Day Forty Five.

Day Forty Five - we headed to Phoenix to yes, celebrate my birthday...(and nick's too).  We both decided to try eating meat for this weekend, a little bit before Easter...

For lunch, I stayed veg - mom & I went to Camelback Inn for a relaxing spa day.  It was just what I needed after being so sick.

lunch
greek bruschetta
spinach salad with bleu cheese, edamame and grapes.

For dinner, it was Nick's little birthday dinner with my parents and brother after he got in late Friday night. We went to one of our fav places in Scottsdale - Blanco Taco.  I had a little steak with my salad but Nick went for it with a steak burrito.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Forty One to Forty Four.

Day Forty One to Forty Three was a tough three days...Sunday evening I came down with what I thought was an allergy attack...by Monday morning, I was beyond sick with the flu...so for 2 days I didn't eat and by the time I did start eating...it was a baked potato and saltine crackers.  By Thursday I was feeling a bit more normal and was able to go back to work - thank goodness.  So unfortunately, no blog posts.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Forty.

Sunday was a great day, started with a special weekend bootcamp, went to farmers market and spent time enjoying the lovely warm weather.

For dinner, we made a spinach ricotta ravioli with pesto.  So yummy!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Nine.

Birthday celebrations continued and really haven't stopped even weeks after.  I figure why not, you only turn 30 once!  Nick treated me to a romantical dinner at Greens at Fort Mason.  I made sure to take pictures of every course.  Enjoy & check out Greens!

first course
potato croquettes
white bean soup

nick's second course
masa harina crepes with butternut squash

mel's second course
artichoke & sunchoke gratin with grilled polenta

third course - dessert!
chocolate hazelnut torte
huckle berry pear crisp

beautiful view - although rainy.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Eight.

The next day was my birthday celebration with some of our wonderful friends in the city.  We quickly picked up Papalote burritos before heading to Southern Pacific Brewery.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Seven.

Day 37 was my 30th birthday.  For the last couple of years, Nick has made me my fav mac n cheese (mom's version) and smoked sausage...but since we were veg, we just had mac n cheese.  It was delicious, but forgot to take any photos.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Six.

Dinner for Day 36 was Grilled Halloumi & Quinoa Salad.  I stumbled upon on this blog while using stumble upon which turns out to be beyond addictive.  I liked this salad a lot, the halloumi seemed like a lot, I only ate one piece because it was a bit rich.  But the cucumbers were amazing, going to use this preparation again!  Next, I want to try to grill halloumi on skewers with veg.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Five.

It is a cold & rainy night in the city.  My new rain boots came in handy today!  We had a salad planned for dinner but with the cold & rainy night I wanted a hot dinner.  I had found this recipe for Spicy Black Bean Stuffed Peppers a while back so I was excited to try it.  


I basically followed the recipe except for I doubled so we could have leftovers for lunch.  I also added some lime & cilantro to the bean & corn mix right before I stuffed the peppers.  

Spicy Black Bean Stuffed Peppers
2 small peppers- any kind you’d like
1/2 medium sized onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 TBSP olive oil
1, 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup water
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp salt
pinch cayenne pepper for a little heat
1/2 cup sweet corn
1/2 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese, or any cheese you like
fresh cilantro, salsa, and sour cream for serving
Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut a slit through the entire length of each of your peppers. Place them on a baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes, until the skins are softened and beginning to blister.
Heat olive oil in a small saucepan set over medium heat. Add your onion and saute for 3 minutes, until beginning to soften and turn translucent.
Add garlic and stir constantly for 30 seconds, until fragrant.
Stir in your black beans along with the water.
Add your cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt, and cayenne. Stir, cover the pot, reduce the heat to low and simmer the beans for at least 15 minutes, but up to 30 minutes.
Stir in corn. Divide the bean mixture evenly among the two peppers and sprinkle with cheese.
Broil for 3 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Garnish with fresh cilantro, salsa, and sour cream if you’d like.

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Thirty Four.

As you may have read, I was excited to try out our new salad mix for lunches this week!  We both loved the change up and the quinoa really helped fill up our bellies.

 For dinner, I tried out a new recipe from Food & Wine this month - a Spring Panzanella with Asparagus. This was really good, I added some pine nuts for some crunch.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty Three.

Sunday was another great day!  I started the day off right by grocery shopping for the week.  Grocery shopping and prepping lunches and some dinners is on Sunday is the only way I get through the week.

Sunday morning after grocery shopping, I made one of my specialties with a vegetarian twist.  I seriously love chorizo and eggs - so we made soyrizo with eggs!

