Meatless Fridays: Lentil Chili
Welcome to my first post sharing ideas for family-friendly, budget-friendly, meatless meals. I shared why we do meatless Fridays earlier this week. If you weren’t already doing meatless Fridays, maybe you will now? Let me know! It was a slow, sometimes hard change for us. In fact, even last week Fence and I both “failed” but offered up something else instead.
Before I get into our first recipe, I have a reader question! Theresa said, “Abstaining from meat on Fridays is not too penitential for us since half of our dinners tend to be meatless anyway. I’ll be interested to see if any contributors have other ideas to keep Friday meals sacrificial when cutting out meat just doesn’t feel so hard.” So, readers, do you have some tips for Theresa and all of us? What to do when eating meatless isn’t a big sacrifice for your family? What if you eat vegetarian always? What do you do to help Friday keep that penitential aspect?
One of our family’s favorite meatless meals (as well as convenience meals!) is lentil chili. We buy it in bulk at Costco. Maybe you’ve seen it? The “madras lentils” are soooo yummy. We have eaten it plain like regular chili, topped it with cheese and avocado, eaten it with chips, and over rice. It is soooo good, and so convenient in the microwavable pouches. Granted, the convenience comes at a price, which is nearly $10/box. And…I’d prefer not to microwave meals when there is a better option. (Ok, I do sometimes pout the chili out of the pouch into a pot on the stove and heat it that way). Last week, I made my own lentil chili. It’s going to need a few tweaks to get to the flavor we really enjoy, but this is very versatile and you can do more or less seasonings to suit your family. I have also seen recipes which add curry.
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Thanks again for doing this! Here’s my contribution: http://ourordinarylifeextraordinary.blogspot.com/2014/09/meatless-fridays-vol-1.html
Yum! This looks delicious – thanks for sharing.
Let me know if you make it, and how your family likes it!
In response to the question about what to do if you already don’t eat meat…we don’t usually eat meat and so I thought I was covered for meatless Fridays, I’ve never thought about doing anything further..but this post got me thinking…maybe give up cheese or dessert?
That is a good idea, Melinda, thanks!
Hey! Thanks for putting my question out there! I’m really interested in the responses as well as new recipes. I’ll hopefully have some new recipes up soon as I get into my “frozen dinners” season, so I’ll be back to comment again.
Also – nominated you for the Liebster blogging “game” – ONLY join in if you’ve got the time and inclination! No pressure! -Theresa
http://ordinarylovely.blogspot.com/2014/09/delightfully-free-to-liebster-away.html
Melinda commented and suggested giving up cheese or dessert!
How fun to be nominated! I will try to play. 🙂