Monday, July 22, 2013

Meatless Mondays: Spinach Zucchini Quinoa Cakes with Spinach Chips

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend. The bf was out of town so I played in volleyball doubles tournaments all day both Saturday and Sunday. Judging from how sore and tired I was today, I'm pretty sure I won't be doing that again any time soon :)

To celebrate the bf's return, I decided to make a slightly more involved dinner than usual for meatless Monday. I really love meat (steak is one of the few things I'll run for!), but I also understand the health and environmental benefits of eating lower on the food chain. So I've been giving meatless Mondays a try and have really enjoyed it so far.

I had a lot of quinoa leftover from last week's meal prep, so I decided to give SkinnyTaste's Quinoa Patties a try, with a couple tweaks.


Recipe:

Calories: 144 | Fat: 4g | Cholest: 56mg | Sodium: 295mg | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 3g | Sugars: 1g | Protein: 8g

3 cups cooked quinoa
1 package frozen spinach
1 cup grated zucchini
1 cup plain bread crumbs
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
3 eggs
2 egg whites
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp Mrs. Dash original seasoning
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Mix all ingredients except for the olive oil together in a large bowl. The dough will be pretty moist but will hold together. 

Heat a large non stick skillet and then add half the olive oil. Form dough into fist sized patties and cook covered on medium low heat for about 8 minutes on each side. 




When the cakes are done, they will be crispy and brown on each side. This recipe made 12 cakes which is A LOT when there are only two of us eating them. Each cake has only 144 calories, and two of them were pretty filling. My meat-loving bf will often add bacon or some other meat to his "meatless" Monday meals, but he said he was totally fine with no meat with this recipe!



To add a little more texture and flavor to the meal, I decided to serve these spinach chips I found on Pinterest a try.



The chips were really easy to make. I just tossed about 2 cups of spinach, 1 tbsp of olive oil, and some garlic powder and Mrs. Dash in a bowl and baked in the oven on 325 for about 10 minutes.



The flavor on these chips was really great, and they added some crunch to this dish. I don't know if I would really call them "chips" though. They are so light it's kind of like eating crispy air, and I need a little more substantial crunch in my chip substitutes. I do think they'll be great added to main dishes and maybe as a salad topping though.

Q: Do you do "meatless Mondays"? Or is it all veg or all meat all the time for you?

2 comments:

  1. Did you save the patties for later? I'm wondering how they'd keep/reheat.

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    1. I've had them for lunch once already and they microwaved fine. If you wanted to keep them crispy, you could try reheating in a toaster oven. Let me know how it goes if you try them out!

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