My Plant-Based Family

Eating Whole Food, Plant-Based Diet recipes, On a Budget.

Planning

Meal Plan Monday

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Today I am posting much later than normal. We had a family “situation” to deal with this morning. Additionally I usually have the meal plan worked out on the weekend and even as I type I’m not sure what we are having when.

First some reflection (I’m stalling while I think up a Meal Plan), boy am I glad my Unprocessed Challenge is over. Today is a day for some processed food. Did you survive the Unprocessed Challenge? I did not finish strong.

On Saturday we celebrated my 3 year old’s birthday by hosting a brunch and having a few families over to celebrate with. I will not mention all of the animal products that were cooked in my kitchen. I was blown away by how much I spent for one meal (there were a ton of leftovers too), almost $90. That is a week of groceries with some eating out.  I’m so glad I don’t normally buy animal products! I am also thankful that we were able to send our friends home with leftovers so I didn’t have to waste it. 😉

Also, I finally took my new food processor out of the box. Can you guess what I made? Oh yes, Chocolate Mousse and Guacamole! Then I made Jalapeno Hummus! What is your favorite thing to use your food processor for? I need some ideas. I hope to use it more this week.

On to the Meal Plan.

For breakfast we will be eating toast with nut butter and fruit (my favorite), oatmeal, cereal, and pancakes.

Lunches will be leftovers, baked potatoes, grain and bean bowls, and sandwiches.

Snacks are sometimes just like lunch. Yes, I eat all the time! I’m sure I will have some of the hummus I made last night with fresh cut veggies. I’m gonna try my hand at granola bar making. I haven’t made them since we when to a Plant-based diet. If they turn out I’ll brag about it soon.

Dinner

Monday: Stir Fried veggies with noodles and (hopefully) an awesome sauce. If this doesn’t turn out well we will have nachos.

Tuesday: Lentil loaf, mashed potatoes, and broccoli or salad

Wednesday: Bean Burritos 

Thursday: Couscous and Veggies

Friday: Baked sweet potatoes for the kids and take out for the parents, woo hoo!

I also plan to do some baking this week. If you follow me on Facebook you’ll sneak peak pictures.

Progress Report: Unprocessed Challenge

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This week I’ve been only eating unprocessed food. I’ve enjoyed some really good food but I’ve also let a bad attitude get in the way a few times.

I miss my toast. I decided not to eat bread at all, even my sprouted grain bread, because I was eating it way too often. It would find its way into breakfast, lunch, snack and dessert some days.

Eating processed food was really more of a habit than hunger. When I’d give my son a handful of animal crackers I’d normally eat a few too but not this week.

A few things that helped…

  • Having food already cooked and ready to eat.
  • Cutting fresh fruit and veggies for easy snacking.
  • Hummus!
  • Supportive husband and friends, and public accountability.
  • Cooking delicious food so you don’t feel deprived.

So what have I been eating this week…

If you remember on the weekend I cooked black beans and quinoa. I heated them up together in a bowl and added chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, cumin, and onion powder. I laid them on a bed of greens, added salsa and mashed up half and avocado. A few squirts of lime juice and it was delicious! It reminded me of a salad from Chipotle. When I mention eating a bean and grain bowl this is what it is like sans greens. I love it with tortilla chips but not this week, roasted corn would be amazing in this.

Yesterday I cooked Minestrone Soup, one of my husbands favorites. I changed teh recipe a bit but we didn’t miss any thing I left out. I competely forgot about the green beans, too bad a have some in the freezer ready to go. I left out the noodles and veggie broth since they are both processed. The soup simmered for hours and tasted great. There was hardly enough left for my husband to take to work. Maybe if I wouldn’t “quality” check so often there would have been more. 😉

Fresh veggies and Jalapeno Hummus! Easy, delicious, unprocessed!

Smoothies! Who doesn’t love smoothies? We have been eating these for our after dinner snack/dessert. My husbands favorite this week was made with frozen bananas, frozen cherries, and a little almond milk. I like frozen banana, a few frozen cherries, a little peanut butter, a little cocoa powder and almond milk. You can make them with whatever you have, for a tropical flavor add frozen mango and/or pineapple.

