Meal Planning

Baked Tempeh Nuggets and Smoky Potato Salad Over Greens (from No Meat Athlete cookbook, pages 170, 143)
I'm making this tonight, possibly with a side of corn on the cob if it's at the store today for as cheap as it normally is this time of year.  I will use some leftover baby arugula and maybe butter lettuce as the "over greens" because I already have them on hand.

Spaghetti & Meatless Balls and Green Salad with Cashew Ranch Dressing (from No Meat Athlete, page 152)
The ranch dressing is pretty good.  It's obviously it isn't normal ranch dressing, but it doesn't make me retch, so I consider that a win.

Mac 'n Cheese with Vegan Cheese Sauce and Something Else or Leftovers
I have leftover vegan cheese sauce from when I made it, so I'm doing this again to get rid of it.

Dum Aloo and Dal Makhani and Brown Basmati Rice
I have pounds of potatoes to use up.

DIY Sandwiches and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Veggie Summer Rolls with Spicy Peanut Lime Sauce
I'm making this as many times as possible while my basil is growing outside.

Meal Planning

I'm trying out some recipes from cookbooks that are due back at the library soon.  I also need to detox after our week in Kansas City eating restaurant food.  I've been wanting cheese less and less, which is nice.

Vegetable Manchow Soup
I'm making this for myself for lunches.  I now double the recipe, skip the oil (the stock burns, so I'll saute the vegetables in water this time and see how that goes, and double the mushrooms.  A full bowl or two plus a piece of fruit makes a filling and healthy lunch.  It helps me lose weight too, so I'm guessing it's pretty low calorie.  It is mostly cabbage, after all.

Veggie Sushi
The grocery stores around me all sell sushi, but none of them sell the veggie stuff, which is ridiculous, so I'm taking another stab at making it myself.  I'm going to serve it with the manchow soup one night.

Veggie Pepperoni
All the stores in my area have stopped selling vegetarian pepperoni, so I'm making my own again and hoping Sim will eat it.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.

Shiitake Bakin'
From the No Meat Athlete cookbook, page 62.  It's pseudo-bacon from a mushroom, which sounds great to me.  Again, not sure how I'll use it, but it could work plain or in sandwiches.

Vietnamese Veggie & Rice Noodle Salad
From the No Meat Athlete cookbook, page 140).

Baked Tempeh Nuggets and Smoky Potato Salad Over Greens (from No Meat Athlete cookbook, pages 170, 143)

Spaghetti & Meatless Balls and Green Salad with Cashew Ranch Dressing (from No Meat Athlete, page 152)

Personal Pizzas
We finally have a working oven again, so that means pizza.  I'm going to make dough from Neal Barnard's Get Healthy Go Vegan cookbook (mostly special only because it's half whole wheat, and he replaces the sugar with agave nectar, though I'm not sure that matters), divide it into three, and make personal pizzas for each of us.  I want to make them vegan, or at least make mine vegan, and use some of the fresh basil while it's still growing.  Sim doesn't like the same vegetables as I do though, so maybe if I put little containers of ingredients in front of her, she'll actually eat what she puts on it.  I'd like cherry tomatoes, arugula, basil, olives, mushrooms, and I'm not sure what else on mine.

Chilli-Garlic Noodles
Because I need a way to use up the other half of the shredded cabbage I need for the manchow soup.

Vegan Cheese Sauce (maybe to make into mac 'n cheese and/or over steamed broccoli)

Classic French Vinaigrette (from NMA, page 153)

Creamy Herbed Hemp Dressing (from NMA, page 156, I think I would substitute fresh basil and cilantro for the parsley the recipe calls for and see how that goes, partly because I keep those herbs on hand and mostly because I find fresh parsley overpowering)

School Lunch Ideas

I've been packing lunches for Simran to eat at school for a year and a half now, but this will be the first year she'll be eating them five days a week.  I need some new options to give her.  I previously packed cheese or cheese/veggie meat sandwiches and gave her a couple of sides like baby carrots, fruit, and whatever random snacky things we had on hand, such as various crackers.  She has reached the point where the cheese comes home in the container and so does most of the veggie meat and sometimes the bread, so I'd like to come up with some healthier vegan options to try.

