Congratulations Mary Clare, the winner of this week’s giveaway, who eats “veg most of the time, but the one thing I always crave is a hamburger.”
We’re in week two of our five week giveaway of Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals
This week I’m sharing an example of my creamy roasted vegetable soup; it’s the one I mentioned in The Perfect Wedding on Friday. This soup is nice enough to enjoy as a first course with company (or even as shooter appetizers as I did at the wedding!) and simple enough to pair with a sandwich or salad. I’ve known for a long time that roasting the vegetables for this style soup heightens flavor and in some of my earlier creamy vegetable soup formulas I’ve “roasted” them right in the soup kettle. It works but it takes a lot of time and attention and there’s only so much surface area in a pot. By roasting the vegetables in the oven, it saves time and allows you to roast a large quantity very simply.
This week I’m interested to see how you answer the following question: If you were contemplating a vegetarian lifestyle, which meaty dish you’d have hard time giving up. Having just visited my parents in Florida this weekend and enjoying sausages and biscuits for breakfast, I think I’d miss sausage.
Same deadline as last week. You’ve got until 9PM ET Wednesday, October 3rd to enter. We’ll announce the winner on Thursday morning. I’m really looking forward to hearing your responses to this one!
I would have a hard time giving up bacon. I use it as flavoring in so many dishes, and I love the crunch of adding crispy bits on top.
I also would have a hard time living without chicken stock as a base for soups and sauces. I have experimented with vegetable broth, but don’t find it to be as tasty.
I LOVE How to Cook Without A Book, and would love the Meatless version. My mother is a vegetarian, and I always struggle with how to cook for her. (I plan to buy her a copy of the book for the holidays.)
I really love chicken (dark meat) with skin and bone. My favorite dishes usually involve some international flavor, chicken, and rice. Chicken adobo, stir-fry, tom’s trinidadian curry from PW, doro wat (ethiopian) on rice… the options are endless.
If I adopted complete vegetarianism, I would definitely miss salmon the most. I’m pescetarian now, and salmon is definitely one of my favorite proteins.
I would have a hard time giving up seafood. I basically cook and eat vegetarian, but I do enjoy fish and lobster.
I would have to say I would hate to give up bacon. love it for breakfast, crumbles on salad and, oh dear, german potato salad.
grilled filet mignon – I drool at the thought even though I have a strong desire to leave the meat behind. : )
If I became a vegetarian, I would miss seafood the most. If strictly thinking of meat, I would probably miss Fresh Ham the most. I only eat it on holidays or special occasions, but I really like it!
A big juicy ribeye steak cooked on the grill !! Or would it be a big juicy hamburger cooked on the grill ??? ; )
I’m with you on the sausage, Pam. Chorizo and Rosette de Lyon in particular. I think I could go without steak and pork tenderloin, but I’d have a hard time without my charcuterie…
I would really miss braised meats. There’s just something so wonderful and cozy about eating some kind of meat with it’s sauce over rice or some other grain that I just love.
I would have a hard time giving up pulled pork barbecue. Really any pork products – I am married to a hog farmer!
Bacon and August BLT’s from the garden
I would miss Korean BBQ beef terribly! Both bulgogi (ribeye) and kalbi (ribs)!
Corned beef and pastrami. I don’t get the chance to enjoy the good stuff all that often, but that was what I missed when I maintained a vegetarian diet for a six-year period, and I think it is what I would miss again. Also posole with chunks of pork in it.
I think I can easily give up red meat. I eat lots of chicken..that would be a hard one to give up!
I would have the hardest time with fish, and seafood in general. I don’t eat much meat as it is, but fish (esp. sardines, anchovies, and herring) are a big part of the protein in my diet.
Salmon. I love salmon. We eat it at least once a week.
Last night we celebrated my sister’s birthday with an amazing brisket- grass fed and sooo good. I think I ‘d miss special occasion beef the most- but making it a special occasion also helps me really enjoy it when I have it.
Strange to say, one of the best breakfast sausages I ever had was vegetarian! Only happened once at a special restaurant menu.
I would so miss a great steak!
Bacon. Hands down bacon. I’ve gone veggie twice in my life, once for two years and once for 4 years, and both times bacon is what brought me back to the meat side lol! It makes everything taste better and can be used in so many ways!
i would have a hard time giving up bacon…even though i eat it on rare occasions.
