What's Cooking Wednesday- almost meatless

Okay it's been awhile since I've done a cooking post, sorry just too dang busy. Anyway Anybody how knows my husband knows he is certainly a far cry from a vegetarian. In fact 98% of his meals include a meat source, usually venison, chicken, or fish. I like meat too, but if I had to I think I could go vegetarian. The hardest for me to give up would be fish though. Anyway I have been trying to sneak more vegetarian type foods into our lifestyle. All those veggies are so good for us. So over the weekend we had an almost meatless day. A huge step for my husband. We started the day with homemade french toast made from my homemade bread and farm fresh eggs from our chickens. That was what my husband and the kids had, I am not much of a french toast person so I had cereal. I used to like french toast as a kid, but over the years I it just doesn't appeal to me anymore.


For lunch I fixed homemade tomato soup with cheese dumplings. I copied this recipe from a magazine, but I can't remember which one. The recipe is as follows:

1 T olive oil

1/2 medium onion chopped

1 rib celery chopped

2 cloves of garlic chopped- I just eyeballed the powdered stuff

3 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 14.5 oz cans chopped tomatoes- I used canned ones from our garden

1 tsp light brown sugar

1 tsp kosher salt- I omitted I don't like salt that much

3/4 cup bisquick baking mix-I used the heart smart kind

1/3 cup grated parmesan

1/4 tsp oregano

6 T milk- I used fat free milk

In large pot combine olive oil and onion and celery and garlic cook over medium heat till veggies are tender. stir in broth tomatoes brown sugar and salt simmer for 15 minutes. Use a blender or immersion blender to slightly puree it. Meanwhile in a separate bowl combine bisquick parmesan and oregano and milk till a dough forms. roll dough into little balls. Add dough balls to soup cover and simmer for 10 minutes. A 1 2/3 cup serving with 2 dumplings is only 165 calories.

Dinner we had 2 recipes from the Eating Well Magazine. The first was BBQ Mushroom Quesillas. These are spicy, but if you omit the pepper it will tone down the flavor.

1/2 cup BBQ sauce- I used makersmark BBQ sauce from jungle jim's

1 chipolte pepper in adobo sauce chopped.

1 lb baby portabellos chopped

1 red onion chopped

1 T cider vinegar

1 T tomato paste- I omitted this cause I didn't have any

3/4 cup cheese

4 8 to 10 inch tortillas

combine BBQ sauce tomato paste vinegar and chipotle in a bowl. In skillet heat mushrooms and onions till cooked tender. combine veggies with the sauce. The article calls for you to heat tortillas in skillet with sauce etc. It sounded messy. So I put some cheese on the tortilla the the mushroom BBQ mix on then folded it over and popped it in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the cheese. Delicious. one serving is 311 calories.

With this we had a salad.Scallop Apple curry salad. The recipe calls for apple cider which I didn't have so I used 1 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar as a substitution and it tasted great.

1/2 medium red onion chopped

3/4 tsp curry powder

1 cup apple cider - or simple syrup

1/2 tsp salt- again I omitted I don't like salt

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 lb scallops-

I didn't have that much cause I used most of them in another recipe the day before

1/4 tsp pepper

8 cups mixed salad greens

1 apple chopped

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup sliced almonds

In skillet cook scallops with curry powder and onion. when they are tender add simple syrup and salt bring to boil till reduced to 3/4 cup. in bowl and greens apple cranberries and almonds place scallops and dressing over top.

When it was all said and done we each had maybe a handful of scallops as our meat source for the day. The amazing thing was my husband liked all the dishes and didn't complain about the meatlessness of our day.