My Vegetarian Menu

As I mentioned here I went vegetarian this week in prep for a juice cleanse I'm starting tomorrow.

I'm quite familiar with cleanses, but I've never done a juice cleanse before and since it is strongly recommended to stop eating meats and dairy before the cleanse I thought I should listen...

But I'm not good at listening so as you will see I only cut out meat... I'm hoping I wont go into dairy withdrawal my first day...

I thought I'd share some of the things I ate this week though, incase you were thinking of dropping meat out of the occasional meal and weren't sure what food was left...

I've had that problem before... there's no shame in loving meat...

Zucchini Lasagna

Cut out the meat in the sauce and add strips on zucchini in addition to, or as a substitute for the noodles. The zucchini sucks up the flavor of the sauce so you can, honestly, not taste it.

Veggies, Hummus & Homemade Tortilla Chips

I get that not everyone like hummus, but I love the stuff and could eat a freaky amount of it. For the chips I just cut round tortillas into about 8 wedges, drizzled with olive oil and cooked at 350 about 10 minutes, until they're crispy.

Leak, Yellow Pepper & Cheese filled Herb Tortellini

I love soups, so when cutting out meat I tend to turn to them... well soups and carbs...

Cut up about 2 leeks and 1/2 yellow pepper and soften in a pot, add some vegetable broth, bring to a boil then add the tortellini until it's ready. Yummers!

(that night I just made the guys their own tortellini, with meat, and put the left over sauce from the lasagna above)

More soup...

this one was store bought (gasp! I know), but I had it with bread and a couple slices of cheese, it made for a yummy meal.

Spaghetti Squash with Lemon, Garlic, Parsley & Shrimp

Sounds weird, but this was freaking tasty! Roast the spaghetti squash at 400 for an hour and then cut in half, spoon out the seeds & go at the flesh with a fork. It goes all spaghetti noodle like... I sauteed shrimp & garlic in olive oil until it was almost ready, added some lemon juice and zest and some parsley then added the spaghetti squash until it was warmed all the way through. Then I covered the sucker with a bunch of parmesan cheese.

I can honestly say I didn't miss meat at all this week!

now on to the juicing... I'm not sure how much I'm going to bombard you with updates, I might do it daily (for the 3 days of the cleanse) or you might just get a summary once I'm all done... we'll see!

I'll surprise you...