Meat Free Mondays is a campaign designed to encourage us to pick one day a week when we make a conscious effort to avoid eating meat.

Aside from animal welfare concerns, intense meat production plays a destructive role in climate change. Cutting down on meat consumption can help have a meaningful impact on our environment, especially if we make meat-free days a regular thing.

For non-vegetarians or vegans however, it takes a little preparation to get started with the meat-free habit. With this in mind, we’re sharing some suggested meal plans and recipes on a weekly basis—to motivate and inspire.

This week’s suggestions are all easy to include in your meat-free day, requiring a minimum of preparation.

Breakfast: Banana and Peanut Butter (or Honey) on Toast.

The easiest breakfast of all time, I love peanut butter (made with pure peanuts, no palm oil added) and banana on toast. It’s also quite filling. When I don’t have peanut butter, I top instead with honey. Deliciously sweet, it also keeps me going for quite a while.

Best accompaniment: good coffee.

Lunch: Hummus and Salad Sandwich.

Hummus makes for a protein-rich, tasty and speedy lunch. Simply add to a sandwich or wrap along with raw, crunchy vegetables of your choice and you’re all set.

But for extra-special deliciousness, I recommend you make your own hummus—it’s quick and easy and you can add your own extras to tweak the flavor to your own taste.

Dinner: Linguine with Pesto and Wild Mushrooms.

I’ve just started foraging for chanterelles in my local woods, but I’m a fan of mushrooms even if they aren’t of the gourmet variety. Don’t be put off if you don’t have easy access to wild mushrooms—add a little salt when sauteing and you’ll bring out the delicious flavor from any mushroom.

The link above includes a recipe for your own homemade pesto. It’s obviously quicker to use a store-bought pesto, but it only takes a couple of minutes to whiz up your own if you have the ingredients to hand. The recipe calls for fresh linguine, but even if you use dried pasta this whole meal can be ready to serve in 20 minutes or less.

Dessert: Vegan Tiramisu Fudge

Don’t be put off—this is much quicker and easier to make than traditional sponge-based Tiramisu (meaning “pick-me-up”). However, you will need to make it at least an hour before you want to eat it.

To be very honest, I didn’t get much of a Tiramisu flavor from this—I would describe it as chocolate-coconut fudge. But it does fit the pick-me-up description, and—if you like the coconut flavor without a gritty texture—it is yummy.

Best of all, it only takes a little melting, combining, spreading and freezing—et voilá, homemade fudge at your fingertips.

For more ideas check out earlier meal plans for “quick and easy” or “no-cooking” recipes.

And please feel free to share your own favorite elephant recipes in the comments below, or to submit your own recipes to share with our readers.

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Relephant:

Delicious Roasted Vegetable Recipes for Meat Free Monday.

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Author: Hilda Carroll

Image: Flickr/Inga Vitola

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina