The weekly menu

Been working on this post for what seems like a decade.  Holidays mean busy for all the right reasons, so it’s not a sad thing that the blog gets put on the back burner.  On the contrary, it means life is happening and I am away from my computer.  I do like writing and sharing though, so here it goes.  Starting wayyyyy back with last last weekend which seems like an eternity ago, especially when you think about the fact that it was still November.  I’ve been in winter mode for months already.  Now everyone else has caught up.

Food wise, there were some repeats this past week because leftovers are economical and delicious and so I am sorry-ish for the monotony in reading that may cause.  To make it up to you I have cute baby pictures…that’s worth something right?

It’s basically impossible to get non blurry photos of both of them looking in the same direction, let alone smiling, but when they do it in person (which is allll the time) IT. IS. MAGIC.  I couldn’t love these tiny people any more.

I made brownies last LAST weekend because Kyle was sad that I didn’t get any (more) chocolate at the store.  To defend my decision, let me just say, we already had quite a bit of chocolate on hand including Halloween crap that needed to be finished and and aaaand apple pie and ice cream.  It seemed silly to buy more sweets.  But I also had my own stash from my last Thrive order (that I ration like a champ), so I felt bad and made him brownies.  [Side note, all of what I just mentioned was gone by Wednesday so he may have had a point]

By the way, Thrive has SO MUCH fun holiday chocolate available right now.  I just placed an order that includes some awesome Theo gingerbread bar and fruit/nut bark and a seasonal Chocolove bar.  So that should arrive soon.

I think I already showed the prep for these veggies, but the meal was actually a hash with sausage.  At least for the boys.   I stuck with veggies alone.  I’d happily eat a pile of roasted root vegetables for the next 3 months straight.  Which is basically what my lunches were all last week thanks to the excessive amounts I made on Saturday.

Sunday night I embraced the stereotypical football food and made carne asada beer chili in the crock pot.  Well technically I made it late Saturday night, but we ate it on Sunday.  While watching football.  Hashtag ‘merica, much?

I had to have a little chat with the WF meat man (official title??) about what to use instead of flank steak and went with skirt steak instead.  He assured me it would be legit, and he wasn’t wrong.

No idea what the cuts of meat are on animals yet.

So yeah, fancy crock pot came into play here when I sautéed onions and seared the meat IN THE CROCK POT!  OMG so easy.

I added everything but the beans at night and by the next morning the house smelled reeeeeeediculous.  PS I used gluten free beer (see above) and omitted apple butter but otherwise stuck to the recipe.

After shredding the meat the next day, I added the beans and by dinner Kyle was beyond ready.  He said – and I quote – he wanted to “stick his face into the pot and do bubbles” after smelling it all day.  Clearly we are parents because that swimming reference was very appreciated by me, but I’m guessing others don’t find it as humorous (I was cracking up when he said it).

Toppings were almost as important to this recipe as the actual chili.  Naturally, chips and avo were involved.  Plus roasted corn.

To put it over the top, we added vegan cheese for me and the little guy and a three cheese blend for K.

It’s like chili nachos on crack.  In a good way.

P liked the steak and beans but (as I expected) wasn’t too into the soup/broth situation.  So he basically ate the solid portion and then I rewarded him for finishing the rest with the promise of chips.  He will jump through all sorts of hoops for chips.

This made enough for us all to have it a second night for dinner and then for one of Kyle’s lunches.

The timelines for hitting physical milestones is way different between my first and second born.  She is growing up way way way too fast.

Forgot to mention this earlier, but I made Gwyneth’s buckwheat banana waffles again last Sunday morning.

Which meant I had leftovers on Monday that I somehow managed to share with P.  It wasn’t easy.  On Sunday I added Earth Balance.  On Monday I went with almond butter.

Monday night was a kale salad kind of night.  Very necessary after the carne asada beer chili the previous night.

I made this kale waldorf and it was fantastic.  I don’t know how much that means coming from me, because there’s really no version of kale salad that I won’t devour.  Add walnuts and a good dressing and I’m so down.

Meatless Monday for the win.

We had brown rice on the side.  I gave P a deconstructed version of the salad at first, but saved some of the assembled version with dressing and all because I had a sneaking suspicion that once he saw use eating it, he’d want some too.  And I was right!  He ate SO MUCH and then finished all the extras and asked for more.

When I told him we didn’t have more and that I’d make more the next day, he told me “but I want to order salad” (!!).  It’s from a book we have so he’s not a total snob, I promise.  Anyway, if you want your toddler to eat kale, this is the recipe that worked for us (actually he likes kale, so it’s not like this is a special scenario, but still it’s a good recipe).

