Meal Planning

I want to get back in the habit of cooking enough that we don't do takeout most weeks, not even once.  Takeout is not that good around here, certainly not good enough to justify how unhealthy it is.  The key to this seems to be doing an enormous amount of meal prep, mostly chopping things, on Sunday afternoon so weekday meal prep doesn't require more energy than I have.

Broccoli Cheeze Twice Baked Potatoes and Collard Greens with Almonds

Tex-Mex Burgers with Avocado and Green Salad 

Tofu & Veggie Stir-fry and Brown Rice
When I ran out of peanut oil a couple weeks ago, I started cooking the stir-fry in low-sodium vegetable broth instead.  I still season it with maybe a teaspoon of sesame oil because I still have two bottles of that, but it's a much lower oil content overall with no discernible flavor difference.  Sameer said the one cooked in broth tasted better before I told him what I'd done differently.

No-Huevos Rancheros
I love huevos rancheros and have been cutting back on eggs (plus Sim would never eat the authentic and spicy recipe I used to use), so this sounded good to try.

Pav Bhaji 
I have a whole bag of organic russet potatoes to use.

Homemade Veggie Dogs and Vegan Mac 'n Cheese and Crudites or Salad

Other things I want to make soon, but not necessarily this week:
Lentil-Walnut Pate  (it looks like the lentils she references from Trader Joe's are the small green French ones, of which I have tons dried, and I'm always looking for new and tasty ways to use lentils)
Vegan Spring Rolls 
Oven-Baked Plantains with Coconut Dipping Sauce
Vegan Pesto over Spiralized Summer Squash and Cherry Tomatoes (when I have a basil plant in full bloom again)
Simple Tomato Cucumber & Red Onion Salad (when I have a cherry tomato plant in full bloom again) 

Kid Food

Simran has grown increasingly difficult to feed.  The primary problem is that she won't even taste most things, even things she previously loved.  She subsists on grilled cheese, cheese quesadillas, cheese pizza, and freeze-dried mangoes and berries from Trader Joe's.  Breakfast is either Ezekiel 4:9's sprouted whole grain cinnamon raisin bread toasted and buttered, Raisin Bran Crunch cereal with unsweetened calcium-fortified vanilla almond milk, or homemade oatmeal, which she bizarrely still likes sometimes in spite of the fact that I don't sweeten it with anything but raisins.  She likes whole grain products just fine, but she rejects pretty much anything she perceives to be vegetable, even if it's pretty and dip is involved.  The tropical kale smoothies and Happy Tot brand prepackaged food bags of fruit and vegetable puree she used to eat everyday suddenly make her turn up her nose and cry.  She won't put anything in her mouth that is green.  I worked around this once by talking up the special chocolate shake I was drinking, which contains no processed sugar and had enough spinach in it that I had to put it in colored glasses so that she couldn't see the weird greenish color, but the second time I made it, she changed her mind and said, "Yuck." 

If I offer her something, she automatically rejects it.  If I don't want to share something, all I have to do is offer it to her.  This even worked with the really good breadsticks from the local pizzeria, even after she expressed an interest in them.  I wonder if it might even work with cake or cookies.

Because I don't take special requests at dinner, she can either eat what we're having or choose to fill up on fruits and veggies.  She usually either eats almost nothing for dinner or feasts on multiple bags of freeze-dried berries. 

I'm trying something new this week.  Today I did a Google image search for "fun healthy easy recipes for kids" and told her we'll pick something out, buy the ingredients, and make it together.  She was psyched, especially for the inexplicable pictures of cake.  She pointed out a picture of pea and sweet corn fritters and wanted to make them immediately, and we happened to have all the ingredients on hand, so we did.  She wanted sour cream with them, of which we had none, so I gave her plain yogurt and just let her believe it was sour cream.  She tasted a fritter, said "yuck," and refused to touch any more of them.  Then she ate about half a cup of plain non-fat yogurt and repeatedly told me how much she likes sour cream.  So I guess that was something.  Sameer and I ate the rest of the fritters.  They were okay.

According to Google image search, the key to making food appealing to a child is to give all sandwiches faces and arrange produce to look like animals.  This seems like a lot of work.  Here are the "kid food" recipes I want to try:

Pretty Much Everything in this Martha Stewart After-School Snack Slideshow (I'm especially excited about the tiny sandwiches -- we can have tea time! -- and the dips because she might actually eat those.  She would probably also love any sort of granola- or fruit-based snacks because those are things she already likes.)
Bell Pepper Jack o'Lanterns (I cannot imagine Sim will actually eat any of this, but she picked it out for its Halloween theme, and I could fill them with any sort of rice pilaf mixture or do them with my stuffed pepper recipe with ground seitan and topped with cheese)
Tiny Zucchini Cheese Pizzas
Open-Face Sandwich with an Actual Face
Veggie Dogs (Sim has been talking about hot dogs a lot lately)
Pinwheels (with whole wheat tortillas.  I'd like to try making these with homemade hummus or other bean-based dips, which Sim used to love, as well as a version with a veggie-infused fat-free cream cheese, which I know I could make taste really good.  I've avoided introducing her to even more cheese-based foods, but I'm desperate to get her to eat new things at this point, even new things featuring cheese.  Tofurky slices would also be a good addition and she will eat those on sandwiches.  I doubt I could sneak lettuce or spinach or arugula in without her rejecting the whole thing.  Maybe shredded radicchio since the color isn't a dead giveaway that it's a leafy vegetable.)

Meal Planning

Chile Rellenos with Rice and Beans

Vegan Seafood Salad in Pita Pockets

Tex-Mex Burgers with Avocado and Green Salad 

Tofu & Veggie Stir-fry and Brown Rice

Broccoli Cheeze Twice Baked Potatoes and Collard Greens with Almonds