by P Vandegrift

Created on: April 18, 2010

Vegetarian meals are some of the cheapest and easiest to make. Though I am a seasoned carnivore, I never balk at preparing a pan of stir-fried vegetables or fresh salad for myself. There seems to be a general assumption that vegetarian meals are boring or flavorless. This is definitely not the case. Vegetarian meals provide wonderful opportunities for you to raid your dried herb shelf or fresh herb garden. With vegetarian meals, you do not have to worry about the meat overpowering the rest of the dish.

Cheese

One cheap and easy vegetarian meal is cheese and beans on toast. If your stomach is sensitive to beans, melted cheese on toast with some mango chutney is absolutely delicious. This is not a toasted cheese sandwich. Two slices of toast, layered with beans and topped with slabs of melted cheese is surprisingly filling. Sprinkle on some Italian herbs and add a poached, boiled, or scrambled egg to top it off. Some may view this as a breakfast type of meal, but honestly it can be devoured any time of the day or night.

A plate of cheese, apples, and Scottish oatcakes is pure magic. What may seem like a 'snack' to some is a good sized lunch to others. Oatcakes are just as filling as toast and for those who are sensitive to gluten; they also make a gluten-free oatcake. Whole Foods sells oatcakes and they can also be ordered on-line. The boxes contain four packets of 7-8 round oatcakes. Almost anything can go on top of an oatcake; hummus, scrambled eggs or tofu, veggie cream cheese, veggie bacon or other meat-free deli slices.

Salads

While they may take some time to prepare, salads are heavenly inexpensive meals. Adding fruit to a salad is an excellent way to get an extra dose of vitamins, and it is happy hour for the taste buds. A bowl full of fresh spinach, or arugula, maybe kale, iceberg, endive is a blank slate for tossing in some stir-fried onions, roasted garlic cloves, feta cheese, apples, chick peas, mushrooms, artichokes, broccoli; I think you get the idea here. There is also ample room for adding in those meat-free deli slices or boiled eggs. With meat-free bacon, you can certainly end up with a vegetarian Cobb salad.

Cous cous is another popular choice for a filling meal and it can also double as a salad as it is delicious hot or cold. Toss a couple vegetable stock cubes into boiling water, throw in some extra paprika, salt, pepper and oregano to give it another flavor boost and add the cous cous. Again, cranberries, raisins, dried nectarines, and figs

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