This brand of almond butter is new to me.  I got it from Thrive Market, naturally, and was happy to see it’s made in a peanut free facility.  I rarely get crunchy nut butters, but felt like a change up.  It’s really good and unlike the natural drippy nut butter that I’m used to, it has the consistency of the Skippy and Jif and those kinds of nut butters.  It’s actually a little difficult to spread and doesn’t ooze out everywhere like the nut butter I’m used to but it’s still delicious.

Leftover chili for Tuesday.  This time I served it over leftover mashed potatoes.  Why not?  Took it a totally different direction than the previous nacho-esque meal.

Deezer.  To give the vanilla coconut ice cream some oomph. I added slivered almonds and stevia chocolate simple syrup.  I love NuNaturals’ simple syrups.  I add the chocolate one to blended iced coffee dranks (in the afternoon) all the time.

Those are some breakfast kitchen shenanigans above, done the night before to prep me for the next day (which is important since “school” starts at 9 am).  With the current kiddo climate, that means I need to begin the “get out the door” dance at, like, 8:15 just to be on time.  Factor in 25 hours of debating who, when, how and why his shoes will get on, too, and you’ll see it’s a miracle we ever leave the house.

I made this mix with almond flour, Vega sport protein mocha flavor, egg, and pumpkin puree.  But then I left it in the fridge overnight and pre-heated the oven as soon as I woke up so it was ready to go once I was done working out, showering, getting myself and the littles dressed and fed.

I added Barney Butter almond butter when it was hot out of the oven and so it melted a little bit, which was a beautiful beautiful thing.

I only ate a few bites before V woke up and so I went to nurse her before school, but then she fell asleep on me and so next thing I knew it was 9 am and I was starving with a milk drunk babe snoozing on me.

We were a little late that day, but it’s pretty rare.  I’m one of those crazy punctual types who plans 200 steps ahead and as a result, my “on time” is 10 minutes early and my “late” is on time.

I am not wiling to sacrifice my breakfast.  Definitely necessary to have meals prepped in advance.

After school I made P and V lunch and got my coffee on.

How fancy does Wednesday’s dinner look?

I made white rice early in the day so I could fry it later that night.  I added chopped kale, tamari, rice vinegar.  And oil, obvs.

Once it was go time, I added fried eggs and avocado.

Yum!  Kyle and P and I all really liked this and it was soooo easy.  Gotta remember it for the future since it’s basically composed of ingredients we always have on hand.

Thursday was another meatless night with noodles and a tofu based sauce.  I only realized we did so many veggie meals while writing this post.  I guess that’s the turkey rebound effect…

I should have measured stuff because this sauce was brilliant if I do say so myself.  I’m posting the approximations below but tweak as you taste.

Usually vegan “cheese” sauces use cashews, but P can’t have them.  However, there are so many things he now CAN have (soy! walnuts!) that can replace cashews when used together.

To the vitamix I added:

• 1 block of firm tofu
• 1/3 cup raw walnuts
• 1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp tamari
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt

Pulsed until silky smooth.

I was going to make pasta for us all, but then I saw we didn’t have much left, so I grabbed the spaghetti squash and cranked the oven.

You can hardly tell which is pasta and which is squash!

I was a little (lot?) nervous giving P this sauce because he’s never had nutritional yeast before and there’s been incidences of reactivity among people with allergies (maybe due to yeast being cross contaminated with gluten?).  I couldn’t find much literature on it from a reliable study (it was mostly anecdotal), so I just decided to go for it.

I bought the nooch from Thrive Market (Bragg’s is a brand I have used before and trust, as opposed to getting it from bulk bins where contamination is highly likely).  It says gluten free right o the label, so that’s always reassuring, but any time I feed him a new ingredient I still hold my breath a bit.

P was fine in the end.  He actually loved dipping his broccoli in the sauce (I knew he would, which is why I put it on the side).  So now we have another hippie ingredient that he tolerates – yayyyyyy!!

Speaking of new ingredients…Tapioca!  This post is turning into a novel, so I won’t go into details but basically I made tapioca for the first time ever.  I used coconut milk and that’s it, and used it as a blank canvas for breakfasts.  P liked it and it’s a nice change up from oats.  V hasn’t tried it yet, but she has eaten (and tolerated) coconut, so maybe I’ll give her some soon.

She likes root veggies too  🙂  We have cautiously crossed a few allergens off the list with her, so that’s exciting.  I have no interest in trying peanuts any time soon though, so she will have to wait for that exposure until some time when she won’t be around P or their toys for a while.

Friday!  We had leftover soup from two (three?) weeks ago.  I already shared the recipe with better and more photos here (hint: the chowder recipe is her’s).

And that’s enough…I’ll share this past weekend’s eats in a different post.