What do vegetarians eat?

Ever since Jayson and I changed our eating habits, i have had a lot of people ask us what we eat.

We eat just about everything! Just not meat, and we limit our dairy (i also limit my egg intake, and we prefer to know where our eggs come from). We limit any soy intake (that is what is often put into vegetarians meals) because soy is not great for you, and especially not great for me, as it interacts with my medicine i take for my hypothyroid.

We still eat really well, and eat really delicious food!

So i wanted to share a little of some our delicious meals; this go round, they both happen to be vegan.

We have been using a program called GatheredTable that helps us plan our meals for the week. It does have recipes that it adds to your calendar for you, but i like to search the web for more vegan options. Then, it automatically will pop in recipes on your week's calendar, and you can play around with it... And maybe even replace a recipe with another one you've been craving.

This week, i wanted to make a couple of dishes that would make great leftovers. So i replaced a couple of recipes with ones i recently found on blogs. (And just to show how great these are, both of these are actually photos of the leftovers)

Mashed Chickpea Salad

This is a great alternative, if you want something that has the ease of a tuna or chicken salad. It is a chickpea/garbanzo bean and hummus base, so from there, even though it has you put in carrots and celery and scallions, you can really add whatever you want. 

On some of my leftovers, I added tomatoes and jalapeños.

Click here for the link to the original recipe on The Simple Veganista. 

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Chili

If any of you are like us, you're out squashed by this point of the year! We weren't sure if we could handle another recipe, but we still had a butternut squash sitting on our counter.

This is one of my favorite recipes I've ever made with or without meat. 

It is a perfect warm and cozy type of dish, with spices and the slightest bit of sweetness from the squash.

We didn't have any chipotle powder, so I just left it out, and it was fine. I bet it would be even more delicious with that extra smokey flavor. Also, it calls for 3 or 4 cups of butternut squash. Since we were a little tired of the squash flavor, i only used 3 cups, and I think it was perfect.

If you are tempted to add dairy to this (like my husband is prone to do), just use avocados instead! They add that creamy texture that you may feel you're missing. In this photo I also added green onions and jalapeños to the top, but you can also add tortilla chips or white or purple onions or anything else you would normally add to a chili!

Click here for the link to the original recipe also from The Simple Veganista. 

By the way, our biggest tip for making this one: peel the butternut squash before cutting. Those little buggers are hard to chop!

Since we only have a two person house, these both have lasted all week. In between, we've had a couple of other quick make meals; and of course, yesterday we had out Casa Vega happy hour meal of chips and salsa and a mexican pizza (without meat)!

If you do try either of these recipes, let me know! 

If not, at least rest assured that we are eating well. :)