Drupal 7: Collection of nodes field
What about a taxonomy vocabulary for the ingredients list, and then just reference those taxonomy terms in your meal node?
You could try the Insert View module, create a view with whatever other nodes you want, and then display it at the right place in your node
If you want something a bit more complex, you could relate the meal node with the ingredient nodes, and collect them with a view, and then use Insert Views.


As a general note though, Views sounds like what you want to use -- it's perfect for that collecting of different information from other nodes and displaying it.