Woman in Real Life

I continue to find menu planning helpful. It makes shopping and cooking easier when you know what you need to buy and how you are going to prepare it. That being said, summer calls for flexibility. Plus, the weather is steaming hot, so I don't want to be stuck at the stove for all that long.

That's why this week's menu plan is a bit of a compromise. In other words, while I have indeed created a plan for the week, it's based on easy meals with the help of some packaged foods. Monday's pizza, for example, will be prepared with pre-made pizza dough I bought at the grocery store today. I am topping it with rapini like I did here.

Taco Tuesdays are all about using whatever we have in the kitchen. We take hard and soft taco shells and stuff them with refried beans, some vegan faux ground beef, vegan cheese (or real cheese for the rest of the family), guacamole, salsa and sometimes veggies sauteed in olive oil.

This week I also purchased some falafel mix and pitas to make falafel sandwiches. This vegan, raw tzatziki sauce looks like it would make a nice topping.

I bought fake meatballs to make spaghetti and no-meatballs. Faux meatballs aren't the healthiest of foods, but they are nice for a treat now and then. On Saturday, I plan to make a stir-fry using cubed extra-firm tofu and frozen veggies on rice. The kids like a basic frozen peas and carrots mix.

How are you dealing with the heat?

Summer Veggie Kebabs with Fresh Corn Relish, Vegetarian Times, July/August 2013

Summer vacation is here and that makes it all the more difficult to stick to a menu plan. Some days it's nice to just take it as it comes - maybe head to the beach on a hot day or visit the art gallery on a rainy day.

Nevertheless, I'm taking a stab at a menu plan this week, because, you never know, we might just feel like sitting around eating some good food and drinking a nice summer beverage!

Here's my menu plan for the week. I have picked a few items from the current issue of Vegetarian Times magazine. Click on the names for recipes (if available).

Pesto Pasta from last week's plan

Last week's menu plan went well. So well that I'm repeating a couple of the selections this week. The Crunchy Vegetable Wraps were so easy to prepare...plus they are healthy and there's no cooking involved...which is important because we are getting scorching hot weather all week.

Here's my menu plan for this week. Click on the names for recipes (if available).

Taco Tuesdays

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Last week, I skipped doing a menu plan entirely. We were so busy in the evenings that I decided to wing it instead. Super busy weeks are probably the best time for a plan, actually, but sometimes something's gotta give.

This week, I am taking inspiration from the Vegetarian/Vegan Starter Kit from PETA that I picked up at the Veggie Fest on Saturday. Browse PETA's recipes here. I was also inspired by all the kale and other greens on display at Veggie Fest. I'm off to Costco, a surprisingly good source of greens. I'll get organic mixed greens for salad, organic spinach and whatever mixed bag of greens they have this week.

There are weeks when I take lots of food photos and then weeks when I take few. This past week was the latter, I'm afraid.

Sometimes I'm just plain hungry and I have my dinner all eaten before I remember my dear camera, which generally sits smack in the middle of the kitchen counter. If I put it away I only have to go get it out again, after all. Anyway, for this What I Ate Wednesday, I'm sharing the photos I did manage to take, like this one, above. This is last night's dinner of Tofu Mexicali Scramble on tortillas.

I noticed when I was shopping for my weekly menu plan that I had put down three different tofu recipes this week. I love tofu, but I also like variety. This was a mistake, but I'm sticking with it anyway.

After a few weeks of playing it by ear, I am back to menu planning for this week. We tend to eat healthier, better meals when I plan ahead.

I am also back to emphasizing fruit consumption for me and my family. For several weeks I was greeting the kids almost every day with an after-school snack of fruit on a tray or fruit salad. They enjoyed it and I felt good about them getting more fruit. So, I'm back at it again. Here's a fruit salad I presented them with after school one day this week, above. I cut up a pear, an orange, a peach, a banana and strawberries and then threw in some raspberries. My favourite part is the fresh berries. The kids love them too, but I'm finding I have to stop by a store every two or three days to buy more.

Before I get to my meal plan for this week, I would like to review some highlights from last week's plan. I deliberately made it a pretty simple cooking week. Although it's still cold here and we had some snow yesterday, I like to pretend it's spring. Once warmer weather comes, we will have lots more simple meals, like our Friday night treat, above.

