Meal Planning

I'm making some crazy stuff this week.  Hopefully it doesn't suck.  The bean sausages last week were pretty awful in texture, and I had successfully made vegan sausages before.  I love the Creole red beans and rice recipe I had been making that is easy, vegan, and oil-free, so I think I need to just eat that and give up on any additional Creole recipes for awhile.

I'm doing a lot of new stuff in an effort to find more recipes I like that are vegan and very healthy (lots of vegetables, unprocessed, and ideally no oil, but I'll settle for very low oil at first), and I'm trying to do some regular themes in an attempt to keep things simple (weekly taco night, stir-fry night, pasta night, soup & sandwiches).  Here is what I'm making this week:

Spiced Sweet Potatoes & Apples (page 143, Vegan Under Pressure) and Crispy Breaded Tofu and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup
I go through this soup so fast now that I serve it to Simran at nearly every meal (it's the only green vegetable she seems to like, plus it has other healthy stuff like beans), so I'm making it twice this week.  She's started trying other vegetables recently, but there is usually much grimacing and coughing involved just to get down a bite, and she'll eat a full serving of this soup without a fuss, so it remains my standard go-to side dish.  I'm doing the potatoes and apples for a second time because it was good last time, plus I want to use up the sweet potato in my pantry and the spiced cider in my fridge and I'd like to throw in the cup or so of cranberries left in my freezer from the holidays and see how that goes.  I plan to make all this tonight.

Taco Night
I have all the ingredients, and I'm finally doing the vegan chorizo from Serious Eats.  I did vegetarian taco meat last week just from browning half a bag of Gardein ground veggie-beef and whatever salsas I had taking up space in the fridge (garlic salsa, I think there was mild enchilada sauce in there, I don't remember what else but it worked out).  Everything else remains the same from week to week:  corn tortillas by Mission brand, refried beans, lettuce, tomato, cilantro, red onion, homemade guacamole, and chipotle salsa from a can.  I love this meal and any leftovers it yields for lunch the next day.

Vegan Butter Tofu and Brown Basmati Rice and Sai Bhaaji (page 134, Vegan Under Pressure)
The sai bhaaji is "Pakistani greens."  I wanted to include something green and leafy alongside the protein of the butter tofu.  It's a pressure cooker recipe, but I'm going to make the other stuff on the stove top because I'm afraid 1) I can't fit all three dishes in one pressure cooker especially when one is a solid pound of leafy greens, and 2) I don't want to mess up the entire meal by being too daring/impatient.

Pasta alla Anthony and Green Salad
Because it's very basic and fast and fairly healthy.

Homemade Soy Burgers and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup
I still have a whole mess of these burgers in my freezer from the last time I made them, as well as a few sprouted grain burger buns by Ezekiel brand.  They're better when you don't double the recipe like I did since that made the texture a bit too soft, but whatever.  They're one of the few things I already like that is vegan, no oil, and exclusively whole grain.  I eat them with yellow mustard, lettuce, tomato, and red onion.

Thai Red Curry (page 152, Vegan Under Pressure) and Brown Basmati Rice

General Tso's Chickpeas and Brown Basmati Rice