Meat Free Monday: Flexatarian Cooking repost from 2015

Reposting this one:

As most of you know, I have been a Flexatarian for a long time.  I finally talked my husband into reducing the amount of meat we eat to once or twice a week.  We still will eat fish, eggs, and cheese.  Over the past 6 months I have been trying out a lot of new meat replacements and even some cheese replacements and am quite happy with the things I have made.

Here are a few of my favorites:

This Chicken Stylee Seitan recipe from Post Punk Kitchen (This is where I found the Seitan O' Greatness that I use to make sausages.).  I love this blog, she has so many recipes.

These are some of the things I made with it.

Chicken Stylee Cutlets

Chix nuggets

 These were easy, just cut the cutlets to bite size, bread with dry tempura mix, and pan fry until golden.

Plain Chix wings on bottom, Buffalo style in dish.

Again, just cut the cutlets into the shape of wings.  These I dredged in corn starch mixed with: garlic powder, onion powder, and a little salt,;then in egg,; then in panko.  I deep fried them in my deep fryer.  For the Buffalo, just mix melted butter and Franks and drench the wings.  So yummy!

I have also been making fermented nut cheeses which I totally love.  These were made with blanched soaked almonds and I used red miso as the probiotic agent, which you need for the fermentation process. It made a semi-soft, spreadable cheese. 

 I am going to try cashews this week.  

 

This one has green onions in it and a walnut crust.

This one is flavored with garlic and crusted with thyme.

This is the thyme crusted served with lemon zest.

I stumbled on Neat meat replacements a couple of weeks ago. I went grocery shopping yesterday and they had them on sale at Meijer 2/$6 and they are normally $4.99 each so I stocked up!  There are about 4 servings per package,  so compared to meat, even at full price, it will save you money.  They are really good, GMO and gluten free, and have no chemicals, preservatives, or artificial colors.  So much better for you then frozen veggie burgers.  Very simple to make, just add 2 eggs or egg replacement and little bit of water.  

 I haven't made burgers with them yet but I plan to soon.  

 I tried the original first and made Chicken Soup For the Soul Sloppy Joes with them.  I love the CSFTS because there is no HFCS in the sauce.  They turned out great and the family loved them.  

.So then I tried the Italian Neat ball mix and made penne.  So yummy. 

This morning I made these egg cups

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

6 eggs
1 package of Neat breakfast + 2 more eggs 2 tbsp of water
mix ins I used mushrooms and green onions other ideas would be spinach, bell peppers, cheese, etc.

I made these three ways.

Start by mixing Neat with 2 eggs and 2 tbsp of water. Grease a muffin pan (I used coconut oil) Then divided neat into 6 of the muffin cups and press it up the sides

ways to use eggs

1. just crack an egg in each cup
2. add mix-ins into cup and then crack egg on top
3. beat eggs and add mix ins and then pour into cups.

bake from 15-20 min depending on how firm you like your eggs.
Garnish with fresh cut chives or tarragon

Neat also has a Mexican mix, which they didn't have at Meijer.  I will have to try, but I did find this other one from Fantastic Foods which is also pretty good.  

Finding these options makes it so much easier to cut down on the amount of meat we are consuming and reducing our carbon footprint.   What are your favorite meat replacements? 

 Happy Meat Free Monday!

PS  I have not been paid for this review.