My Plant-Based Family

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

Unprocessed

Meal Plan Monday: Be Cheerful

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Happy Monday! Did you hear that cheerfulness? I’m choosing to be cheerful. You should decide now if you will be cheerful today too. Soon the days distractions will take all of your attention, perhaps even a few annoyances will pop up, or maybe even something awful. Let’s do our best and choose to be happy and count our blessings. I know it is not always easy, trust me, but I’ll try.

This weekend I cooked a pot of black eyed peas and a pot of chickpea’s. I have a pot of pinto beans that have soaked all night and I’ll start cooking soon. You may be thinking, whoa, that is a lot of beans. You are right! We ate all the leftovers over the weekend and hand almost nothing that could be thrown together without a lot of prep.

My husband LOVES black eyed peas, I have no idea why. I have memories of eating one spoonful a year on New Year’s Day because it was supposed to bring good luck. Maybe I should give them another chance, but not for luck just to see if I can appreciate them now.

Recently I’ve ran across several recipes that call for chickpea’s and I’m hoping to give them a try this week. In our house pinto beans are like a miracle food that can be turned into any number of delicious meals in a hurry. So now I have black eyed peas, chickpeas and pinto beans cooked, how will that fit into the meal plan? 

Meal Plan

Breakfast is pretty predictable at my house. We usually eat toast, oatmeal, breakfast quinoa, and sometimes cereal. I hope to cook a big batch of whole wheat pancakes sometime this week for quick breakfasts and snacks on the go.

Lunch is usually leftovers or sometimes a PB&J. I made homemade cashew butter last week so I may try to use it, unfortunately no one in my house seems to really like it. This week the chickpea’s will make a few lunch appearances for me and black eyed peas for my husband.

Dinner

Monday: Mock “tuna” salad (made with chickpeas)

Tuesday:a Spicy Pinto Bean dish that is yet to be created, or maybe nachos or burritos

Wednesday:Cajun Chickpea Cakes from Everyday Happy Herbivore. I love this cookbook! I hope these will pair well with black eyed peas and steamed spinach.

Thursday: Mega Garden Salad with avocado dressing

Friday: Split Pea Soup

I don’t usually assign side dishes because most of the meal I cook are full of veggies. I do have a quite a bit of produce this week. We will be eating carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, red bell peppers, kale, spinach, asparagus, onions, apples, bananas, oranges, and pears. 

Remember how earlier I mentioned choosing to be cheerful, I’m glad I did. In the last hour and a half I have had a few inconveniences including being spit up on, bitten, changing two poopy diapers, kissed several boo boos, started cooking the beans because my computer was frozen, and other typical things that happen with two adventurous boys. Somedays I would have let them derail my cheerful attitude, but not today. I don’t know that I’ll get through the whole day unscathed but I’ll do my best.

 

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!

Unprocessed

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**A special note to my friends: For those of you who think I’m weird enough already this is sure to send you over the edge!

On Monday I mentioned a challenge, an UNPROCESSED challenge. Look at what you ate in the last week, how much of it was processed. Not sure what that means, here is an excerpt from the book Unprocessed by Chef AJ.

What do I mean by unprocessed versus processed food? Whole foods found in the produce section or the bulk section of your grocery store or farmer’s market, and found there in more or less the same state that they were harvested on a farm, are unprocessed; packaged foods with long lists of ingredients are processed. Foods that have been stripped of fiber and refined are processed. Foods that have been concentrated and separated from the rest of the plants they come from– sugars and oils top this list– are likewise processed. Fruits, vegetables, pulses (beans and lentils), while grains, nuts and seeds are unprocessed; Fruit Loops and potato chips are processed. Brown rice, unprocessed; white rice, processed. You get the idea.

Brilliant huh! She goes on to talk about how combining unprocessed ingredients is also eating unprocessed; like cooking veggies in a soup or making salad. She goes into much more detail but you need to buy the book of you want to know what she says. You can also read an interview with Chef AJ here or watch Chef AJ and Julieanna Hever create tasty foods here.

Anyhoo! Who wants to try this with me? How about 90% unprocessed, or just give it your best shot? It will take intentional effort and planning. I will go easy on my kids and feed them a healthy, although not completely unprocessed diet. Toast can be a life saver for my kids, as can coffee for me!

I’ll post a Meal Plan on Monday but a few of the foods we will be eating include oatmeal, Minestrone Soup, baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, beans, grains, salads, smoothies, and lots of fresh fruits, and fresh and steamed veggies. Stir Fry would be good also but after my last the Stir Fry Debacle and don’t know if we will try it yet. That means this weekend I will be cooking beans and grains to prepare. 

Do you accept the challenge? 

Meal Plan Monday

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Last weeks meal plan did not work out. We ended up changing plans on several days. I only made the Italian Bake and the Veggie Pot Pie, they were both delicious but I felt like I didn’t cook enough or have near enough leftovers to eat for lunch.

This week will be a different kind of week too so I plan to take it easy on the meal plan, plus I haven’t done my normal “mega veggie buy” at the store yet.

Dinner Meal Plan

Monday: Homemade Veggie Pizza

Tuesday: Special Valentine’s Day Fare that will include Gluten Free Apple Muffins and Gluten Free Chocolate Mousse.

Wednesday: Bean Burritos

Thursday:Enchilada Soup, a.k.a Soup of Awesomeness

Friday: Baked Sweet Potatoes for the kids, dinner out for the parents (hopefully)

This weekend my husband and I notice that The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue was available streaming on Netflix. I’d really wanted to see this movie for a while as I’m a big fan of Fork’s Over Knives. We watched it and realized how we have let a lot of processed food back into our diet. It’s amazing how sneakily it creeps back in. So next week we are going to challenge ourselves to go unprocessed. It wont work for us this week and we want to be fully prepared so this week we will finish off some of the processed food and be ready for next week.

Do you want to join us? I’ll talk more about it this week but I’d like to challenge you to  go unprocessed next Monday through Friday. If you are having trouble losing weight this could really help, have I piqued your interest yet? You can bet that the Minestrone Soup will make an appearance in unprocessed week.

Leave a comment if you plan to join us. If you’re a blogger and want to blog about it next week I’ll include your blog in all of next weeks post.