Meal Planning

Time for weekly meal planning.  I'm trying to pare down what's currently in my overstuffed pantry.  Lots of flours and lentils and beans.  I also want to use up some of what's in my freezer.  I currently have the following that needs to be used up soon: one red bell pepper, one green bell pepper, two organic tomatoes, and the better part of a 3 lb bag of organic russet potatoes.  Here is what I'm making:

Seitan & Veggie Stir-fry and Brown Rice  
I'm back to making this pretty much weekly.  I need to make a new batch of seitan again already, so that will use up a bit more of the vital wheat gluten in my freezer and pantry.  This dish will also finally use up the last of the chopped bell pepper in my freezer.  I have some cubed tofu and baby carrots and sliced water chestnuts in there too, left over from making stir-fry last week.

Black Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo and Crudites with Homemade Ranch Dip
I didn't end up making this last week, so I plan to make it tomorrow if I can find a ripe avocado.  I'm down to two final black bean burgers in my freezer, so I'm making a new batch from the brown rice leftover from this week's stir-fry, as well as some black beans from my pantry that I cooked yesterday.  It'll also use up the green bell pepper in the fridge and one of the tomatoes.  I have an entire new package of whole wheat buns to use up too.

Vegetarian Italian Sausage and Baked Potato Skins and Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing
I want to try freezing the leftover sausage to see how well it freezes/thaws, since this recipe makes more than I can eat in three days.  This adds to the labor intensive meal stuff I've already got planned for this week, but hopefully it will pay off in a few easy future weeks.  The sausage will also use up some more of my dry goods from the pantry.  The potato skins will use up most of the potatoes in my pantry, as well as some of the sour cream in my fridge.

Chilli-Garlic Noodles 
We're expecting cold weather in the next week, and I love slightly spicy noodles in cold weather, so I'm making this.  It'll use up a package of whole wheat spaghetti noodles from the pantry.


Vegetarian BLTs and Cinnamon Squash Chowder
The sandwiches will use up some of the tempeh I got from Whole Foods last week and the final organic tomato, and the chowder will use up some more of my frozen squash -- maybe even the last of it.

Vegetable Biryani and Dal Makhani 
This is a healthy meal I like.  I make it with brown basmati rice now, and I didn't use any oil last time.  I'd use the ghee if I were making it for guests because I think there was probably a difference in taste or texture, but for a healthy weeknight meal, the no-oil version was still really good and I ate all the leftovers.  I'll have to post my amended, 100% whole grain, vegan, no-oil versions of the recipes.  This meal also requires me to buy very little since I keep most of it in the pantry.  The biryani will hopefully use up the last of the potatoes -- they don't have much time left.

Crispy Breaded Tofu Strips and Winter Squash Mac 'n Cheeze and Vegetable Medley
I'm not sure I'll end up making this, but I have all the ingredients already.  The veg medley will just be stuff to use up from the freezer, like peas and carrots and green beans and corn.  I also have at least two packages of tofu that will need to be used up in the next couple of weeks.  The mac 'n cheeze uses up some of the squash from the freezer as well as some of the quinoa macaroni from the pantry.