We enjoyed Sol veggie burgers, Alexia waffle cut fries and rapini sauteed in olive oil and garlic. I also tried a  (tasty) vodka beverage called Sucking Lemons. I can only have one though, because I find this type of drink hard on my stomach.

Last week, I went without a menu plan for the first time in several weeks. How did it go? Well, I definitely am more inclined to cook if I have formulated a plan and bought all the necessary ingredients (or most of them anyway).

On the other hand, it was a nice little break just deciding what to make at the spur of the moment. And my husband did more of the cooking than usual. Even better.

Left to his own devices, he made pizza one day. This is my vegan pizza with Daiya cheese, mushrooms, zucchini and olives, above.

I'm flying by the seat of my pants this week when it comes to meals. When we returned from a weekend away, I didn't have the energy (or the groceries) to put together my usual Sunday menu plan.

This vegan Tofurky roast and vegetables dinner, above, was on the last menu plan. We enjoyed it last Wednesday evening, having neglected to prepare it on time for Easter supper.

This week I am dispensing with my usual review of the previous week's meals. I have been watching my son's team play in a basketball tournament all weekend and I am frankly just plain tired.

I will say that this tofu carrot scramble, above, although certainly not pretty, does make a quick, delicious and healthy breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Happy Anniversary to my sister and her husband! We celebrated well into the night in Clearwater Beach, Florida two years ago on this day.

On to the menu planning. Last week's menu plan was what my son would call an "epic fail." We were away from home Sunday to Wednesday, but that didn't really cause the plan to fail. I had accounted for our absence in the plan.

 

Time for another vegan weekly meal plan. But first, another week in review.

Last week's plan was fairly successful. We had to make a couple of changes to the schedule, but for the most part the plan ensured that we made decent meals. Yesterday's scheduled meal was Roasted Fall Vegetables and Lentil Salad, but my son's basketball game was right around dinner time so we postponed that particular meal until today (pictured above). The family had lasagna (from frozen) instead and I had a quick fried rice.

Before I go over this week's meal plan, I want to share highlights from last week's meals. The plan went well...meaning I stuck to it even when it was challenging.

Which brings me to Monday. The plan called for minestrone soup in the slow cooker. When I was planning my menu, I forgot that Monday was the "Family Day" holiday. We had to be at my son's first soccer game by 8 a.m. (Who plans games for 8 a.m. on a holiday, by the way?) Nevertheless I stuck to the plan and quickly threw everything into the slow cooker before we headed out. No easy feat, because it takes us 20 minutes just to get the kids out the front door.

I've said it before...this menu planning thing works. There are many times when I want to skip making dinner and buy some Taco Bell for the kiddies.  Then I think of my menu plan, posted on my blog for all the world to see. And I persevere.

Monday's Quick Asparagus Pasta was actually quicker than going for Taco Bell. Nothing fancy, but I enjoyed it. One snag in the plan, though. I needed asparagus. Turns out that's the one thing they didn't have at the grocery store. Does that happen to you too? The one thing you want isn't available that day?

Before I get to my meal plan for this week, I would like to do a little look back at last week's planned dinners and how they turned out. Thanks for visiting and acting as my conscience. It forces me to stick to the plan!

As I told you, Monday's meal featured Hannah Kaminsky's Coconut Vodka Sauce. I am a big fan of this sauce. I eat it like I would chocolate...quickly and in large amounts. I'm not kidding. I just love this sauce. It uses coconut milk in place of cream and only a few simple ingredients, including vodka. I admit I sampled the vodka while I was cooking it too. That's a bonus right there.

The pasta is quite yellow in colour because it's gluten-free corn pasta. It sounds odd, but I actually quite like it.

I am trying my best to keep up my weekly meal planning. This is week four. Read on for this week's menu plan.

Last week started with Monday's Vegetable Soup with Lentils. This is a old favourite that my husband and I began making many years ago. The recipe follows. What I really like about this soup is that it's simple - you throw in the ingredients and let it cook for an hour. That gives you time to make a salad, slice up your bread, pour a glass of wine and relax.