Even MORE Stuff to Make This Weekend

I just went to the grocery store this morning to get us through the last of the meal plan and Memorial Day weekend. I have some vegan blue cheese and vegan plain cashew yogurt with best by dates next week, and I've been craving more fatty protein, so here are a few more things I need to make:

Buffalo Tofu Salad

This will use up the vegan blue cheese, and I can make the last of my cashew yogurt into ranch dressing. It's a good lunchtime meal.

Breakfast Burrito

I'm newly restocked with potatoes so that Sameer can make chips, and I'm newly restocked with tomatoes so that I can make sandwiches and burgers, so I have everything I need to make vegan breakfast burritos. I'll probably do it one of the hot nights early next week since this recipe doesn't require too much actual cooking. This is another nice fatty protein meal (due to all the tofu). Instead of making breakfast sausages from scratch, I already have Impossible brand ones in the freezer that I can use up.

Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

It's a holiday weekend and I want dessert, so I'm making these today.

For dinners I'm still making:

Dumplings with Dipping Sauce and Peanut Sesame Noodle Salad

One Pot Birria Ramen

This will use up the last of the cabbage and the marinated tofu leftover from the summer rolls (no store sells tempeh in my town, so I just used tofu).

In addition to Sameer making potato chips, we also have the baked potato skins and buffalo ranch salad kits and corn on the cob to serve with the sundry veggie dogs and burgers I bought. There was a buy one get one free deal on Beyond Burgers, so they cost about a dollar per burger. I want to make mine a vegan Big Mac (or Big Mik, as they call it at Can't Believe It's Not Meat), so I need to also make some special sauce.

More Stuff to Make This Week

Funfetti Cookies

These freeze and thaw incredibly well. Sameer has a potluck at work on Tuesday, and this recipe is the one I'd recommend making for it because it's easy, you don't usually see it at potlucks (unlike brownies and chocolate chip cookies), and it's delicious. I'd make them on a cool weather day this week and freeze them until Monday, then let them thaw till Tuesday, at which point they'll taste like they were just baked (I found some in the back of the freezer once months after I'd made them, and they were still wonderful). It's going to be in the 90's next week, which is why I'd make them in advance.

Baked Potato Skins

The high will be in the 60's tomorrow, so I'm going to use the oven without fear of making the house too hot. I'll be making pav bhaji for dinner, but I will still have leftover russet potatoes, so I'm going to bake however many are left and make them into potato skins for one component of a nice junk food dinner this weekend. I eat the scooped out potato centers with butter and sour cream, which I already have in the fridge. 

Granola

Sim has already almost finished the entire batch of granola I made the other day. I think she'll finish it at breakfast tomorrow. I have all the ingredients to make another batch while it's cool out tomorrow, so I'm going to do that.

Foaming Hand Soap

I made another batch today to fill up my various foaming hand soap dispensers in my various bathrooms. I put 1/2 cup avocado oil (I normally use sweet almond, but avocado was the one I had the biggest surplus of today), 1 cup unscented liquid castile soap, 3 cups filtered water, and 25 (too many? we shall see) drops of lemon essential oil and it pretty much filled a large Soft Soap refill bottle. I've been refilling the same Soft Soap refill bottle with my own DIY foaming soap for a few years now. I'm still figuring out how to make scents I like as much as expensive foaming soap, but the quality is just as good.

Meal Planning

Time for meal planning. Here is what I've got to use up: diced green bell pepper & onion, a handful of baby spinach, three tomatoes, a couple cups of romaine lettuce, a few russet potatoes, half a can of coconut milk, two containers of vegan dumplings I got on sale last week, 3 eggs, and half a batch of chilli-garlic paste. Here is what I'm making:

Pav Bhaji

To use up the green bell pepper and onion, tomatoes, and russet potatoes.

Chilli-Garlic Noodles

Dumplings with Dipping Sauce and Peanut Sesame Noodle Salad

To use the dumplings, and I can put leftover cabbage from the chilli-garlic noodles into the salad.

Red Curry Tempeh Summer Rolls

To use up the coconut milk. I also wanted something cold to make when it's supposed to be 85 degrees outside.

One Pot Birria Ramen

Sandwiches!

To potentially use up the lettuce (club sandwiches) and eggs (egg sandwiches).

Let's Use Some Stuff Up

It's cool enough to cook with the oven today and tomorrow without it negatively impacting the temperature of my house, but next week is going to be hot, so I'm doing some cooking right now. I have been going through my pantry and have some things I want to use up. Plus snack food is super expensive right now (everything is super expensive right now, but processed foods are worse), so I might as well save a few dollars by making my own. Here is what I'm making:

Granola

Because I have more nuts and dried fruit than I know what to do with (I went with pistachios and craisins this time), plus half a jar of unrefined coconut oil whose days are numbered and a jar of honey that has already started to crystallize. This used up most of my old-fashioned rolled oats, but that's okay. I can get more. [Edited: 5/20/23: Sim said this is the best homemade granola she's ever tasted and tied for first place ever with the granola served at the hotel restaurant where we breakfasted in London. She ate a bunch as a snack when she got home from school yesterday and had two platefuls for breakfast this morning. This will definitely be a repeat recipe.]

