low UPF vegetarians, what does a days food look like for you?

[OttersAreMySpiritAnimal]

Am currently reading How Not to Diet. Only halfway through but the evidence is certainly stacking up for going veggie with daily beans/legumes as main source of protein.
The vegetarians I know tend to eat ready meals all the time, which would not be for me. So those of you who consider yourself having a good vegetarian diet and mostly cook from scratch, what does a days food look like for you?
Any favourite recipes/meals? What about snacks?
TIA.

I batch cook a veg and lentil lasagne and have that fairy frequently, but could equally put the mix in a jacket potato. The white sauce is made from blended tofu and cashews so it’s protein packed.
lasagna I’m not vegan so do sprinkle a bit of cheese on top.

Tonight I’ve had roasted peppers, mushrooms, onions and tofu seasoned with curry powder and a small jacket potato. I have that quite often

I saw a delicious cheese and lentil bake on here that’s on TikTok that is delicious cold, it’s like a crustless quiche. I can’t stomach it hot as it’s a bit ‘wet’, but nice and firm when cold so lovely with salad or parmentier potatoes or something.
Recipe here https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeGFappJ/

Google the happy pear, they are cook from scratch vegans who have amazing recipes.

A few on here are simple, and quick. The rose beans are nice for a quick lunch.
https://carolefood.com

Lentil cottage pie
https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/vegan-shepherds-pie.html

I'm not a veggie, but I recently had a veggie exchange student to stay for a week.

Breakfasts were toast, home made jam, apple bread etc.

Snack - assorted biscuits, nuts, fruit etc

Lunches - celery & stilton soup & wholemeal bread,
asparagus with poached egg & parmesan,
jacket potatoes with ratatouille
carrot and apple salad with hazelnuts and vinaigrette.

Suppers - tomato and black olive pasta,
potato gnocchi with roasted peppers and garlic,
vegetable chilli with kidney beans,
pizza florentina
three cheese pancakes baked in tomato sauce
mushroom risotto

It took a bit of work, but if I did it all the time, I'd get faster at these meals.

Thank you@GiggleMugsMandy and @Meadowfinch , especially for the links. This is exactly the type of response I hoped to get.

Look up the Zoe instagram account - some great recipes- usually plant based, always whole food, UPF free.

Lots of beans, nuts and pulses in general. This one is nice www.instagram.com/reel/C48dNuHI2B3/?igsh=MXFuYmxxYmV1OGZyZw==

If you are looking to kickstart your new eating you might want to sign up to Zoe - but it's not cheap £300 ish for the testing (how your body handles blood sugar, blood fat, and what your gut microbiome looks like) then a variety of options for monthly subs. It's a 4 month program of lessons / using the app/ food logging

I did it over 18 months ago and it's been fabulous for me, lost weight, eating fabulous food- discovered lots of foods I'd restricted because of "calories " I can now eat freely - nuts, avocado, olive oil ... never think about calories and I'm never hungry.

Thank you @LibisMum I had thought about Zoe but the cost put me off a bit. I figured I'd get started and if my health and weight hasn't improved in, say, 6 weeks, then I'd rethink.
I have heard really good things about it, just not something I can invest in right now, but a few weeks to save up a little and it could be a different story.

To answer the food question

Today I had coffee and Italian chestnut cake after the dog walk. lunch of mushroom quiche (homemade with a pea flour crust) and salad with leaves, herbs, tomatoes, olives, celery, pepper, humus, olive oil dressing.
Afternoon snack of banana muffin then a light tea of homemade seedy crackers, high protein bread ( made today as I kept seeing recipes for cottage cheese bread and fancied trying it - yes it's delicious ) with humus, guacamole, kimchi and the remains of the salad from earlier. Didn't fancy anything else but have fava bean brownies in the fridge and a selection of healthy ice creams in the freezer.

I batch cook - so half the quiche is portioned out and frozen. I've just taken out of the freezer a bean stew with wild garlic pesto for lunch tomorrow. Also in the fridge were portions of a high protein lentil and tofu "bolognese" and a vegan "cheesy" bean stew.

This all seems perfectly normal to me now - but apart from the salad, hummus and guacamole I'd never made any of these things 18 months ago.

Tonight was a paneer curry with spinach and peas, mid week we’ve had roast tomatoes and pasta, another pasta night with chickpeas and cavolo nero with (too much) chili and garlic, tabbouleh (ish) with homemade houmous, and I can’t remember what else. Tomorrow is burritos, apparently.

Quite often do houmous and veg roasted with ras el hanout or some other spices with some halloumi chucked in for the last 10 minutes, which is super easy.

On the whole, we eat from scratch most nights, but maybe have too much pasta! The kids aren’t vegetarian, so a few times in a week I’ll do them a chicken or salmon version of what we have, or oven cook some saugages alongside.

Wow @LibisMum and @AlphabetBird , if I can be cooking such delicious sounding food in a few months I'll be over the moon, thanks so much.