Earlier this week I ate leftover Enchilada Soup. This time I made it with millet instead of rice. It was tasty.

There are really a lot of options when it comes to eating unprocessed. Some recipes can be slightly adjusted to become unprocessed. A few other things to consider are…

The Best Chili Ever
The Happy Potato
Avocado Chocolate Mousse, if made with date paste it becomes unprocessed
Stir Fry

How have you been doing? Is it difficult for you to stick with it? Do you have any tips or recipes for the rest of us? Leave a comment below and encourage someone else with your journey.

Did you know that My Plant Based Family is on Facebook? To hear more about what’s going on in my kitchen check it out.

Meal Plan Monday: Unprocessed

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This week my husband and I are challenging ourselves to to eat only unprocessed foods. Read more about that here. I had noticed a lot of processed foods finding their way into our diet. We weren’t eating hot dogs or other faux food creations, but I felt like I was relying on pasta a little to often. I also love sprouted grain bread and eat it at least once a day usually with peanut butter or almond butter. Sprouted grain bread isn’t bad for you and I’d encourage anyone to try it and make it a part of their menu but I’ll attempt to do without. This week I want to replace it with fruit and vegetables. I will very likely be eating a lot of apples with peanut and almond butter.  My friend Aletia will be joining us on this challenge as well as Allie. Thanks friends!

This Week’s Meal Plan

Breakfast will be oatmeal, fruit and smoothies. Sometimes I have leftovers, especially soup.

Snack will be fresh fruit, smoothies, or raw veggies with Jalapeno hummus.

Lunch is typically leftovers, baked potatoes, or a bean and grain bowl.

Dinner

Monday: Minestrone Soup

Tuesday: Black Bean and Quinoa bowl, think Chipotle 

Wednesday: Split Pea Soup (I have never made this but my husband has been asking for it)

Thursday: Huge Salad with homemade avocado dressing

Friday: Lentil Taco Salad or maybe a Lentil Loaf from Chef AJ’s book.

Have you planned your menu for the week? Is it Unprocessed? Let us know!

Meal Plan Monday

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Soup Week went over pretty well at my house last week, the Minestrone Soup was definitely the best. My husband wants me to make it again this week but I think I’ll have to pass as I’ve had enough soup for a few days. I was eating leftover soup for breakfast, which was delicious by the way. I may start a new trend in breakfast; but now I’m ready to sink my teeth into some heartier fare.

Minestrone Soup

Last week I mentioned that I was excluding rice and all rice products from our Menu Plan to see if my 1 year old’s eczema would clear up. I’m happy to say this his eczema has been much clearer this week. A really weird thing happened on Sunday night. I noticed he was having a reaction after eating peas. He regularly eat’s peas so I’m not sure what the problem is. Typically I just feed him peas from a can but this time I fed him peas that came in a plastic “to go” type of package. The ingredients on the package just say “peas, water, salt” so I wonder if it could be the packaging.

I will continue to keeping rice out of our diet this week and also peas. After his skin clears up again I’ll attempt to feed him the peas.

This week’s Meal Plan

Breakfast will be pancakes, cereal or toast with a nut butter and fruit.

Snack will be fresh fruit, smoothies, or raw veggies with Jalapeno hummus. Our humongous Costco sized container of hummus is almost gone so this will be disappearing this week.

Lunch is typically leftovers or sometimes a sandwich or a wrap. This week I have baked potatoes that I like to top with chili.

Black Bean Burgers

Dinner

Monday: Eggplant Italian Bake (notice the ambiguity, I have no idea what I’m making yet, just that is will have eggplant. Yeah, that is how I roll.)

Tuesday: Pasta with Vegan Alfredo Sauce and veggies, likely asparagus and broccoli

Wednesday: Veggie Pot Pie, I’m hoping for a flaky biscuit like crust.

Thursday:Black Bean Burgers with Mashed Potatoes (these have gotten bumped the last two times I’ve planned them so we will see)

Friday: I have no idea, but probably leftovers, maybe I’ll make the Minestrone Soup after all. 