Crackers

I have a variety of flours that could go into this, plus dried herbs. And the last time I made crackers, they all got eaten right away. I made this batch with 1 cup AP flour and 2 cups rye flour, and I seasoned them on top with onion & herb Mrs. Dash, sesame seeds, and sea salt. [Edited 5/20/23: These came out fine. We'll eat them. But next time I should use parchment paper because my silicone baking mats don't get hot enough to make the crackers really crispy. And maybe more salt (I used way less than the recipe dictated) and a different herb blend that doesn't have onion or garlic pieces in it because they're a bit bitter. These will be great with vegan snacking cheese though. Especially the cheddar pub cheese one.]

Rye Bread (Bread Machine Recipe)

I have so much rye flour from when we were in a pandemic and I was trying to make sourdough rye bread and I could only buy rye flour in bulk online. I try not to use the oven too much during hot weather because I want to limit how hard I'm making my air conditioner work, but I do have a bread machine that goes from ingredients to baked bread loaf in one little machine that doesn't heat up my house, so I'm going to try this recipe. Not today, but definitely soon. 

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Because I have more ripe bananas than can comfortably fit in my freezer banana bag at the moment, and these muffins are delicious and freeze really well when there are leftovers.

Hot Cocoa Mix

I don't love this as hot cocoa, but when I use something along the lines of 1 part cocoa mix to 2 parts unsweetened soy milk, and blend it in my blender with about 16 oz of ice, it makes really fantastic frozen hot chocolate. I have some dry milk powder in my pantry that needs to be used up, so it's becoming (a scaled down, small amount of) frozen hot cocoa mix.

Meal Planning

The connective tissue graft surgery went really smoothly and it healed really well, and now that two weeks have passed, I can eat what I want again. I have a green bell pepper to use, as well as some fresh spinach. Here is what I'm making:

Vegan Split Pea Curry and Rice and Baked Popcorn Okra or Zucchini Sabzi

The green veg side will depend upon whether there is decent okra at the store yet or not. I think it might still be too early in the season. Zucchini is pretty reliably present though. I want to make the curry because I have tons of yellow split peas I've been working my way through for ages, and I saw someone mention online that a Southeast Asian style curry with coconut milk in it is a great way to eat them. This will probably be Wednesday, projected to be our coolest day this week.

Veg Beef & Broccoli with Rice

I bought some vegetarian Beyond Meat steak tips that have been in my freezer for a couple weeks. I want to make restaurant style beef & broccoli. Not sure how well I can mimic the linked recipe with frozen veg meat, but I mostly wanted a good sauce recipe anyway. [Edited 5/17/23: I made this last night, and it was good but really salty. For next time, I need to use a low sodium broth or low sodium Better Than Bouillon and replace half the low sodium soy sauce with Bragg's liquid aminos. I doubled the sauce, and aside from the saltiness, I think this was a good call.]

Sandwiches! and Salads!

Because I haven't had either one in weeks and I miss them. This will probably be Monday night because I want them right away.

Taco Night with Red Cabbage Slaw

Because there are lots of corn tortillas in my fridge and Gardein fish fillets in my freezer.

Pizza and Green Salad and Garlic Knots

Friday night.

These meals might get a bit more spaced out if they yield as many leftovers as I expect. We might need to do a leftover night midweek.

Meal Planning one week after connective tissue graft surgery

My gum graft healed really well last time, so I've been just doing the same things and eating the same way for this graft. Now that I'm one week post-op, I'm recycling my meal plan of very soft foods that aren't just sad purees from last time. I've lived off mostly cottage cheese and fruit/veg/bean purees for the last week, so I'm looking forward to it.

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Finished my last batch over the course of the week (it's been my primary source of green veg post-surgery), so I need to make a new one. It's hot outside today, but tomorrow is supposed to be nearly 20 degrees cooler, so I plan to do most of my stove and oven use then.

Spaghetti & Plant-Based Meatballs (Delish Loves Disney, pg. 13)

The plan is to prep and bake the meatballs tomorrow, stash them in the fridge or freezer, and then just heat them in sauce for dinner later in the week.

Vegan Lentil Quinoa Loaf and Whipped Sweet Potatoes and Peas

I'll make this for dinner tomorrow. I still have tons of whipped sweet potatoes to finish off.

Omelettes

Maybe next weekend because it's so easy. 

Quesadillas etc?

Basically I'll just be eating homemade refried beans with whipped avocado again, but I think have enough refried beans that I want other people to finish them off with me.

Tofu Paneer in Butter Chicken Sauce (Vegan Richa's Instant Pot Cookbook, pg. 66) with Basmati Rice

I think last time I made this with a little pot of rice inside the bigger pot of sauce and tofu in the Instant Pot, so I plan to do that again to avoid heating the house up too much. This might involve making the tofu paneer in advance. I think it requires oven baking, but I don't remember and have to check. Could be another thing I bake tomorrow while it's cool out.

 

Vegan Malai Kofta

Very soft, very delicious. Does require oven baking.