We aren't veggie but I was veggie in my teens and twenties, I can heartily recommend rose Elliott's classic vegetarian for great recipes

There are loads of great non-UPF veggie recipes out there but if you're looking for really fast (i.e. replacing a ready meal) then I often eat poached eggs on toast (using proper bread) with salad/kale/avo, jacket potato with various fillings, veggie quesadillas (although the wraps will be UPF), pasta with grilled cherry tomatoes and feta or with broccoli/courgette and pesto and stir fry veg with noodles and homemade sauce.

Completely Asian diet. What people think of as curry , but isn't.

Toast and either soft cheese or avocado for breakfast

Something egg or cheese based, usually salad for lunch or a homemade veg soup.

Evening - last night was bulgar and rocket salad with grilled halloumi, glazed with honemade apple chilli sauce, charred sweetcorn with plum tomatoes and pumpkin seeds.

@Meadowfinch parmesan isn’t vegetarian!
https://www.bhg.com/parmesan-cheese-not-vegetarian-7494613#:~:text=If%20you%20look%20carefully%20at,rennet%2C%20meaning%20it's%20not%20vegetarian.

Veggie here, try to low upf and lose weight. Breakfast is normally home made bircher, lunch is salad (cheese if I need a protien) and dinners this week have included home made frittarta (Spanish omelette, I can't spell) or jacket potato with cheese or pasta with tomato based sauce made from scratch.

I make big batches of soup or salad.
This week I made a quinoa salad with tomatoes, cherries, pistachios and shallots.
Then I made a big chickpea curry.

Today I'm going to make leek soup.
Then a lentil bolognese which I'll have today and tomorrow. Then out some sweet potato mash on the top and make it into a cottage pie.

I think I'll have a mushroom risotto later in the week. Then some kind of pasta.
I make a lot of focaccia and tomato/Ragu sauces. Sometimes I turn the focaccia into pizza.

I also often make a chopped salad - cucumber, red cabbage, peppers, carrots, radishes. Then make a peanut dressing. Or add nuts and seeds.

I also make a batch of stewed fruit. This week I chopped up and cooked some nectarines and peaches. I'll add that to museli or have it with Greek yogurt.

I’m not upf food free but I do cook quite a lot from scratch.

I usually have plain yoghurt with fruit for breakfast, and then leftovers, soup or salad for lunch.

A couple of my favourite dinners are:

veggie chilli topped with avocado, salsa and plain yogurt
Coconut dahl topped with roast chickpeas and yoghurt
Tomatoes, spinach and paneer curry
roast med vegetables with feta
Home made falafel with hummus and salad
Roast veg lasagna
Aubergine parmigiana
Kidney bean burgers

Like pp I cook for the freezer a lot. So, for example, making the falafel mix from scratch is quite faffy but it will do 3 or 4 meals so I don’t have to do it every time

I'm not vegetarian but prefer vegetarian food mostly and I don't eat eggs.
A typical day is
Porridge with fruit and nuts or a "pancake" made with chickpea flour and veg
Rye bread with avocado, tomatoes and rocket or mushrooms with cream cheese stirred through or a bean salad or a soup
Chickpea curry or Dahl with rice or naan bread made with flour and yoghurt. Really easy and delicious.

I eat meat a couple of times a week but cook for myself, never ever eat ready meals. I regard this is normal.

Look at the website “dishing out health” if you wanna get more tasty vegetarian food that isn’t just bloody Curry , into your life.

I haven;t eaten ready meals or UPF in my life, unless you count crisps and chocolate occasionally.

You could always sign up to one of the menu schemes for a few weeks for inspiration - I'm sure there'll be discount codes for hello fresh, gusto, green chef on here - or simply com where you get the spices and a menu card and buy the ingredients yourself.

I did this when I was trying to be more healthy and organised about my eating and it worked really well - I still use loads of the recipes.

Which I realise doesn't answer your question!

I have recently started making my own granola which is really easy and lovely. Oats, honey, coconut oil, nuts and cinnamon and roasted in the oven.

I usually have left overs for lunch and love cooking but it's just me so meals tend to last a while. Stir fry's are easy, aubergine and chickpea curry, omelettes, ratatouille (sometimes add butter beans as well as cheese on top) homemade baked beans, chunky soups ...

I forgot to say op, that first link for the lasagna, she uses jar marinara sauce but I just made it with tinned tomatoes.

Yoghurt and granola/muesli
Omelette for lunch with some greens/mushrooms if possible
Dinner might be veg stew for dinner (river cottage cookbook is a great source) , a roasting tin thing like polenta, sweet potato, mushroom and tomato; or pasta with fried courgettes, or tomato sauce with peppers, plus the inevitable giant green salad

You are all brilliant, thanks so much for the ideas.
I do prefer to cook from scratch but am a bit time poor so around a 30min cook time is perfect. Small freezer but could do a little batch cooking. I've done mindful chef in the past and loved it, but it is a bit expensive for me right now. Going to spend some time today making a meal plan for the week ready for my Tuesday supermarket shop.

https://dishingouthealth.com/category/recipes/vegetarian/

these are amazing