Peanuts and tree nuts are strictly forbidden in our school district.  Anything that requires cooking or being served hot or particularly cold won't work either since they lack access to a refrigerator or microwave the way all school children do, which is limiting.  I'd like to come up with one new dish for her to try out in her lunch every week or even once a month.  Since she tends to eat the same things over and over again once she finds things she likes, I don't need to mix things up too extensively.  Here are some ideas:

Homemade Lunchables

Sim loves veggie pepperoni.  I could give her some slices, either store-bought if I ever find them again or homemade (which I've made with some success), alongside Wheat Thins, again either store-bought or homemade, and maybe a few cheese slices since I can't think what else would go in there.  Maybe someone has already done an extensive blog post on healthy homemade lunchables.  Seems likely.  I'll have to look.

Pasta Salad

This doesn't have to be kept colder than your standard thermal lunch box, and she eats most of the ingredients, especially when there are olives.

Veggie Sushi

I'm not sure I could get her to eat this, but I love veggie sushi, and I'd love to come up with some variation she would eat too.

Veggie Kabobs

I saw this on another site (linking to yet another site, so I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole far enough to figure out who started it) with grape tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and tortellini.  I like the tortellini idea, and I would use veggies she likes better and try to avoid adding more cheese since that is often what's in vegetarian tortellini anyway.  I'm not sure what I'd put in this kabob.

Breakfast for Lunch

Veggie sausages or veggie bacon, homemade French toast sticks (from Ezekiel 4:9 Cinnamon Raisin toast), syrup or fruit compote for dipping.  

Pinwheels

This is mostly a spread-based recipe.  I think hummus or cream cheese or some kind of vegan-yet-somehow-not-nut-based creamy spread mixed with minced vegetables/herbs would work well, spread on wraps or tortillas and then filled with olives and julienne cut vegetables would work well.  Again, I have to find vegetables Sim will eat.  She likes carrots, broccoli, and celery, but actively avoids most leafy greens.

Quesadillas

Sim has finally started willingly eating beans, so a quesadilla or pinwheel with refried beans and a little cheese would probably get eaten.

Something with raw tofu, because she will inexplicably eat that stuff straight

Something with raw vegetables cut into tiny stars and flowers, because that looks appealing on blogs

She loves whole wheat rotini, so variations on pasta salad could work well here as long as the sauce isn't too obtrusive.  Maybe with cubed raw tofu because she likes that better than whole beans.

Rainbow Sandwiches

Someone did this online, and it doesn't look appetizing or like things my daughter would eat (e.g., red cabbage) but she does love rainbows.  It would also look pretty in a star-cut kabob form.  I do have lots of mini skewers on hand.  I think I might already have vegetable cutters for making stars and flowers too, but I have to check.  

...Nope.  I considered buying them when I bought pancake/egg molds in flower shapes in an effort to make more foods that look like they would exist in "My Little Pony," but I apparently did not buy the vegetable cutters.  Will do that today.

Veggie Hotdogs

This seems easy enough, either served cold or cooked and wrapped in foil, with a side of ketchup.

Pizza Sandwich

Simran's favorite school lunch from last year was my effort to use up some hamburger buns.  I toasted them with butter and garlic powder and veggie pepperoni and provolone or whatever Italian cheese blend I had on hand.  Then I wrapped the finished sandwich foil and put it in her thermal lunch box.  I'm not sure how warm it was when lunchtime rolled around, but the presence of butter and the fact that the sandwich wasn't much beyond garlic bread ensured it got eaten every time.  I tried using marinara sauce in place of the garlic butter for a dramatically healthier pizza sandwich, but she was not impressed.

Tofutti allegedly makes vegan soy cheese.  I'm noting it here to check out later.  I've enjoyed their ice cream sandwiches in the past, and I think a lot of other vegan cheeses are nut-based, though I could be wrong.  Some are just bad tasting.

Baked Tempeh Nuggets from the No Meat Athlete cookbook

Strawberry Shortcake Rice Bites also from No Meat Athlete cookbook
These are basically sweetened rice with vanilla, strawberries, and a sprinkling of chia seeds, rolled into sushi form.  I'm mostly hoping I can make sushi look good to her by getting her to like a non-vegetable sweet version.

Meal Planning

We're still eating vegan on weekdays.  It's going well so far.

Vegetarian Turkey Club and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Veggie Burgers
I have Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain buns and both Buffalo Chik'n patties by Morningstar and poblano black bean burgers by Engine 2 in the freezer.  I'll just get lots of fixins (tomato, lettuce, red onion, guacamole) and have these with crudites or salad of some nature.  I discovered Whole Foods makes a small line of no oil added salad dressings that they keep in their refrigerated section.  The sesame ginger one is heavy on the tahini (to get around the "no oil" bit) and really good.  It's the only one I've tried so far.  

