munch love monday: meatless mondays

Okay, so its more tuesday than it is monday right about now but nevertheless here is my much love monday:

There's this campaign called meatless monday that encourages people to eat vegetarian for just one day of the week (monday, obviously) to help the planet and there are lots of great blogs out there who follow meatless monday. Vegetarians are my idols. I have tried to be vegetarian but living in a chinese household pretty much every dish is meat (when you take notice of all the meat, you'd be suprised). My mum doesn't seem to understand the concept at all as she has been brought up totally differently, and doesn't believe how it is healthier for us.

I love this campaign because for those of us who can't commit to full vegetarianism, eating meatless for one day of the week is an easy compromise.  It can reduce our saturated fat intake (too much saturated fat leads to heart problems etc) and reduce our own individual carbon footprint. An incredibly large percentage of man-made carbon emissions that are affecting climate change is made from the meat industry and also the methods they use in storage, production, transport, etc... I've gone off on a tangent. Anyway much love monday is meatless monday- try it, and start a new habit! Small actions of having meatless mondays will be a good deed.

Also here is a yum and super easy vegetarian recipe from etsy's blog to start you off for next monday:

Labor Day Veggie Burger

Ingredients:

1 plump clove of garlic, smashed and peeled

1 1/2 cup garbanzo beans, cooked (or lentils, pintos or other legumes)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup, cilantro and/or parsley leaves, plus their stems

1/2 medium red onion, chopped fine

1/4 cup sunflower seeds, roughly chopped

1/4 cup zucchini, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups bulgur, cooked (or rice, couscous or any grain)

2 eggs

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Dash of Tabasco sauce

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Instructions:

Place the garbanzo beans, garlic and olive oil in a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Puree until uniform and completely smooth.

Transfer the garbanzo bean puree to a large mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well to thoroughly combine.

With clean hands, form six patties out of the mixture and set them aside to rest for at least 10 minutes. Don’t make them patties too thick or they’ll be hard to flip and will crack.

Add a good amount of olive oil to a large skillet, enough to amply cover the base, and set it over medium-high heat. Once hot, lay the patties into the pan. Lower the heat to medium and cook until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes. Flip and sear the other side, until golden brown, an additional 3-4 minutes. If adding cheese, after flipping, lay thinly sliced cheese over top of the seared half. Then cover the pan with a lid. Once the cheese melts, remove the lid and cook an additional minute.

Serve veggie burgers on a platter with grilled bread, foccacia or buns and a choice of the following fixins’: mayo, ketchup, sliced tomato, mustard, avocado, sliced onion, greens.

(full article here)

There are sooo many reeeally good vegetarian recipes out there. Start a change to your weekly lifestyle. Also if you aren't usually the one who cooks in the household, this would make having meatless mondays extraaa good.

aps xx