Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Guess who's coming to dinner.

A vegetarian. Yikes! What on earth do you cook a vegetarian? She's my good friend from high school, and she'll be here one night on business- tomorrow night. She's the fab photog behind Blue Lily, and she's flying in to take pics of Design Mom's new baby. I'm thinking I'm going to make Audrey's yummy orzo salad, and go light on the orzo and heavy on the veggies. But what else? Some kinda fancy meatless pizza? A bean cassoulet? HELP ME!

And make it quick cause I'm going shopping in the morning.

10 comments:

  1. This is a very YUMMY vegetarian dish
    Spinach Pesto
    1/2 tsp salt
    2 1/2 cups fresh spinach
    1/3 cup olive oil
    1/3 cup pine nuts
    1/3 cup water
    2 cloves fresh garlic
    1/3 Romano cheese optional

    Toss with noodles(wheat) and veggies.
    This serves about 5 people if I remember correctly.
    Seriously, this is so yummy.

    Good luck, and remember your friend is coming to see YOU, she won't care what she eats! :)

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  2. Do a yummy veggie pizza with fresh mozzarella, basil, tomatoes!

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  3. Both of the above options would be good choices. Jill's salad would compliment the orzo pasta salad nicely, add some whole wheat bread and fruit and you'll have a yummy dinner.

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  4. Jill's salad sounds great. I think that is the winner along with the Queens suggestion of whole wheat bread, or you could even go with ciabatta, and fruit would make a wonderful meal.

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  5. I'm always a big fan of tomatoes layers with fresh mozzarella basil and a dash of balsamic vinegar.

    I think you have some great ideas here and you're such a good cook that whatever you do will be wonderful!

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  6. Check out this red beans and rice recipe. I cook it without the sausage and it's super yummy and very filling.
    http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Beans-and-Rice-1259

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  7. Sue that red beans and rice recipe looks really good.

    Could someone figure out how many calories this is if you include the sausage?

    Sue have you ever cooked this with brown rice?

    Is it spicy, Ken can't do spicy?

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  8. You can do this Mindy! I used to be a vegetarian. She can eat whatever you make minus the meat. She is used to being around meat eaters, so she knows what to do. I like the other suggestions and I am sure I am to late for your shopping trip. You'll do great.

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  9. Victoria, without the sausage it is 287 calories for one cup of red beans, plus 200 calories for 1 cup of white rice. That's a really big serving, 3/4 of each is plenty for me if I have veggies on the side. The meal is much less spicy than the boxed kind we used to eat (Zatarain's). All my kids will eat it so the Kernal should be able to handle it!

    When I've made red beans and rice with sausage before, I usually get the Hillshire Farms Polska Keilbasa that's U shaped and I just use half, sliced then quartered. This will probably add 100-150 calories per cup of the final red beans mix. But it's really yummy without the sausage. I started making it to cut down on our meat usage. Next time I'm going to try making it with the rice mixed in (probably 1 cup dry rice, a whole can of chicken broth instead of just 1 cup, and 2 cups of water). I'll do a post about it once I see how it works out.

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  10. I think you should ask your friend to take some inspirational pictures of you running in exchange for room and board. =-)

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