Veggie Summer Rolls with Spicy Peanut Lime Sauce
These take forever to cut everything julienne and assemble, but they're really good and even Simran enjoyed them (mostly the raw tofu, but whatever).  I almost didn't find the rice paper wrappers at Whole Foods, but they had just replaced the ones I bought before with brown rice wrappers.  Tastes the same.

Veggie Dogs and Pasta Salad and Crudites
I just have to make a point of using vegan vinaigrette on the pasta salad.  Not hard to do.

Taco Night

Meal Planning

I haven't made the tacos or Pasta alla Anthony recently, despite having them on the meal plan and having most of the ingredients on hand, so I'm doing them this week.  Sameer and I have agreed to a new challenge in which we eat completely vegan on weekdays (which, for my purposes, will translate to Sunday dinner through Friday lunch).  We eat enough vegan meals already that this isn't terribly hard unless we were planning on going out somewhere (which we mostly do on weekends anyway and could stand to do less).

Pasta alla Anthony and Green Salad and Leftover Soup
I'll make the pasta minus the parmesan cheese for the purpose of keeping it vegan.

Taco Night

Spaghetti & Meatless Balls and Green Salad

Vegetarian Turkey Club and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Veggie Summer Rolls with Spicy Peanut Lime Sauce

Meal Planning

My oven broke.  It can still broil and the stove top still works, thankfully, but the bake function doesn't make it turn hot anymore.  I discovered this while make brownies with Simran.  I've ordered a new oven, but it won't be delivered for nearly a month, so I have to take that into account during meal planning.  It's not that bad since the stove top still works.

Dum Aloo and Dal Makhani and Brown Basmati Rice

General Tso's Chickpeas and Brown Rice

Garden Pretzel Sandwiches and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Pasta alla Anthony and Green Salad

Taco Night

Beefless Stew and Green Salad

Omelets and Pancakes

Vegetable Manchow Soup

I just made vegetable manchow soup for the first time, and I really wish I'd had the energy to do this last week when I had the flu.  It is one of my favorite foods for when I'm under the weather.  I'm mostly well now, but I'm also finishing off my second bowl.  I want to save this recipe (original from Veg Recipes of India) and the minor changes I made for next time.

Ingredients
1/4 cup shredded cabbage
1/4 cup shredded carrots
however many shiitake mushrooms come in a carton (8 oz?), chopped (I don't care how big the carton is -- this is how I cook with mushrooms -- use them all)
1/4 cup green beans, finely chopped (I bought French style green beans from the freezer section and roughly chopped those because it's easy)
1/4 cup (or more) spring onion whites, chopped
half a green bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp finely chopped ginger (or ginger paste)
1 tsp finely chopped garlic (or garlic paste)
1 fresh jalapeno, seeded and chopped (add another for more heat -- 1 yielded a sort of "mild to medium" heat, but one was all I had)
1 tsp rice vinegar
2 tbs soy sauce
1/4 tsp black or white pepper powder (I used white pepper and ground a little fresh black pepper over the vegetables while they were sauteeing because that's what I had)
3 cups vegetable stock (I bought no-salt high-end stuff)
2 tbs corn starch dissolved in 2 tbs water
cilantro leaves, roughly chopped (optional -- the cilantro at the store was sparse and wilted, so alas, I have none, but I would use a fistful of it per bowl next time)
1 tbs oil
salt to taste


Directions
1.  Chop all veggies and keep aside.
2. Heat oil in a soup pot and add chopped chiles, ginger, garlic, and onion.
3. Saute for a minute and then add green beans and mushrooms.
4. Stir fry on medium until mushrooms start to brown around the edges.  I also add a dash of salt and fresh ground pepper here to season the vegetables while they're cooking and help the mushrooms cook out any water they are holding.
5. Add shredded carrots, cabbage, and green bell pepper.
6. Stir fry on medium to high flame for 3 to 4 minutes.
7.  Add soy sauce and black/white pepper.
8. Add vegetable stock.
9. Allow soup to come to a simmer on medium flame.
10.  While soup is heating up, dissolve the corn starch in water.
11. Add corn starch mixture to the soup and stir to thicken.  Add vinegar and turn off heat.  Season to taste.  Serve hot.

[Edited 8/14/2017: To make this soup oil free, heat up a couple spoonfuls of water first and saute the mushrooms in that.  When they've cooked down a little, add the chiles, ginger, garlic, and onion.  Add more water as necessary to prevent sticking, bearing mind that the vegetables will release water as they cook too.  Saute the remaining vegetables, season, then add the vegetable stock and complete the recipe as described above.]