Without driving you away by me jumping onto my soapbox once again, I’d like to remind our savvy Cook’n audience that there are a LOT of good reasons to eat less meat. For instance:

The more red and processed meat you eat, the more likely you are to get colorectal and lung cancer.

The more red and processed meat you eat, the more likely you are to suffer from diabetes or hypertension and 88% more likely to develop colon cancer.

The more red and processed meat you eat, the more likely you are to struggle with obesity, constipation, and gallstones.

The more red and processed meat you eat, the higher your grocery bill. Eating less meat can save about 15% to 20% on your grocery budget.

The more red and processed meat you eat, the more you contribute to the greenhouse gas dilemma. Eating less meat is just good for the planet.

With the argument made for eating less red and processed meat, here’s an idea that a few hospitals around the country are trying. I first heard about this when my son, Paul, was a chef for a hospital in Wyoming. It’s “Meatless Mondays.” Hospitals are a logical place to put the less-meat philosophy into practice, right? They’ve found that designating one day a week for a meat-free meal has been a relatively pain-free way to achieve this goal.

Any of you who cater to hardcore carnivores know very well how drastic the idea of eating less meat can seem to them. Research shows that easing into it by devoting just one day a week to a meat-free meal is the right approach. And here’s the wonderful news: eliminating just 1 meat meal makes a big difference in overall health improvement.

So with this idea in mind, we decided to also designate Mondays at our house as a meat-free day (M is for Meat and M is for Monday. Works for us.)

My next step was to find some good meat-free recipes. As you likely know, DVO (https://www.dvo.com/products ) is the place to start—with their Recipes For Healthy Living, Fresh From the Garden, Fresh From the Farmers’ Market, Farmers’ Market, The World Goes Raw, Vicki’s Vegan Kitchen, Cook’n Vegetarian, and Live Foods Live Bodies, cookbooks. These all have wonderful recipes. And then there are several vegetarian websites out there that offer good advice on how to go about this lifestyle change (even if it is for only one day a week.)

Here I share one that we’ve adapted from a traditional meat-filled recipe. This is really good and easy to make as well. After all, if it doesn’t taste good, we aren’t likely to keep this eating habit up, right? Be sure to make extras of these very filling calzones, and serve them with warm marinara sauce.

And if you have tips or ideas on how to eat less meat, please share. There’s lots of experience and wisdom out there, so pass it around, we’d love to hear from you!

Vegetable Calzones

Serving size: 4
Calories per serving: 334

Ingredients:
FILLING
1 medium carrot peeled and thinly sliced
broccoli from 1 small head broccoli
3/4 cup chopped, fresh spinach
1 3/4 cups grated cheese (your choice)
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 tablespoon chopped, fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped, fresh basil (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
DOUGH
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 package yeast
1 cup boiling water


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and spray a baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil over medium heat, add the carrot and broccoli, and cook until crisp but tender, about 1 minute. Drain and rinse under cold water. In a large bowl, combine the carrot, broccoli, cheese, and red pepper. Mix well.
In a small saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauté until softened, about 3 minutes. Add to the vegetable mixture. Add the parsley. basil, and pepper. Mix well.
For the dough, combine the flour, salt, garlic powder, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix in the boiling water. Divide the dough into 4 balls. Roll each ball into an 8-inch circle. Place the filling evenly over half of each circle, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold the dough over the filling and pinch the edges together to seal. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Prick the tops with a fork. Bake the calzones until golden brown (about 25 minutes). Serve hot.