Meal Planning

This week I'm aiming for the intersection of "tasty enough I'll bother" and "easy enough I'll bother."  Here is what I'm making:

Pav Bhaji

Chilli-Garlic Noodles

Soy Burgers and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup
I already have the burgers premade and stashed in the freezer, so this meal mostly involves slicing the burger fixins and chopping things for the soup.

Tofu & Veggie Stirfry with Brown Rice

Gardein Burgers with Crudites and Leftover Sides
Because I'll have extra whole wheat hamburger buns after making pav bhaji, and this is really basic for when it's the weekend and I'm too lazy to do anything else.  I might use my leftover veggies from the chilli-garlic noodles to make some Vegetable Manchurian too, now that I know how to fry properly.

Meal Planning

Time for weekly meal planning.  It's supposed to be rainy and increasingly warm this week.  Here is what I'm making:

Pita Pockets and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup
I'm going to make vegetarian seafood salad for the pitas and have other fixings available for Sim and Sameer, such as Tofurky slices and cheese.  I'll make this today since it's rainy and cool.

Veggie Tacos and Refried Beans

No-Huevos Rancheros
I'll make enough refried beans for both veggie taco night and huevos rancheros night.

Black Bean Nacho Pizza

Falafel
The recipe says burgers, but this time I'm making it in the traditional falafel style.  It tastes good either way.  This should use up the rest of the pita pockets.

Cheese Fries and Chik'n Tenders and Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing
This is basically a healthier version of what we used to order from Outback Steakhouse.  It's a variation on what I call Junk Food Dinner.

Meal Planning

This week is Simran's birthday.  I haven't been cooking to plan much recently, so I have quite a few non-perishable ingredients getting backed up.  I've spent the last four hours making macarons for Sim's birthday party.  A lot of it is wait time, but it's still the most temperamental recipe I've ever worked with.  God willing they will freeze nicely and thaw well as the internet claims they do.  I plan to thaw them Friday, ice the cupcakes, and then fill the macarons with the same vanilla buttercream and keep them in the fridge until the party Saturday.  They aren't the prettiest -- I still can't get them uniformly flat and shiny, and I think I whipped the egg whites longer than I was supposed to -- but they taste really good.  Dinner time is in 45 minutes and I really don't feel like cooking anymore.  Here is what I'm hoping to make and get rid of this week:

Cheese Ravioli with Arugula & Pecorino Romano
I noticed a wedge of Romano in the fridge and decided to make this.  Unfortunately it required me to buy a pound of arugula -- the only size package available at the store -- and might have been a terrible idea what with my already full refrigerator.

Tofu & Veggie Stirfry with Brown Rice

No Huevos Rancheros with Pea Guacamole

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup and Vegan Mac 'n Cheese and Chik'n Tenders

Gardein Cheeseburgers and Crudites
Planning to save this one for Thursday, the night before Sameer's parents arrive, just to keep it simple and keep the kitchen relatively clean.  It's Sim's birthday, so I guess I'll make her a veggie dog in the hopes she'll actually eat something. 

Simran's 4th Birthday Party

Simran decided on an Octonauts themed birthday party this year.  That means lots of fun under-the-sea themed foods and decor for me.  She was also adamant she wanted a chocolate cake.  I've ultimately decided on the following menu, with input and approval from Simran:

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, topped with Orange Molded Chocolate Sea Creatures:  I've used this chocolate cake recipe for years now.  I'm sure one of the top reviews mentions how much to adjust the cooking time for making cupcakes.  For topping I'm just making a basic vanilla buttercream with really good vanilla extract and adding a hint of gel food dye (I have both sky blue and leaf green, which I think I can make yield a nice aqua).  For the decorations, I found a sea creature chocolate mold on Amazon and orange colored meltable chocolates that you can by at grocery and craft stores (you can use white chocolate chips and a tablespoon of vegetable shortening and presumably a touch of gel food coloring, but the white chocolate came out so strong and overpoweringly sweet when I tried this that I am hopeful the meltables will be milder just by virtue of having a larger variety of ingredients listed on its packaging).

Oyster Sandwich Cookies:  I've seen about fifteen variations of this cookie on the internet, especially Pinterest.  It basically consists of two cookies positioned half open to look like an oyster shell, frosting inside, and a chocolate Sixlet that looks like a pearl positioned atop the bed of frosting.  The version I've decided to go with will be blue macarons with more of the same aqua dyed buttercream I'm using on the cupcakes.  Macarons are a pain to make, and I am going to experiment with freezing them so I can have them fresh without having to make them when I'm pressed for time, but they impress guests greatly because they're hard to make and expensive to buy, and it's nice to have a gluten-free treat option when you might have gluten-free guests.  I have white pearlescent Sixlets for the pearls.  If the macarons don't thaw well, I figure I can buy simple ginger snaps or something (the spice and buttercream flavors go well together) and assemble the whole lot in ten minutes or less, and gluten free guests will be relegated to the ice creams.  Regardless, I plan to assemble these cookies when I frost the cupcakes, right after making a large batch of frosting.

I plan to have ice cream, though I'm not sure if I'll make my own or buy some.  The thing that makes ice cream good is freshness.  How good it tastes is inversely proportional to how old it is, which is the only reason to make my own.  If I make my own, I will probably use this recipe because it's eggless and one person who might attend the party has an egg allergy, so I always try to include an eggless treat.  I will omit the preserves from the recipe though.  I've never gotten them to mix in properly when making this previously and they stuck out kind of oddly.  This chocolate ice cream recipe is Sim's favorite and uses up the exact amount of egg yolks left over from making two batches of macarons, so I might make this too.  Or maybe I'll freeze the egg yolks and make the chocolate one next week with any leftover half-and-half or cream from making the vanilla.

I have a drink dispenser I've used for fresh lemonade or punch in the past, but I think I might skip the punch this year.  So much of it is left over each year that it seems like a waste when I can just put out various sugared sodas and unsweetened fizzy waters that, unopened, can be saved for later.  Maybe I can find a limeade or something at Trader Joe's and put that in the punch dispenser.  I don't know.

For savory snacks, I'm going to put out good cheese (probably Cotswold with chives and some smoked Gouda -- they're my favorites and yielded good feedback from guests last time) pre-sliced and store-bought crackers, a vegetable platter with homemade ranch dressing featuring a half-submerged bell pepper cut to look like an octopus (thank you, Pinterest), and a fruit plate.  The fruit might be cut with my melon baller or star shaped cookie cutter, it might be inside a personal watermelon carved to look like the Gup-A from Octonauts (thank you, Pinterest), or I might just throw it all together on a plate because I've run out of energy.  Simran wants to make sure we have strawberries, blueberries, and mango slices, so those will be included.  Based on previous birthday parties, the thing that makes the biggest difference to guests is the inclusion of a ridiculous sweetened fruit dip made from cream cheese and marshmallow creme and Cool Whip, so I'll make a bowl of that.  I think I'll buy some little snack packs of Goldfish crackers and put them in a bowl too.  That way any that don't get opened can just go toward Sim's school lunches for the rest of the semester.

 

 

Meal Planning

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

Tex-Mex Croquettes over Arugula/Spinach Salad with Fresh Guacamole

Tofu & Veggie Stir-fry and Brown Rice

No-Huevos Rancheros  

Vegan Shepherd's Pie and Green Salad with Vinaigrette
I want to use up the last of the russet potatoes that don't go into the vegan cheese sauce for the mac 'n cheese, so I'm making shepherd's pie.  I'll make the salad from the last of the arugula/spinach blend.


Crispy Breaded Tofu and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup and other leftover sides 
 

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.)