Monday, March 18, 2019

Meal Planning

Crispy Breaded Tofu and Purple Sweet Potatoes and Vegan Cream of Broccoli Soup

Brinner with Tofu Scramble

Idli-Sambar

Vegetarian Club Sandwiches and Soup

Monday, March 4, 2019

Meal Planning

Portobellos Frites and Shaved Brussels Sprouts
I think the only thing I need to buy for this is portobello caps.

Brown Rice Idli and Sambar
The normal white idli was fine last week and we ate all of it, in spite of a few hiccups with the batter jamming the venting piece of the Instant Pot so that it never sealed all the way.  Now I know how to work around both those issues.  I bought red and white poha at the Indian store last week and will try making idli with the red poha and cooked brown rice in place of the white and see how it goes.  The sambar is ridiculously easy since I just put together vegetables and red lentils and spices and boil/simmer until the potatoes and red lentils are cooked.  I bought frozen drumsticks (a vegetable I had never heard of before scouting sambar recipes) from the Indian store because the fresh ones didn't look green like the ones I've seen in pictures online so I wasn't sure if they were going bad.  Those will be a new addition this week.  I also found an unsweetened plain non-dairy yogurt by Kite Hill that tastes just as good in sambar as the dairy yogurt I've been using, though it's fattier than the dairy version by quite a bit.  Maybe I'll actually bother making the no-oil pakoras this week to go with all this.  I skipped them last week because it was just too much when I was having trouble with the Instant Pot.

Homemade Pizza
I made some tofu pepperoni yesterday that didn't turn out quite how it was supposed to -- the texture is very crumbly on account of the super firm tofu -- but the taste is good.  If I make it again, I'll add vital wheat gluten and water when I put all the ingredients in the food processor to see if that fixes the texture problems.  I'm going to try to use up some of what I made yesterday on homemade pizza since crumbling like sausage shouldn't be a problem on pizza.  I'll make my pizza vegan with arugula and mushrooms and things of that nature.  I'd like to try getting some shredded Daiya in place of the cheese to make Sim's vegan too.  She's eaten homemade vegan pizza before and ate all the leftovers, but she can tell she doesn't love it as much as dairy cheese pizza.  I previously bought mozzarella from Miyoko's Creamery, which is great cold but melted into a drippy oily substance.  If I skip the cheese altogether like I do on my own pizza, she will notice to an extent that I think it will interfere with getting her to eat it.  Vegan cheese seems like a good compromise.

I'm also going to make vegan bacon from the plain tempeh I bought using a recipe in the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart app by the PCRM.  I'll do this tomorrow and Sim and I can eat Vegan Cream of Broccoli soup and vegetarian club sandwiches.

The same app also has a mango sorbet I want to make Wednesday as dessert after the Indian food.  I bought frozen Atulfo mango slices when I was at the Indian store that should work well for this.  The entire ingredient list is frozen mango, agave nectar, and lime juice, so this should be easy.

The same app also has a chocolate mousse recipe made from silken tofu that I want to try on Friday night.  I just have to find silken tofu.  The store in town doesn't carry it.  I might have to go to Whole Foods again; I'm not sure.

Thursday is another fast day for Sameer, so we'll do soup and sandwiches again or leftovers from the other days.

I also want to try making the leftover cooked brown rice from idli production into rice pudding from the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart app.  In place of maple syrup, I'd like to use homemade date syrup from The How Not to Die Cookbook and in place of raisins, maybe bananas.  Maybe cooked bananas.  I want to make a bananas foster sort of flavor.  The base recipe looks simple enough that I don't feel the need to try it before I mess with it this way.