a lot. I'm not a huge fan of mush, but I love the veggies.

We also have various vegetable topped flatbreads, as I'm not a big fan of red sauce or cheese, it takes the place of traditional pizza. My favorite, though, is probably AnnT's stacked enchiladas. There is an option to make them with or without chicken and I actually like them best without, the green sauce is sour from the tomatillos and slightly spicy and just delicious.

Annie

My favorite is probably chili with beans, bulgar, and ground up walnuts and dried shitake mushrooms for a "meaty" texture.

Veggie enchiladas, pot pie, pasta, loaded salads, veggie burgers, grilled cheese, stir fry, pizza, soup. Almost anything can have a vegetarian version, so I adapt many meat recipes with simple substitutions.

You can get vegetarian Parmesean, but I can only find it at Whole Foods. I stock up there along with their feta. It's not the fancy authentic stuff but it tastes similar enough for me.

Vegetable soup. Ratatouille on pasta. Baked russet potato with salsa. Eggplant every which way. I'm not creative anymore in the kitchen but I love vegetables more than any other food group. (Except Annie's bread).

Oh yeah, Seagrass, I forgot about baked potatoes, topped with vegetable chili or salsa, or broccoli and cheese or just butter, salt and pepper. Like you, my favorite food group is vegetables, but I do like bread. I mostly only eat fruit in desserts.

Annie

Pasta primavera, stir fried vegetables with brown rice....and what has already been suggested.
If you are allowing eggs and fish....that can include things like quiche, frittata and all sorts of fish dishes.

I eat very little fruit for some reason. I don't like tart things. I like cantaloupe, watermelon, sweet red grapes. An occasional pear or apple with gooey cheese. I can't eat berries - they get stuck in me and I get very sick (diverticulosis). If I could ever get my hands on a drop dead ripe peach, plum or apricot I would go insane but that doesn't happen in New England. Those fruits are always crunchy and flavorless. As are mangoes and papayas, both I dearly love as well. Cherries - I swoon over dark red cherries when they come to town.

Fresh spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce!

Eggplant parmigiana and lentil soup, 'scalloped' potatoes and pasta w/ pesto.

And yes, quiche!

And I have adapted Molly Katzen's recipe for Mexican pepper casserole that we love: sauteed sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes and corn covered w/ a custard layer made from yoghurt or sour cream and eggs, then topped w/ cheese and baked until puffy and golden.

Those fruits are always crunchy and flavorless.

If it makes you feel any better, they're like that everywhere, at least the ones commercially grown. Even the UF's new low-chill peaches are divided into melting and non-melting (i.e., crunchy) varieties. Yeah, there's nothing like a nice crunchy peach. :(

Many soups and salads, but I often make those up. Or a savory bread pudding or strata if including cheese and eggs is okay. We love this recipe. When our son has been home, we add cooked Italian turkey sausage at the end to make it heartier for him. Great both ways.

Gnocchi W/ Garlic, Spinach, Mushroom & Grape Tomatoes

from TheBostonBean

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup butter ( more or less)

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 -2 minced shallot

1 1/2 cups halved grape tomatoes

1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced ( crimini or white button)

1 1/2 cups fresh Baby Spinach ( frozen spinach work well too, just SQUEEZE the water out)

1 teaspoon thyme

kosher salt

pepper

1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

10 ounces gnocchi, cooked accoring to directions ( I buy from Trader Joes)

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat 1 tbsp of butter with 1/2 tsp of olive oil (this prevents the butter from burning) over med heat until melted.

2. Add garlic and shallots.

3. Cook 1-2 minutes, until soft.

4. Add cherry tomatoes and kosher salt to taste.

5. Cook 8 minutes on low heat covered, until soft.

6. Add mushrooms and 1 tbsp of butter.

7. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

8. Add baby spinach and thyme.

9. Cook low for 5-8 more minutes.

10. Add 1 -2 tbsp more butter and a tiny bit of water to make a sauce to coat. Yum!

11. Add pepper.

12. Turn off heat, add Parmesan and hot cooked gnocchi.

This is another one DH will accept as a meal rather than a side. Can easily be halved.

Athenian Stuffed
Potatoes
From Cooking Liight

4 (8 oz) baking potatoes
1 6 oz jar marinated artichoke hearts,
undrained
2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup (4 oz) crumbled feta
2 T minced kalamata olives
1 tsp dried oregano

Preheat oven to 375. Wrap potatoes in foil and
one hour or until tender (or cook in microwave).

Drain artichoke hearts over a bowl, reserving
1 T marinade. Chop artichokes.

Heat oil in a large skillet over med-high
heat Add onions, pepper, tomato and garlic. Saute about 8 min. Add artichokes
and reserved marinade, cheese, olives, and oregano. Saute 1 minute or until
thoroughly heated.

Unwrap potatoes, Cut each open, fluff pulp
with a fork. Spoon about 1 cup mixture into center of each potato.

We often just make 2 potatoes and use the leftover filling tossed with pasta (can add some chicken too), or with some assorted veggies (summer squash, zucchini or spinach if
desired) to make a second meal.

Soup, soup soup, omelets, and innumerable ways of fixing pasta! In the summer, salads.

Salad. Any salad. Dark leafy greens, veggies, fruits, and a mixture thereof. Summer can't come soon enough.

Photos for uploading · More Info

Re stone fruits, look for "Tree Ripened" on the sign. As my father said when I brought him real tree ripened peaches last Summer, "MMMM, yummy!" I don't think I'd ever heard him say "yummy" ever ever before. :) But the peaches were that good. Re the crunchy ones, why bother? I made a good pie of them once but it tasted more like apple than peaches.