Have you planned your menu for the week?

How To Get It Done

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I’m very fortunate and thankful to be a stay-at-home-mom. I love being home with my kids. Occasionally I miss the working world, usually it is when my kids are driving me crazy. My boys do keep me busy during the day, I can’t just stand in the kitchen for hours at a time.

Using this weeks Meal Plan I’m going to give you examples of how I prepare our dinners. I’ll give you a day by day run down of what I’ve done and how it works for us. We primarily use dried beans and grains. If that doesn’t work for you feel free to use canned beans. Dried beans are less expensive so I prefer them. I do keep canned beans in the pantry for those days I don’t plan ahead. Sometimes I do all of the soaking and cooking on the weekend; that approach may work better if you work full time during the week.

Saturday: I put about 3 cups of rinsed quinoa in 6 cups of water to soak over night. You do not have to soak your quinoa but we prefer it this way.  If you don’t know how to cook quinoa check out this link from The Kitchn.

Sunday: I rinsed the quinoa, again you don’t have to do this step but I prefer it this way. I put it in a sauce pan and with new water and cooked it for about 15 minutes. Once it cooled we put some away for my husband to take to work and the rest is stored for meals throughout the week.

On Sunday night I rinsed 2 cups of white beans and 2 cups of red beans and left them both to soak in 4 cups of water each.

Monday: I cooked both set’s of beans in the morning. It will be hard to resist those come lunch time. They could be combined and cooked in a slow cooker as well. This evening I’ll throw the red and white beans into a large pot with all of the other ingredients for Minestrone Soup. While I’m cutting veggies for this soup I may cut extra for tomorrow nights soup as well.

Tuesday: Cook Potato and Broccoli Soup, this could be done in a slow cooker before you left for work. No prep work unless I want to cut veggies for tomorrow nights meal.

Wednesday: I’ll cook a Veggie Noodle Soup. While it is cooking I will rinse black beans and soak them in water over night.

Thursday: I’ll soak beans to use in Friday night’s Chili. I may have enough leftover beans and not need to cook any new beans.

Friday: I’ll cook Chili. Depending on our leftover situation I may start something new soaking. I try to use up all our leftovers over the weekend so I can shop for groceries and plan a new week of meals.

This works for us but may not work for you. Some nights we just grab bean burritos from a drive thou or eat a PB&J.

If you’ve planned your meals for this week try thinking ahead. What can you do now to save time later?

 

Meal Plan Monday: Soup Week

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Potato Soup

My household is a little under the weather this week. I want to pack as much wholesome nutrition into our meals as I can, hopefully we will recover quickly. With that in mind, I have proclaimed that this is Soup Week. And no, it has nothing to do with the Super Bowl.

For the next few weeks I will not have any rice or rice products (rice milk, rice noodles, etc.) in the Meal Plan. My 1 year old has eczema. It has gotten much better since I removed dairy from my diet (he is still nursing). Sometimes I notice reactions to rice products so I’ve decided to eliminate all rice for a few weeks to see if his eczema gets better. Instead of rice I’ll be adding plenty of other grains like quinoa, millet, and maybe even amaranth. 

This week’s Meal Plan

Breakfast will be oatmeal or toast with a nut butter and fruit.

Snack will be fresh fruit, smoothies, or raw veggies with Jalapeno hummus.

Lunch is typically leftovers or sometimes a sandwich or a wrap. My favorite lunch is throwing together leftover grains, beans, and seasonings or salsa.

Dinner

Monday: Minestrone Soup

Tuesday: Potato and Broccoli Soup

Wednesday: Veggie Noodle Soup

Thursday: Black Bean Soup

Friday: Chili

The Best Chili Ever

Last week was much less hectic since I had a meal plan, click here to see it. I had already done the shopping and planning, there was no reason to dread the question, “what’s for dinner.” I didn’t stick to it the plan perfectly but I didn’t plan to. On Thursday night we ended up having bean burritos instead of the black bean burgers. We went out to eat on Friday so there was no planning involved.

Have you planned your menu for the week?