meal plan – january 17, 2011

It’s my birthday week so I am going to keep my cooking commitments on the lighter side, sticking to things in my repertoire that are familiar enough to cook without a recipe in hand.

Meals
Tofu | Potato & Rutabaga Mash | Collards
Seitan con Papas | Black Beans | Rice
Posole
Panuchos

Breakfast
Waffles
Steam-Fried Eggs
Yogurt & Skillet Granola
Oatmeal Pancakes

Snacks & Other Stuff
Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Red Vegetarian Broth
Salsa Casera
Horchata

meal plan – january 9, 2012

It’s been forever since I put together a solid meal plan and thought that it was finally time. We’ve been eating stuff from the quick-and-easy roster for weeks and I think both the family and I are ready for some variety. My lack of planning is also starting to show in our fridge and pantry’s lack of depth – bread/no peanut butter, beans/no tortillas, milk/no cereal. Heading to the grocery store to stock the pantry. Most of the produces is already living in the fridge.

366 bites

004/366, a photo by a_neelee on Flickr.

I am embarking on a daily mission to document the first bite of ANY meal along with the other members of the 366 Bites Flickr Pool. You’ll be able to take a peek via my Flickr feed in the bottom right hand corner and I’ll do my best to throw a few up into the blog feed as the year progresses.

Today’s was of a gloriously sweet strawberry at the Triangle Farmer’s Market. My daughter and I blazed through an entire pint before we braved the traffic back home. Yum!

all things spinach

I made the mistake of buying some spinach on my last trip to the grocery store, knowing full well that I had spinach coming in my CSA box a couple of days later. And yup, I ended up with a fridge full of the green stuff. I’m sure lots of you are swimming in winter greens as well, so I thought a link-up of sorts was well timed. Enjoy!

keeping me humble

keeping me humble, a photo by a_neelee on Flickr.

This is what came out of the oven this evening instead of the lovely and tender roasted cauliflower that I was expecting.

meal plan – december 22, 2011

meyer lemons

We’ve arrived back in the land of no school and I am loving the busy pace that our days at home seem to be forming into. Lots of projects. Lots of crafting. Lots of cooking. Lots of lazy time in between it all.

This is what shall fill our bellies for the next week or so:

pass the veggies, please

roasted brussel sprouts & cheddar cauliflower

I roasted cauliflower AND brussel sprouts for dinner tonight and realized that we don’t usually have more than one color vegetable on our plate. We’ll have bright salads and stews with a full-on rainbow of phytonutrients, but those meals only happen two to three times a week.

The 8yo seems to be in a particularly good place with food right now (clearing her plate with no complaints), so we are gonna dive right into New Year’s resolutions – more veggies on our dinner plates. I’m hoping that it will make for lots of bright pictures of our dinners.

cilantro and cheddar cauliflower

cilantro and cheddar cauliflower, a photo by a_neelee on Flickr.

I picked up a couple of things at the Farmer’s Market today. This new cilantro that Johnson’s Backyard Garden is growing may be the best cilantro I’ve ever had in my life. The cauliflower convinced me with its color.

no meal plan – december 13, 2011

I had all sorts of lofty plans for this week – cookie making, enchiladas with homemade tortillas and a yummy Sopa de Lima that I have been craving since I made tortilla soup a few weeks ago.

And now? Now, I just don’t feel well and I am wishing that I had a lot more food ready for reheating. We’ll probably be eating quick meals this week with grains and quickly-prepped veggies (spinach, chard, sweet potatoes and kohlrabi in the house). Week’s like this also call for a double batch of black beans.

Hoping to feel better in the next day or two as there is lots to write about – last night’s masa class, our first-ever Kwanzaa celebration, other holiday plans, and Merida!

meal plan – december 5, 2011

I’m going to keep the cooking pretty light this week since we have a fridge full of leftovers to work through and lots of soup from this past weekend’s soup swap. Yay!

Miso-Glazed Bok Choi | Miso Soup | Stir-Fried Broccoli
Spinach Quiche | Vegan Wild Rice Soup (from swap)
Pasta with Winter Greens & Walnuts*
Chickpea Cutlets** | Sweet Potato Home-Fries | Roasted Veggies
Black Bean Vegetarian Chili (leftover)
Tortilla Soup (leftover)

* Fields of Greens, Annie Somerville
** Veganomicon, Isa Chandra Moskowitz

I have a handful of cookbooks in my kitchen that lots of my day-to-day recipes have originated from and I am going to make a more concerted effort to note those when they make an appearance in my meal plans.

Stay warm this week!

recipe: red vegetarian broth

cooling broth for storage

I made a batch of my red broth this morning to get ready for the soup-a-thon that I have ahead of me the next few days. I have a soup swap to go to and although I haven’t decided what I’ll be making, I know that at the very least one of the soups I take will use this broth.

The second this smell hits the house, I crave tortilla soup or posole and maybe someday I’ll make batches that are big enough to yield leftovers for freezing. Maybe.

establishing new traditions

We opted out of our grand plans for a bike ride and portable feast and instead went with another quiet day at home this past Thursday. The day went smoothly with the relaxed feel oozing into every bit of the day. We munched on fruit while we waited for our breakfast treats to be ready, ate leftovers for lunch and dinner felt regular until I suggested that we use real glasses instead of plastic tumblers for our waters.

That said, I think we did a standup job of making the day feel special for our daughter. Celebrating is really about having a handful of traditions in place that help make the day feel intentional and familiar, so we set forth with that in mind.

meal plan – november 21, 2011

Let’s pretend that we have to feed ourselves on days besides Thursday, okay?

weekend meal plan – november 19, 2011

My daughter has the entire upcoming week off, which means that my husband will be home, too. Feeding the entire family breakfast, lunch, dinner and snackage for 9 consecutive days is pretty daunting, so I’m breaking it up into weekend-weekdays-weekend for the sake of sanity.

thanksgiving is officially scheduled in

We’ve always done something on the mellow end, but have decided to make the celebrating a bit more official this time around for the sake of the holiday-starved eight year old. I am fairly certain that she’ll call a more official planning session to order over the weekend, but am hoping that we can keep our vegetarian feast simple for the sake of making it a fun and quiet day. Charging all the household cameras so we can document it all in action.

Tiny pie above is for her classroom’s “Day of Gratitude.”