Last week we had a chance to see what the WEST cooked up for the Vegetarian Challenge. This week the EAST will show us what they are made of as they take their turn going vegetarian. Many of the participant are vegetarian or vegan and it is still fun to see how both the meat-lovers and the vegetarians challenged themselves this week.
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South Region (VA, MD, NC, SC, GA) with Emily from Sincerely, Emily
Annie (MD) from AnnieRie Unplugged is recovering from some surgery so her husband stepped in for this challenge. For part of Annie’s meal he heated up some local applesauce, then whole wheat pasta & topped it off with both local tomato sauce & mushrooms! For his meal he also made a nice salad made up of veggies from their CSA – spinach, radishes, Chevre, drizzled w/Catoctin Mountain Orchards Blackberry Splash Vinaigrette. He also cooked up some sweet potatoes (Annie was able to have those too). After a wonderful meal like that I am sure Annie is on her way to recovery. Stop by her blog to read more about this meal & her local resources & send her some get-well wishes!
Susan (VA) from Backyard Grocery (meat-lover) had fun with this vegetarian challenge. Lettuce from the garden inspired her to made a peanut salad with an apple peanut dressing. She found peanuts for her protein and added garden greens, carrot, celery root, & radish to her salad. The dressing was made w/apples, hot sauce, peanuts with the help of a food processor. Head over to her blog to see her recipe.
Jessica (SC) over at Eat.Drink.Nourish. made a delicious looking creamy baby potato and leek soup this week. Most of her time was spent cleaning the sand out of the leeks, but it was worth it. Once the potatoes & leeks were in the pot, she added some thyme from their garden & let everything simmer away. She then pureed it with the an immersion blender, added some cream and topped each bowl with some shredded local cheese. What a meal. Visit her blog to read more!
Victoria (MD) at The Soffritto two-thirds of the household was able to stick with the veg challenge this week. With all hands on deck they set out to make feta & roasted pepper pizza using home-grown, roasted & canned peppers, homemade tomato sauce & local feta. Dad, however, couldn’t resist the temptation of sausage, so he made his own pizza and added the sausage. With their little helper on board, it looks like they had a lot of fun. Head over to her blog to read their recipes and see their local resources too.
Rebecca (VA) from Eating Floyd cooked some amazing dishes for the veg. challenge, & I have no idea where to start. She made savory baked garbanzo beans (one of her favorite ways to eat chickpeas!) She also made gujerati-style hot sweet & sour potatoes (those are calling out to me) & then she braised some baby bok choy. OH wait, how could I forget – she made black bean walnut brownies….yes, you read the correctly! To that she added a scoop of ice cream & a drizzle of black forest cherry preserves. Why are you still reading this… head over to her blog to see it all!
Jes (VA) from Eating Appalachia is a bit bogged down getting ready to leave on a trip to Europe for over 2 weeks. She (being vegan) had to laugh since this is the week for the Vegetarian Challenge and she almost missed out on it! Not much is happening in her kitchen right now, but she did eat out at a local restaurant that caters to vegetarians and vegan with a focus on locally sourced food. She loved their falafel and the “Incan Bowl” with black beans, sweet potatoes, corn & quinoa were wonderful. The sweet potato & coconut soup was wonderful also. Stop by her blog to read more and find out where this great restaurant is.
Liz (VA) from Family Foodie Survival Guide had a successful trip to the farmers market and found many things to go into her meal this week. Liz made potato-leek soup with the potatoes and leeks found at the farmers market. To go along with the soup, she made some nice looking sweet potato biscuits and had a nice salad too. Visit her blog for all the details of her local finds and her soup recipe.
Monika (NC) from Windy City Vegan has been traveling for work this past week and she was still able to come up with several DDC meals in Chapel Hill, NC where she was staying. There is a café she frequents that is complete with its own kitchen garden and Monika even sees the owner at the local farmer’s market purchasing food for the café from local farmers. Monika brought salad fixings from her garden at home & combined those throughout the week with meals from the Curryblosson Café. She had Seasonal Bhaji with some of the salad she brought from home. Another notable meal was Vimale’s Original Uttapam which is a large onion & cilantro pancake made with rice & bean sourdough batter. Head over to Monika’s blog to read more about this café with a community feeling and more on Monika’s traveling meals.
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Not Dabbling In Normal 
We made a (sadly, unphotographed) fritatta for this challenge. It was tasty, though! http://greenishmonkeys.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/some-thoughts-on-a-slow-ish-sunday/
Your varieties of frittatas all sound wonderful! The one with potatoes and sun-dried tomatoes sound great, but so does the egg and cheese one too. Baked apples sound great too!
I would try all these dishes! They look like healthy meals, and although I’m not a vegetarian, I do enjoy going meatless several times a week. I’m in the East but I guess my Veggie Challenge meal didn’t make it into the round-up. I made a potato-chard stalk gratin–my first time ever making a grating AND eating chard!
http://bumblelush.blogspot.com/2012/03/dark-days-of-winter-potato-and-chard.html
Angela – welcome to the world of chard!! SO glad you liked it. Your potato and chard stem gratin sounds wonderful. I found have thrown all the leaves and stems in myself. Thanks for posting your like for others to see.
It appears as though my group leader isn’t posting anymore, so here’s mine from the past couple weeks!
http://lifefromthegroundup.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/spaghetti-squash-with-a-taste-of-summer/
http://lifefromthegroundup.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/savory-vegetarian-lasagna-with-noodles-from-scratch/
Thanks for posting your links for others to check out.
Your spaghetti squash looks so wonderful and full of flavor with your homemade tomato sauce on top. Most of my meals are simple, so I love to see the simplicity in yours! It is so neat to see the variety of meals throughout this challenge whether they are simple or more!
Your vegetarian lasagna looks fantastic! I am drooling. Also love your pizza cutter. I have not seem one like that!