Mel's Famous Soyrizo & Eggs
1 Red Potato
1/2 package of Soyrizo
1 Can of Black Beans
Squeeze of Lime
Salt/Pepper
Jack Cheese
Eggs
Avocado

Chop potato in small pieces & microwave for a minute or two.  After that I saute the potatoes with olive oil and S/P.  Once browned & cooked through return to a bowl.  Cook the Soyrizo according to package instructions.  Once the Soyrizo is cooked through add in a can of rinsed black beans, squeeze of lime and add in the potatoes.  Once everything is combined & warmed - taste for seasoning and then put into oven-safe dishes.  Make wells for egg(s), sprinkle with jack cheese and place egg in well.  Then bake at 400 degrees for about ten minutes - just keep an eye on it until the egg(s) are to your preference.

After cleaning up the kitchen, I started on breakfast & lunch prep for the week!

Nick's go to breakfast is yogurt with berries, it is so easy to prep this all on Sunday!

For me, I have a greek yogurt and juice.  My juice for the first few days of the week is carrots, apples, yellow beet & ginger.

Once breakfast was prepped, I started on lunches.  I wanted to mix things up a bit with a kale salad mix with roasted veg, quinoa, roasted almonds and goat cheese.  Nick made a delicious balsamic vinaigrette.  

I roasted cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potato & carrots at 450 for 20 minutes or so.  The kale salad mix is great because it already has shredded carrots & cabbage.  Added the almonds and goat cheese.  

After all of that prep, I was excited we were heading to a friend's for dinner club.  It was an amazing dinner and the group was so accommodating to our veg lifestyle.  

Started with baked cheeses in puff pastry, roasted tomato soup and a delicious salad! 

Main course was polenta with veg ragu.

And then...we got to dessert.  It was heaven.  

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Thirty Two.

Saturday was a great day, had a delicious brunch at Universal Cafe and then went to dinner & a movie with J-Bow.

Ugh and I forgot to take pictures of both meals!

Universal Cafe is so amazing, the wait wasn't too bad except for it was raining...I opted for soft scrambled eggs with spinach but Nick got an amazing chickpea and lentil curry with pea fritters and a couple of eggs.  The neat part about being vegetarian is that we are trying so many new things out that we never would have picked out before.

For dinner we went to Out the Door it was so great, again here we had all new things that we have never tried at OTD.  And the company was fabulous.  The move was also really cool - Pina.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty One.

Just another day being vegetarian turned into Ginger Fried Rice with a couple of twists!

We added in some stir-fried veg!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirty.

I was lucky enough to have a wonderful dinner with a dear friend in the hood on Thursday night!  Shannon & I have been friend for about 7 years...she is so wonderful and I am so happy for her and where her life has taken her.  I love Ragazza!  Sorry, forgot to take photos!  But we had an amazing asparagus salad, arancini and pizza!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Nine.

Four Words.  Ice Cream For Breakfast.  My president inspires me literally every day - but Day 29 was no exception.  She brought in ice cream, fruit, cereal & toppings for a full ice cream sundae.  If you haven't heard of ice cream for breakfast - then google it! 

Day 29 was a delicious meal with Casey and Jamie - the Greens made a lentil quinoa pilaf with cauliflower.  And Jamie whipped up a delicious green salad!  It was such a yummy dinner to go a long with some hard cider brewing!  

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Twenty Eight.

Since this journey started, I have been very "anti-meat"...I have wanted nothing to do with it.  But this week I have been craving meat like a crazy person.  Everything from carnitas to salmon.  So I decided to try to make soyrizo.  I loved it, Nick was indifferent.

Nick made himself tacos with soyrizo and eggs.  I went with tostadas they were AMAZING and totally hit the spot.

Next week for my birthday, I may need to try out meatless sausage and my mom's mac n cheese.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Seven.

We seriously fell in love with basically this recipe the first time, so we made it again!  It was so delicious and we made enough for us to both take for lunches the next day!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Six.

The day after St. Patrick's Day...resulted in my all time fav frittata and take out from Hayes & Kebab.

That's all folks.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Five.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  Here is to having drinks with great friends.  We were lucky enough to spend the holiday with Casey & Jamie AND Stephen & Christine who are moving to the city very soon!

I LOVE corned beef on St. Patrick's day...so I knew this was going to be a tough holiday....so I came up with a couple of vegetarian shepard's pie recipes found below.  I basically followed recipe #1 but added the cheddar and horseradish from recipe #2 to spice things up.

Yes, I understand this is not the most beautiful photo...

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Four.

Day Twenty Four was an early celebration of Bowen's birthday.  We had a wonderful time watching March Madness, drinking some beers and spending some quality time with good friends.  Before going to the bar, we had a quick snack of Nick's Award Winning Chili...but on the way home we were both hungry...so we stopped by Papalote.  Again, sorry no photos...boring.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty Three.

A leftover night...while I was in LA, Nick made a huge vat of vegetarian chili which was delicious but really spicy.  I totally spaced on taking photos...so that's all you get.  Unless you can steal Nick's "Award Winning Secret Recipe".

