It's Meatless, Not Tasteless, Monday.

Some of you have probably heard about the movement of Meatless Monday, where you (just like it sounds) don't eat meat in your Monday meals.  This seems to be one of those things where you either love the idea or hate it, with most of the males I know hating it.  However, when you really think about it, there are a lot of things you can make that don't involve meat.  The point of the movement is to get people to realize that if we just cut down a bit on our meat consumption we could do a lot for the environment.  It takes a lot of water to produce a single pound a beef, a lot of resources to raise the staggering number of cows and livestock we consume, and a lot of space.  So if everyone, for just one day a week, ate fettucini tossed with veggies instead of burgers and fries, or for breakfast left out the sausage patty (again just one day out of the week) we could really take a lot of the pressure off some of our most valuable resources.  And potentially be much healthier with the added veggie intake.

I really don't feel like looking up the stats on the gallons of water that go in to production, but your computer has the internet and the internet has google and google has everything...so get on it. 

So, in honor of Meatless Monday I present to you....

THE INSANELY AWESOME GRILLED CHEESE OF DELICIOUSNESS



[I'm just sayin', with the right marketing, Meatless Monday will sound impressive ;)]

Ingredients:
Cream Cheese, Pesto, 1 small tomato (think Roma, or anything between golf ball and racquetball), craisins (or finely chopped pistachio, you want something with a different texture), a handful of mozzarella, honey wheat bread (I picked up mine at panera, really any good bread is acceptable), butter

Directions:
It is simple as any grilled cheese.  I started with a thin layer of cream cheese, then a thin layer of pesto, about 4 slices of a tomato, enough to cover the sandwich with one layer, and added a few craisins and the cheese, buttered both sides, and toasted until it became a golden brown bubbly cheese perfection.

I paired this little guy with some strawberries and some Girl Scout cookies (guilty!).  I think it would also be really good with some sort of soup like a tomato soup, a small salad, greek yogurt, pretty much whatever floats your boat.

Meatless Monday does not have to be salads or tofu, flavorless or sad...it can be delicious! You could have french toast and eggs for breakfast (I don't include eggs in the meat category personally), this awesome grilled cheese for lunch, and fettucini for dinner with a big ol' Olive Garden style salad, some breadsticks...or you could have cheese pizza, veggie pizza, cheese lasagna, portobella mushroom burgers, eggplant parmesan- there are tons of dishes that you could enjoy.  And some of these you eat in your regular diet already, so it wouldn't be that hard to meal plan and devote an entire day to a cause like this.

Heck, devote two days if you are really feeling revolutionary, or maybe every lunch. 

I try to participate in Meatless Monday as much as I can.  I am probably going to blow it at dinner though, since I really want a huge salad with a grilled chicken strip on it, but when that happens I try to make up for it some other time in the week.  I have said it before and I'll say it again, you would be surprised at how much less meat you really need in dishes to get the same effect. So that is how I try to help out the planet a little, by cutting chicken breasts in half and trying to use only around 1/8th of a pound or so of ground beef in meals that I am just making for myself. 

Now, if you have read this whole thing and have no desire to eat less meat, that is fine- I am not here to judge you.  But do realize that this grilled cheese is valid in its own right, incredibly delicious, and would be equally devine with some honey ham on it.  This all began with a cheeseball I made once, but that is a different recipe for a different day.

Or maybe a cookbook.