Meal Planning

Time for a post-Thanksgiving detox.  The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is when I traditionally try to cook healthier and use up whatever is taking up space in my freezer and pantry.  I have two largish containers of homemade vegetable manchow soup in there, so eating that for lunches will kill two birds with one stone.  I've been gaining weight, which I need to reverse.  I don't like having to spend time inputting the nutrition information for meals I created myself (it takes forever since I pretty much have to figure out the nutrition information based on every ingredient, but it works), so before going that neurotic with my calorie tracking, I'm going to try just keeping up with my "Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen" iPhone app.  You just check off your servings of different kinds of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, etc. as you eat them each day.  I have to pretty much eat exclusively healthy food to be able to come close to eating all the servings I'm supposed to, so it has worked for weight loss in the past. 

Here is what I'm making:

Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup and DIY Sandwiches
I've got a fresh tomato and some romaine to use up on the sandwiches, plus some dulse in the pantry that is supposed to make a good bacon substitute when toasted, according to the No Meat Athlete cookbook.  I can't remember if I've tried this yet, but it's my favorite cookbook, so I have hope.  I also have vegetarian turkey and ham slices in the fridge that need to be used up, and Sim likes those.

Tofu & Veggie Stir-fry and Brown Rice
I no longer use the oil in this.  If you use broth for the sauteing instead, it's just as good.  This will use up some of the vegetables in my fridge and any chopped ones in my freezer.

Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Enchilada Sauce (Barnard's Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook, page 141)
Didn't end up making this a couple weeks ago like I planned, so I'm trying it again today with broiled poblanos and a side of black beans.  Maybe some lime-cilantro rice.

Pasta Salad
With sides of leftover soup, maybe some crudites, and Simran can have some cottage cheese.

Brinner
I have more than a dozen eggs because I bought some for Thanksgiving and didn't realize how many I already had.  This will be a weekend meal because it's not healthy.  I'm going to make buttermilk biscuits and do egg and cheese biscuits a la McDonalds because this has been one of my favorite things to eat since I was a small child.  We also have vegetarian sausages and those hashbrown patties from the freezer section.  There isn't a single vegetable or fruit in this.  I might have to make my regular kale-berry breakfast smoothies a part of this.  I really need to try harder to eat healthy on weekends.

Spaghetti & Meatless Balls and Broiled Asparagus & Artichokes with Vermouth Brown Butter
This might be a weekend meal or an "I'm feeling lazy" meal.  I have all the ingredients on hand.

For Sameer

These are the brownie and chocolate frosting recipes I would use.  I've never made them together before, but they are the brownie and chocolate buttercream recipes I always use, just skip the last step in the brownie recipe since it involves its own frosting that isn't the best.  The buttercream recipe calls for milk, but I always substitute unsweetened almond milk because it's what we keep on hand.  No one can tell the difference.

Meal Planning

Pav Bhaji

Spaghetti & Meatless Balls and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

DIY Sandwiches and Soup

Italian Fusilli with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts (Neal Barnard's Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook, page 106)

Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Enchilada Sauce (Barnard's Get Healthy, Go Vegan Cookbook, page 141)
This time I'm going to broil the poblanos first.  They were too crunchy last time, and my goal was a vegan sort of chiles rellenos.