Meal Planning

This will be a week of using up and clearing out.  Here is what I have on hand to use up:  diced onion and garlic ready to be made into broccoli soup, about a quarter of a red onion, one tomato, a pint of grape tomatoes, three and a half avocados, lettuce, about one serving of leftover black beans, about one serving of leftover grilled enchilada innards, the cream sauce that goes on the corn dish I made, a few slices of bacon-style tempeh, fresh broccoli, plain non-fat yogurt, about a cup of whole milk, a tablespoon or two of heavy cream, and four eggs.  Here is what I plan to make:

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup and Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream (Vedge, pg. 101) and Enchiladas/Quesadillas
I already have all the soup ingredients on hand and ready to throw into a pot.  I'll make the corn by roasting a pan of frozen corn in the oven and topping it with the leftover green chile cream from Friday night.  I'll make myself a grilled enchilada to use up the last of the ingredients from Friday night, and I'll give Sim the last of the black beans and a cheese quesadilla.  This will be our thrown together, slap dash dinner tonight while Sameer is fasting.

Dum Aloo and Dal Makhani and Brown Basmati Rice
This might create an uncomfortable number of leftovers this week, but I chose this meal mostly to use up the potatoes I have to buy for Wednesday's sambar.

Vegetarian Club Sandwiches and Leftover Soup
We won't have much time Tuesday between Simran's after school sport club and the evening event at the library, so this will be a quick and easy dinner.  I'll buy a loaf of pumpernickel, and this will use up the tempeh bacon, tomato, some of the lettuce, and some of the vegetarian turkey slices in the fridge.

Idli-Sambar with Coconut Chutney
The idli is still not easy for me yet, but I have sundry sambar ingredients chopped and ready to go in the freezer that I'd love to clear out.  I've been chopping vegetables and stashing them in the freezer whenever I don't think I'll use them up on anything else, just like I'd planned, and we'll see how this method of sambar making goes. The only thing I think I need to buy for it is some potatoes.  I'm making this Wednesday so we'll have three days to consume the broccoli soup before more soup happens. 

I'm going to stop by Patel Bros. and pick up some idli rice to see if I can improve the texture and density of our idli, plus maybe make it easier.  I will use these instructions and use cold water so the batter doesn't heat up too much in the Vitamix and also because I never know how much water to start with when making the batter.  This recipe suggests starting with half a cup of cold water to mix the dal and 1.5 cups cold water to mix the rice.  I think knowing this in advance and putting enough water down first in the Vitamix should help.  The Vitamix has always overheated in the past trying to grind up the rice and dal, which probably affected the fermentation and might be (part of) what made our idli turn out denser than we want.  I also want to try using poha this time, but maybe I should stick to methi seeds for now and make just one recipe change at a time so I can see what makes a difference and how.

Macaroni & Cheese and Leftover Soup and Veggie Sides
Mac 'n cheese seems to have become a Halloween tradition at our house.  It's a warm, easy meal for post-trick-or-treating.  This year I plan to prep in advance and make it from scratch since it's not that much more work than Kraft boxed mix and it will use up the cream and milk (the recipe calls for evaporated milk, but I bet I could make do by adding powdered dry milk to the leftover milk in the fridge), two eggs, and I already have a brick of good Irish cheddar in the fridge.

Homemade Pizza and Garden Salad
I will make this Friday night.  Mostly to use up the pizza sauce in the fridge.  Not sure if I have enough sauce or need to buy more.

Penne alla Vodka
This would be good for Saturday night.  It's quick and easy, and I think I only need to buy a yellow squash or zucchini since I already have vegetarian Italian sausages, vodka sauce, whole wheat penne (or similar), carrots, frozen chopped bell peppers, and red onion.  I could also use up some of the pumpernickel bread loaf I'm going to buy by making it into garlic bread.  Leftover soup and/or salad as a side.

I'm also going to make myself a dessert of Cherry Chocolate Chia Pudding as I already have all the ingredients and it'll use up the avocado half and date syrup currently in the fridge.  It's a good dessert to have on hand for weaning myself off other sugary treats, and it seems wise to have such things at hand on Halloween.