I don’t eat a lot of meat, but I’d miss the occasional seafood and bacon,
I love almost any kind of meat. But bacon is the best, I use it at toppings, full meal, and snacking. But with that said, we are trying to cut back on meat for health and well as cost.
roast chicken & seafood.
Definitely bacon! I have a vegetarian friend who says she misses the “bad” meat the most: hot dogs, sausage, bacon. She doesn’t crave boneless skinless chicken breasts!
I’ve given up a lot of meat these days. However, I’m hanging on to bacon for dear life.
i’d really miss all the wonderful seafood we harvest here: salmon, halibut, black bass, clams, oysters, mussels, crabs…. i love veggies of all kinds but i don’t think i could give up the seafood, so they’ll have to remain a side dish.
I would have a very hard time giving up my Sunday morning bacon.
I agree with all the bacon comments, chicken is a biggie too. I would definitely miss a good meatloaf, and a nice thick red sauce with hamburg, so I guess Hamburg is my vote.
I’d miss hamburgers the most. I like veggie burgers but they’re just not the same thing.
Definitely meatballs. Spaghetti with flavorful, spicy meatballs is my go-to comfort dish, and I can’t imagine not being able to indulge in a bowlful, doused in some good red sauce!
Fish. I could probably give up just about any other meat, but fresh seafood at the coast is the highlight of any beach trip.
I think I have to agree with everyone else, BACON! Most things I think I’d get over it, but there is something about bacon (and bacon grease) that you just can’t replicate.
Braised beef short ribs. Those would be SO hard to say “no” to.
I don’t have it very often, but I think a really great piece of filet mignon, perhaps blue cheese crusted.
Looks like the first thing that popped to my mind is not at all uncommon – I would have a really hard time giving up BACON! Although I really enjoy seafood and venison also, I think my number one favorite meat is bacon – strait up, in all sorts of salads, in eggs, on meatloaf, with steak and mushrooms, in BLTs… and then you have the grease to cook with too! Yumm!
Living in Louisiana, I’d have a hard time giving up seafood!!!
Shrimp – if I went totally vegetarian – I love, love, love shrimp!
I don’t eat meat, so that wouldn’t be hard, Chicken is okay, but I could live without it. It would have to be seafood. I do love a great piece of fish, and I love sushi…so my answer would be fish!
Absolutely steak. I do like a variety of meats, but every so often I just really must have a great quality rare steak – and would miss it the most.
For me, it is anything with BACON– good, thick, crispy bacon with a bit of chew and a little sweetness to it– yum!
And, to showcase it– the ultimate (but utterly simple) bacon dish– a BLT with a juicy tomato on toasted sourdough– perhaps with a bit of chipotle pepper in the mayo…double yum!
(An aside– I was vegetarian for 14 years and could no longer resist…the pull of bacon brought me back into the omnivore mode and I’m not looked back– most meals are still meat free but…well…everything in moderation)
Bacon would be missed but also, and this is embarassing…..but the big hotdogs they sell in the front of Costco. Oh my god. How could a hotdog taste so good. Only eat them twice, okay, maybe four times a year, but I would miss them terribly.
I did stop eating meat for about 5 months, so I feel like I am cheating to answer, but must say, bacon is sooo good !
it would be hard for me to give up red meat. as it is a dont eat too much, but sometimes i just crave spag and meatballs
Mine would be a dead-even tie between all things Bacon & an Italian Beef sandwich with au jus.
It’s a toss up between bacon and roasted chicken. Those would be very hard to give up!
Bacon. We eat mostly vegetarian, with only meat 1-2X a week. We don’t have bacon that often, but it’s the one meet that I would probably miss the most! We’ve tried the veggie versions and they’re just not the same!
At first I thought bacon or steak, but I those two things are special treats. To be honest I eat chicken about 80% of the week. I couldn’t imagine trying to cook without chicken.
I went vegetarian for 2 weeks in college for extra credit in my nutrition class. It wasn’t too bad as I often eat vegetarian without putting much thought into it. Veggie sandwiches, salads and pastas make up a lot of my diet, but I would really miss having a juicy burger or steak the once every month or two that I indulge. I would never be able to resist at least taking a bite of someone else’s!
I use chicken stock in making soups and to thin other dishes. I guess I could use vegetable stock with comprable results. I would also miss pork shoulder/butt slow-cooked until fall-apart tender.