Meal Plan Update

Last week, I tried out some new recipes with my first week of meal planning. If you didn't catch the first post, here's another look at the past week's menu:

 

 

Here are some reviews of a few of the recipes I tried:

Mexican Chorizo 

The Mexican Chorizo recipe that I made last Thursday was another Happy Herbivore hit! Her Chorizo recipe uses quinoa, which is pretty awesome. I ate the quinoa chorizo with leftover corn tortillas from Wednesday's taco night, Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream, Daiya shredded cheese, and some romaine lettuce. I'll definitely be adding this to my cooking repertoire. It's super simple to make and another way to make quinoa delicious.

Cornbread and Baked Beans

I don't have any pictures of the Happy Herbivore cornbread and baked beans that I made last week because they were that good. We demolished them! The baked beans were amazing, and much better than any baked beans that I've ever had before (probably because they were not canned). Also, the cornbread was moist and delicious, and the first time that I've tasted good vegan cornbread. It was very quick and easy to make, and I plan to make it again several times in the near future!

 Cheezy Shells and Broccoli 

 Whole Wheat Shells
 

 Cheezy Sauce
 

 Pre-Cheeze Sauce 

 Close-up of Cheezed Shells

 

 Finished Cheezy Shells & Broccoli

This recipe of Easy Cheezy Shells and Broccoli came from Vegan Comfort Foods from Around the World By: Veronica Grace  AKA Low Fat Vegan Chef. I've made this recipe before, but the first time I didn't have all of the ingredients to make the cheese sauce, so I just mixed some of them with a processed vegan cheese. This time I followed the directions.

 

I think this recipe is pretty good, but I would not recommend it for your omnivore friends and family. My omnivore husband was not a fan. It doesn't exactly taste like cheese, but it is a good sauce. The sauce doesn't have any added fat, so if you want to add a little bit of oil or vegan margarine to the sauce for a more creamy taste, I say go for it. I'm trying to be healthy and lose weight. So I only added a little extra paprika and chili powder.

 

In conclusion, the first week of meal plans went really well! I'm currently working my way through week 2 of Meal Planning, and I'll try to post an update on some of the new recipes I tried out sometime this weekend.

Meal Planning: Chickpeas & Dumplings

Lately, dinner time has meant either one of two things: we need to go to a restaurant/get some takeout or I need to find out what I have in the freezer or fridge that I can somehow magically turn into a meal as quickly as possible. Being the proud owner of quite a few vegan and vegetarian cookbooks (see Exhibit A below), I decided to take charge of this problem by making a meal plan for the week. So this Sunday I planned out my meals, went shopping for ingredients specifically for the meals. This plan will also help us save money by 1) not eating out during the week and 2) only buying things at the grocery store that are actually needed for meals (NO impulse buys allowed!).

So, here's Exhibit A, my collection of vegan & vegetarian cookbooks:



And here's my meal plan for the week:



I'm incorporating some new recipes from The Happy Herbivore cookbook By: Lindsay Nixon and one recipe from Vegan Comfort Foods from Around the World By: Veronica Grace a.k.a. Low Fat Vegan Chef.

Both of these cookbooks happen to be written by authors who believe in the whole foods, plant-based, no oil, no added sugar healthy mindset, which is an excellent way to continue the second week of my recently refocused weight loss journey. (I lost 3 lbs. last week!)

Monday night, I made the first recipe on my plan: Chickpeas & Dumplings.  I followed the directions to the best of my abilities, but I may have added a little too much of the spices. I didn't feel like mixing together HH's Poultry Seasoning Mix because then I would have some leftover. So instead I added a teaspoon of each spice from the Poultry Seasoning Mix. Now there are only 3 teaspoons in a Tablespoon, which I didn't think about at the time, and the recipe only called for one tablespoon of the Poultry Seasoning Mix. Since there were 5 spices in the mix, that means I added two extra teaspoons of spices. It smelled very fragrant, but I will definitely use less spices next time I make it. I also added peas because for some reason, there were peas and carrots in the picture in the book, but there were none in the recipe or ingredients list.

Here's a picture from during the cooking process:

I've never had Chicken & Dumplings before, so I was a little off-put by the taste and texture of the dumplings. Maybe it's because of weird dumpling-taste or the extra spices, but this recipe was not a big hit at my house. My husband is also not a fan of chickpeas, and he told me there were "too many chickpeas".  I also wasn't entirely loving it because for some reason I was expecting the dumplings to taste more like cooked biscuits than chunks of unbaked dough. My final product turned out nothing like the picture in the book. Mine's a little goopy and brown and Happy Herbivore's picture had a whitish broth (plus the previously mentioned chunks of carrots).

I have liked every other Happy Herbivore recipe I've made before, so I will definitely be giving this recipe another try sometime in the future (with less spices) and maybe separate the mixture in half before I add the chickpeas (to appease the husband).

 

Three Beautiful Things Tuesdays #2

Welcome to my second "Three Beautiful Things Tuesdays" post!