Favorite meat free flavor is probably Pad Thai. The tamarind does it. :) Falafel is probably more nutritious, and will make my toes curl in pleasure, but only if it's "good", most of the falafel you can buy isn't (though I do know a couple of good places), and by the time I'm done making all the bits and pieces at home, I've lost my appetite. I'm thinking about vegan, though. And I do make a bean and lentil loaf that's pretty good.

If milk and eggs are included in meat free, however, there are SO many delicious things. Soufflé, quiche, bourekes, cheese toast, French toast, artichoke and spinach "Benedict".

That's "dishes". There are also vegetables. :) Like baby spinach. Mixed green salad. Yellow squash lightly steamed. Eggplant roasted within an inch of it's life. Eggplant salad (any kind). Egg salad, for that matter (lots of veg in my egg salad). :)

Just today I made Martha Stewart's Vegetarian French Onion Soup, I swear it tastes like it is made with beef broth but it uses Baby Bella mushrooms (little tiny Portobello's a.k.a. Cremini's) for the base, in butter (I used Earth Balance), along with a lot of scallions (I like the colors in the finish) and tons of those white onions (mandolin whole than halved). Of course you have to caramelize the onions for the the long, long 20 minutes like the original, but it includes greens of the scallions and lots of fresh thyme and a bay leaf for the depth/colors while doing that. I found Gruyere on sale/half price at Harris Teeter grocery store so mounds of that on fresh sourdough rounds helped. I even bought special deep heat proof bowls ( a long time ago) to serve them in. A regular flat bowl does not hold the soup to the steaming hot level this soup needs.

Martha Vegetarian French Onion Soup

I need to comment about peaches. For those of you in the northeast US - look for Pennsylvania peaches in early August. As with every crop, the quality varies by year - weather, etc. Last year's crop was outstanding. I think I ate a peach a day while they were in season and then cried when they were gone. Okay, I didn't cry but they were GOOD. (FYI - I'm not a PA peach grower - I live in central NY. ;-))

seegrass, the last time I went for a colonoscopy(last year), they said that berries/tomatoes and such with small seeds were no longer an issue!

I brought it up cause I said I couldn't do without my home grown tomatoes!

Hmmmmmm Nancy

Just made a potato soup last night. Very easy. I used turkey bacon in it, but it's very adaptable and VERY filling! You can also add any cooked vege (best are broccholi and asparagus) NT

Just picked corn on the cob.

Pizza

vegetable lasagna

I love all kinds of meat-free dishes! Chili, lots of different soups, pasta with broccoli and garlic, Mexican, greens & beans, ... And there's a black bean salad made with mango/papaya/tropical fruit, jalapeños, etc. Yum!

I was going to comment about the peaches too - I'm also in CNY and planted Reliance peaches. Had my first harvest last year with bushels to give away and they were far better than anything I can buy! I was amazed that I could grow real peaches here.

Eggplant pizzas... they could be topped with meat, but I seldom do that. Eggplant as a base topped with tomato sauce, mushrooms, onion, cheeses....

Palak paneer, that spinach and paneer cheese of Indian provenance.

Lentil or bean dal.

Uttapam pancakes, a savory pancake made from rice and lentils, topped with tomato, onion and curry leaf.

Most anything from the Indian subcontinent. They've had centuries of getting vegetarian food right.

I'm not a big fan of pasta, but sometimes a skillet Mac and cheese with a good combo of cheeses, and some tasty veggies mixed in does the trick: onion, broccoli, mushrooms - without the veggies, though, Mac and cheese is just wallpaper paste to me.

Black bean soup. Add onions, cilantro, Mexican spices.

A couple of large artichokes with a good dipping dressing does me well for a meal - If I don't make my own, Annie's Balsalmic Vinaigrette works well.

Uttapam pancakes, a savory pancake made from rice and lentils, topped with tomato, onion and curry leaf.

How do you make yours, artemis_ma? I've seen so many recipes and they never seem to have much in common with each other.

Party_music, those peaches look wonderful.

Meatless? Why??? Okay, I like toast - no meat. I love toast with a slice of roast beef, though.

That's a joke right? : )

There is the obvious health benefits eating whole fresh foods starting with the garden and the produce section. My local market is big on vegetables....very minor frozen processed food in the way back and just a couple rows. Not like the usual grocery where the entire middle, half the store, is processed frozen.

I've got hundreds of pics of meatless meals. I fill my parents freezer with soup kits and a mixed sprouted bean/grain/seed/nut burgers. More a slider and next batch I'll make some smaller 'meat'ball size for soups and pasta dishes.

3 storms in 10 days I prepped/re-stocked some spice mixes and cracker and grain burger mixes. We have had them three times in two weeks and another crustless veg pot pie three times. (twice with seafood)

Dad just turned 90 and Mom 89. Dad is still swimming every day and Mom does her yoga classes twice a week. They love these things. She is hiding them in the freezer since they run out so fast.

My Mothers six siblings have all passed and my Fathers younger brother is very ill. His sister passed years ago. Most from type 2 diabetics and years very overweight.

I'm not one to blame diet on illness though quality of life is important. Way too many hereditary and environmental factors at play.

We are total carnivores, and pescavores, and vegavores. Just happen to prefer quality meats and small quantities being cheap. Veg burgers, sliders, again tonight over beet and collard greens in the steam oven.

Last night with a meaty salad.

Writersblock, I wanted to copy paste my recipe here directly, but I kept having severe formatting difficulties that I don't want to re-type around (I need to go out and shovel snow before it is too dark), so here is my uttapam pancake recipe at my blog. Uttapam Pancakes.

I took most of my inspiration from Udupi Recipes if you want to see something direct from an Indian source.

I've made this several times now, the first just for myself, but after for others, and they were All Gone. You can make the batter and hold it for two or three days, too.

Thanks so much! I really enjoyed reading your blog.