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty-One to Twenty-Two.

Well, I was back in LA this week and happy to be back home today!  I made sure to prep Nick's delicious salads and yogurt for this week!  Our lunch salads this week were really good - mixed greens, strawberries, chioggia beets, goat cheese and homemade spiced pecans.  And he had plenty of leftovers from this past weekend's yummy meals!

I had my first mini panic at dinner in LA on Tuesday - we went to Gulfstream a primarily seafood resto...I thought to myself, ugh I am just going to have to get a boring salad.  Boy was I wrong!  I got the winter chopped salad and it was seriously amazing.  It was a great mix of cabbage and kale with beets, avocado, marcona almonds, tomatoes and cheese.  It was one of the best salads I have ever had in my life!

The second night my co-worker and wonderful friend had me over for dinner.  It was tostada and pinot night.  It was seriously so fun and delicious.  Don't have a photo of the food, but of the peeps...so much fun!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twenty.

Nick & I seriously LOVE to make pizza.  I had resisted making pizzas up until this point because I really wanted to try new recipes!  I always just pick up the dough from Whole Foods which is only $1.29...and it is delicious.  We made 2 different pizzas and had plenty of leftovers for Nick to eat when I headed to LA this week!

1st Pizza was a Whole Wheat Crust with Nick's secret pizza sauce, mozz, sliced tomatoes and kalamata olives.  We always top with lots of parm, basil and red pepper flakes!

2nd Pizza was a white inspired by Club Deluxe with mozz, ricotta and mushrooms.  After it came out of the oven we topped with truffle oil, parm, basil and red pepper flakes!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Nineteen.

Stuffed Shells is one of my fav Meatless Monday recipes I have done.  I love this recipe so much that I made it for some co-workers that were in town.  And one of them loved it so much, he has made it a few times.  I served it with some simple sauteed kale.  This recipe is from 101 Cookbooks which I LOVE.  Cher recommended it to me when we first started MMs and it has been amazing.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Eighteen.

We headed to Gracias Madre in the Mission with Jennie and Bowen for dinner.  Gracias Madre is a Vegan Organic Mexican Restaurant in the city.  I have heard amazing things about this place and it did not disappoint.  We shared a few appetizers - my favorite was the gorditas.  I got the tamal mojado style and it was delicious.  But I think Bowen won the best meal at the table with chilaquiles.  

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Seventeen.

After a long week at work, all I wanted to do was curl up in my pajamas and have a glass of wine.  So that is basically what we did - we ordered take out from papalote and hung out on the sofa.  Nick got the soyrizo burrito again and I got the grilled vegetable that was pretty darn good!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Fourteen to Sixteen.

Day Fourteen to Sixteen were a bit of a blur as I was in LA for work this past week...so here is a quick recap!

Day Fourteen - Thai Town Adventure - My President at work is Thai and I have been dying for her to take me to Thai Town - it was AMAZING.  She was so sweet and ordered a ton of vegetarian stuff - none of which I remember the names and I am so bummed I didn't take any photos!

Day Fifteen - dinner at one of my fav places in West Hollywood - Jones.  I also forgot to take photos! But I had a delicious veg pizza loaded with mushrooms, tomatoes and artichokes!

Day Sixteen - headed back from from LA Nick made an amazing soup.  It was a kale and white bean soup - it was amazing! And we had plenty of leftovers for lunch this weekend!

So unfortunately no pictures for this post.  But we are feeling great and not missing meat 16 days in!

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Thirteen.

An easy Monday meal is enchiladas - we took a can of the Whole Foods refried beans and spread on the tortillas topped with cheese and rolled them up.  I love the Hatch medium red sauce, which I put a little on the bottom of the pan then pour over the top and baked with cheese sprinkled on top.  This was such an easy dinner and delicious!  Served it with cilantro lime rice and avocado!  YUM.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Twelve.

Last Sunday was our first experiment at making some sort of veggie burger. I had found this recipe on pinterest and it looked so good.  I would say this turned out really well, I think we could have made a couple of adjustments to the texture but overall please with this Sweet Potato Burger.  We added a chipotle mayo and ate it with a black bean, corn, tomato and avocado salad.

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Eleven.

Day Eleven's dinner was a BIG winner.  Mushroom Lentil Pot Pies - sounded delicious, but we weren't totally sure how they would work out.  But they were awesome, super filling and would never miss the meat at all!  We found this on Bon Appetit - which is one of our fav food magazines and websites.  The gouda topping put it over the top!

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Ten.

Well...I am super delayed on posts...I blame a ridiculous travel schedule.  So, here we go on updating!  Last Friday night, we went to our fav date night place - Club Deluxe and it was easy to be veg.  We shared a couple of delicious pizzas.  Here is a very dark photo of one of them...

