Tofu Surprise

No, Tofu Surprise is not the name of this dish. The surprise is that my parents & children survived on vegetarian dinners for the entire week we visited them!

If it had been my idea, no one would have gone along with it. (The whole family is stubborn and headstrong.)Inspired by tofu week (see posts for Sept. 23-26), my parents suggested trying a tofu meal. When Dad and I went grocery shopping, the rest just fell into place. We didn't want to fork over extra dough to make meat & meatless versions of each dinner.

Actually, the adults in the group started their meatless meals on Saturday night. We dined at IHOP, which now has an updated and surprisingly good menu. We all chose omelettes with spinach, mushrooms and hollandaise sauce. They were super good!

We had not yet gone shopping on Sunday night, so we used what we had to make cheese quesadillas. These are always a hit with my kids!

Monday we made vegetarian pizza topped with artichoke hearts, olives and mushrooms. One pizza was enough to feed 3 adults and 3 kids! By making it ourselves, we saved a ton of $ over ordering the same from a restaurant.

Tuesday was tofu night. (The pic up top.) I used the recipe for Italian Casserole (Sept. 24) that I found online. You can see from the pictures it was a huge hit! The entire meal cost about $6 and was enough to feed all 6 of us plus supply 2 lunches the next day.

Wednesday was quite unorganized. Some ate at Melissa's house, some ate later. Everyone kept to the vegetarian diet though, with either pasta primavera, nachos or cereal.

Thursday was vegetarian steak taco night. In keeping with Watson tradition, we must eat Mexican food on Survivor nights! These were also a hit. They were much quicker to make that real meat and one package of faux steak was plenty for the whole clan.

We ended our week-long stay with giant baked potatoes for dinner on Friday. Each of us topped them with our own combinations of cheese, broccoli, Bacos (yes, they are vegetarian), sour cream & sauteed mushrooms. Definately not low-cal, but sooooo good!

This week has definately helped me in my resolve to reduce the amount of meat eaten in my house. If my parents can go veggie for that long, anyone can! Thanks, Mom & Dad, it was fun!