*Three Beautiful Things Tuesdays is a new series I was inspired to create by reading Clare's blog: Three Beautiful Things, and she invites everyone to join. The idea is that you are to post three beautiful things about your day, life, the world, whatever. Please join the fun and post your own Three Beautiful Things (3BT) in the comments (or on your own blog and post a link in the comments so that I can follow along)!*

1) The cafeteria at my work now offers tofu on their salad bar! I'm a fan, and to show my total appreciation for this fact, at 12:30 pm, I bought all the remaining spicy Thai tofu and put it in a container to save for tomorrow's lunch. My coworker (a fellow vegetarian) and I also told the chef personally that we really love the new tofu he had out. So hopefully my cafeteria will keep it up with all the awesome vegetarian options!

2) I biked today (on an indoor exercise bike), and it didn't hurt my bum foot. Yay! My bum foot is not so bum anymore, and the cardio options are expanding!

3) I'm going to a mid-week party at a friend's house tonight and bringing some delicious homemade Baked Beans, recipe courtesy of Happy Herbivore!  Yes, mid-week parties are totally a thing when your husband and his friends happen to have weird work schedules where Tuesday is part of their "weekend".

***

Stay tuned for an update on the meal plan I made this week, which I am using in an effort to try new recipes from all the awesome cookbooks that I got for Christmas and my birthday and spend less time wondering what I'm going to have for dinner and from where I should order takeout yet again.  I received so many great vegan cookbooks! Thank you friends and family! This week my meal plan features The Happy Herbivore Cookbook By: Lindsay Nixon (who I actually met this past November when she came to DC) and Vegan Comfort Foods from Around the World By: Veronica Grace of the Low Fat Vegan Chef.

Also, I was totally going to upload a post about the first recipe (well, 3rd because I technically started the new-recipe-extravaganza on Sunday) I tried on Monday night, but my husband and I totally got distracted my adding new photos from my camera to Facebook instead of adding food photos to my blog. Oops!

"No-Spend" Month Update Week 3

*If you're not familiar with my No-Spend Month Challenge click here to get up to speed.*

This no-spend thing has been getting a little tricky lately. My husband has already compiled a short grocery list for all of the things he wants once No-Spend Month is over!  I've had to get a little creative to use up some of the ingredients in my pantry for my Pantry Clean-Out efforts. 

Last night, I put together an impromptu chili in the crock pot.  I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, but the ingredients were: black beans, kidney beans, fingerling potatoes, carrots, onion, chilies in adobo sauce, chili powder, cumin, oregano, garlic, and lentils (which I didn't put in the mix until this morning so that they don't fall apart).  I cooked it all overnight, so I haven't tried it, yet, but I have high hopes for this protein-packed spicy chili soup.  It was partially inspired by a recipe I got from Happy Herbivore's meal plans, but never got around to making since it's a little more time intensive.  Her version has quite a few different ingredients, though, such as a sweet potato instead of fingerling potatoes.  I love sweet potatoes, and her recipe sounded more amazing, but I just used what I had on hand.

I've spent $17 and some change so far.  I spent $15.20 on groceries last Thursday, and I let my husband order two items off the McDonald's dollar menu on Saturday.  He came to a Ragnar Relay Race running event that I'd been looking forward to and didn't complain when I parked us 1.8 miles away so that we wouldn't have to pay to enter the park. (Yes, I'm cheap, but it's No-Spend Month and I had to get in 8 miles on Saturday anyway.)  We jogged there from our car. I joined the 60 minute running group, and my husband did the 30 minute group.  One of my awesome friends from my Tuesday night running group luckily offered us a ride back to the car.  It was freezing out, but it was a good time, and I made some new friends who work at my favorite running store, Potomac River Running, who hosts my weekly Tuesday night running group each week.  Except yesterday it was cancelled because of the horrible weather/snowstorm we had here in Northern Virginia. :(

On the way home, my husband said, "Man, I'd really like to get some steaks right now."  He's an omnivore, and he ran out of meat and cheese in the first week or two because he only asked me to get one thing on my pre-No-Spend Month grocery-shopping trip, despite the fact that I asked him what he wanted and even asked: "Do you want anything else?"  (I actually got him two items and some eggs and shredded cheese.)  So anyway, I took pity on him and offered to get him some dollar burgers from McDonald's on the way home.  (I didn't want anything because I don't really like McDonald's, plus the only vegan options there are fries or a salad without the meat and most of the toppings.)  It was actually still breakfast time, so he ordered two burritos and still ate 3 or 4 of the blueberry pancakes that I made for myself.

I'm planning on going to the grocery store again today to pick up some cheap spinach, canned (or dry) beans and anything else on sale.  Probably bananas and carrots because last time I went they were only $.79 and $.69 per pound.  The only things I really want are produce, and I don't think they usually have coupons for those.  Last week I got lucky and they were having a two for one sale on salad, so wish me luck with that!

Receipts from this week/weekend:

Mickey D's for my husband as a reward for sticking with me on this challenge and coming out to run with me on a super cold morning! 

 

Update: Groceries from Wed. night

 

We have spent a grand total of $21.90 so far out of $31 for the entire month. (I got cash back because I felt really silly using a debit card to pay for less than $5 worth of food.)  Pickings are getting slim, my stockpile of canned goods and grains are being used up, and I plan on giving the fridge a nice wipe-down this weekend while it's still pretty bare!