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Nine.

We have done this Baked Spinach and Pea Risotto for a Meatless Monday dinner before and we really loved it, so I brought it back!  I got this from Real Simple, I find a lot of great recipes from the magazine.  Tonight as I was dishing up the bowls, I thought truffle oil would be amazing on top so I drizzled a little bit and it was a nice addition.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Eight.

I seriously LOVE frittatas!  You can switch up the ingredients easily and they are SO easy to make.  This one was a butternut squash frittata with sage and gruyere.  Again, another Whole Foods recipe.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Seven.

We went two dinners in a row completely vegan.  This baked coconut lentils was definitely a leap for us.  We love lentils so we thought we would try it out.  It was delicious and we have had it the last couple of days for lunches as well.  I found this recipe on Whole Foods, I really LOVE the Whole Foods recipe collection.  We had a finer shaved coconut so it wasn't quite as beautiful as the picture on the WF site.

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Six.

Lunches are pretty standard during the week - our go to greek salad is our staple.  For dinners this week, I mixed it up a lot.  So here we go! 

Dinner on Monday was an Asian Edamame Salad adapted from yumsugar.  Nick was skeptical at first but ended up loving it!  This was also a great vegan option for dinner!  This recipe came from Ambitious Kitchen and here is how I changed it up.  First, I made it a mix of both red and green cabbage, then I added in green onions, avocado, jalapeno and a bit of srirachi in the dressing.  

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Five.

Started the day off with a panini with pepper jack cheese, spicy pepper sauce, egg and avocado - it was delicious but forgot to take a picture.

For lunch, we shared a Soyrizo burrito from Papalote.  We love Papalote but I wasn't sure how I would feel about Soyrizo but it was pretty darn good.  Soyrizo is a vegan Chorizo - which I know sounds crazy.

For dinner, we made bibimbap.  I have been wanting to try to make bibimbap for a long time.  So I finally tried it out.  It was AMAZING.  I think my most fav part of going veg is trying so many new things & feeling so satisfied without meat!  I got this recipe from SF Gate.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Four.

Had a nice little relaxing Saturday.  Not too much to report on.

Lunch - Greek Salad - this is my go to for week day lunches!

Mixed Greens
Garbanzo Beans
Peppadew Peppers
Bell Peppers
Kalamata Olives
Cherry Tomatoes
Pine Nuts
Feta Cheese
Pita Chip Croutons - I cut up a pita into small slices then toss with olive oil, dried oregano & red pepper flakes and toast.
Salad Dressing - I mix olive oil, red wine vinegar, dried oregano & red pepper flakes.
Toss Greens with Toppings and Dressing!

Dinner - South Indian Spiced Lentil Cakes with Raita and Tikka Masala Garbanzo Beans
I was really excited about trying out this recipe from bon appetit - but I don't think I soaked the legumes for long enough - the recipe says 3-5 hours, I soaked for 4 hours and wish I would have soaked longer.  The flavor was amazing but it was a little crunchy.  The garbanzo beans are a cinch to make with the help of Sukhi's sauce.

xoxo

no meat just greens

Day Three.

I was so excited to have lunch with some old co-workers from bebe.  We ate at Universal Cafe in SF.  It was AMAZING.  The table shared some yummy fries and I had a flat bread with asparagus.

For dinner, I mixed two recipes that I had found one on yumsugar and one I found through pinterest.  I pretty much followed the spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino recipe from yumsugar but I added the poached egg and asparagus & zucchini from the linguine with asparagus and egg recipe from Martha Stewart.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day Two.

I was so happy to head back to SF, I had been in LA all week.  I had a quick lunch with the team in LA before jetting off to the airport.

For lunch, we ordered Poquito Mas - Veggie Tostada.

For dinner, I made a Black Bean Quinoa Salad.  I love this dish - I have made this a few times before for Meatless Mondays.  This recipe is from Food & Wine - I made a few adjustments - I added cherry tomatoes, corn and cotija cheese also I use a can of black beans instead of dried.

xoxo
no meat just greens

Day One.

I am going to try to do a photo/recipe summary of each day - we will see how this goes...

First day I was down in LA for work - we had a group lunch ordered at Piknic.  We love this place - I got the hummus platter.  For dinner we went to True Food Kitchen in Santa Monica - this place was AMAZING.  I shared a mediterranean chopped salad and mushroom pizza with a friend.  I hope to go back to this place when I am back in LA in March!

xoxo

no meat just greens

Going Veg...

Nick and I decided to go vegetarian for lent this year and I wanted to document our process along the way.  If you know us well, then you know we LOVE meat!  We literally make our own sausage...  But about a year and a half ago we started Meatless Mondays which expanded to a few times a week.  So we decided to take the leap and go forty-something days meatless.  I hope to share lots of new recipes and experiences.
xoxo
Mel