The weekly menu

Sunday

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Tofu Caesar Salad

Totally gonna be a regular from now on.  Easy peasy and deeeelish.

Monday

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Cabbage & Green Chickpea Curry with brown rice

Kyle requested this.  He wanted cabbage specifically.  Turns out, cabbage is cheap.  The other ingredients were things we had on hand already – including frozen green chickpeas (365 brand) and carrots.

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I made a slurry of sauce with the same curry paste I used here (Patak’s brand) with plain greek yogurt (Chobani 2%).

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Then I added the veg and waited for the cabbage to wilt.

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Served it up over brown rice.

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[FYI this dish was actually just for Kyle, I had the previous day’s Caesar salad leftovers]

Tuesday

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Tex-Mex rice with tomatoes & black beans

This dish was yet another one that was inspired by this cookbook (I told you I loved it!).

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I changed a ton of things about it – beyond the cumin and lime juice I felt like it needed more spice, so I added cayenne pepper, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika.  And oil.  I also used canned chopped tomatoes (with some of the extra juice) instead of fresh tomatoes.  And I used brown rice instead of quinoa.

About as simple as it gets and cheap cheap cheap cheap.  The leftovers are good in breakfast burritos too.

Wednesday

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Creamy Dijon Cannellini Bean Spinach Salad

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Yup, another dish loosely inspired by this book.

My version was so different that I feel like I should post the recipe (even though I only sorta kinda measured things).

Creamy Dijon Cannellini Bean Spinach Salad [gluten free]

Ingredients:

Creamy Dijon Dressing

  • 3 tbsp brown rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp stone ground mustard
  • 1/4 cup tangy mayonnaise (vegan oil based mayo + fresh lime zest + fresh chopped cilantro)
  • 1/4 tsp dried thyme
  • salt & pepper (to taste)

Salad

  • 3 cups cooked brown rice
  • 5 ounces (~1/3 of a 1 lb. bag) frozen spinach
  • 3/4 cups (~1/2 of a 15 oz. can) cannellini beans
  • 1 can tuna

Directions:

Combine ingredients to make sauce.  Mix with beans and tuna.

Next add the spinach and toss.  [Don’t worry about thawing the spinach if the rice is still hot]

Finally add the brown rice.

Stir and wait for the spinach to warm, letting everything amalgamate.  Flavors unite!

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I thought this dish was heavenly.  It reminded me slightly of this Huckleberry salad – but warm and more carbolicious thanks to the brown rice.

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Fact: I used to love tuna.  I ate it once a week when I was in high school.  I fell out of love with it a few years before I went vegan, and even now that I occasionally eat fish, I’m still leery of the mercury.  It’s definitely an infrequent thing, but for some reason I craved it this week and went for it.

Notes:

To make vegan, just omit the tuna and use the entire can of white beans.

I promise you’ll love the tangy mayo recipe, but if you’re unsure, you can try it with plain mayo.  It may lack the kick though, so perhaps you could add at least a touch of lime juice.

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Thursday

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Creamy Corn Chowder

I’ll post the recipe for this one eventually.  Otherwise this post is going to be forever long.

Friday

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ALT Sandwich

This is a take on the BLT, only I used Lightlife’s tempeh fakin’ bakin (instead of real bacon) and instead of tomatoes I used avocado.  We all know how I feel about avocado.

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If tomatoes were in season (and not insanely pricey) I may have gone for them, but I think tempeh is a perfectly acceptable filler for the “T” in the sando.

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The key to this being so good was toasting the bread first.  Not cheating with the toaster, but using the oven’s broiler and caking Earth Balance on too.

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One side got a honey mustard/vegenaise blend while the other side got avocado.  Then came the romaine and tempeh.

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Done and done.  I have to say, this is easily one of the best sandwiches ever made in the hippie household.  Kyle agrees 100%.

Phew!  What a week!

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Comments (21)

  1. Jamie

    Ooh I’m excited for the corn chowder recipe! I’ve had a serious craving for that dish exactly all week.

  2. Ashley @ My Food N Fitness Diaries

    I’m not going to lie… Every time I see you post, I get a little excited thinking it might be you announcing that the little babe made his debut. 😉
    Looking forward to that corn chowder recipe! Sounds yummy. And man, doesn’t avocado make everything better?! I’ve been obsessed lately.

  3. stacy

    I love that u are candid about ur diet and u don’t put urself in a box and eat only things that define a label. U give me the strength to do the same and will probably soon add eggs and fish occasionally bc my body is screaming for it.

    U rock, Elise :n)

  4. Lori

    Yum-dy yum yum.

    And not long now :). Keep on postin’ !

    Cheers
    Lori

  5. Elise (Post author)

    thanks stacy – you can do it! small steps 🙂

  6. Elise (Post author)

    lets hope! 🙂

  7. Elise (Post author)

    youre as jumpy as my family and friends! i cant call or text any one anymore!!

  8. Elise (Post author)

    its on its way…
    🙂

  9. sarah

    Your weekly menu= Deeelish.

    I have questions, in regards to your coconut cranberry loaf:
    * if you couldn’t get fresh or frozen cranberries, would you recommend dried cranberries, or a different fresh fruit( which fruit?), in their place?
    * do you think it would be fine made into muffins?

    ( I realise these are obvious/lame question. What can I say, I like your foodie opinion :D!)
    Xxx

  10. Nicole @ Fruit 'N' Fitness

    I have never had Green Chickpeas before. Do they taste like regular chickpeas? same texture? I love curries so this might be fun to try!

  11. Elise (Post author)

    not lame at all.
    swapping fresh or frozen blueberries for the cranberries would keep the same texture. dried cranz would probably work, too though (it would just be a little different kind a bread).

  12. Elise (Post author)

    actually no! i was so excited when i found them (freezer section of WF) because id heard of them but never tried them. they are more like peas than beans. veggie like, but still starchy. for sure yummy though.

  13. Nicole @ Fruit 'N' Fitness

    Thanks for the reply! I will have to try them, they sound interesting i like peas and beans so I guess i would be happy with a combination.

  14. Beth

    Stacy, did you decide not to do the Paleo diet? Just stick with fodmap? ?

  15. Beth

    Elise, what are your usual breakfast meals? Do you ever snack or eat any sweets? Thanks for sharing your meal ideas. You can cook for me anytime!

  16. Beth

    or gluten free baked goods? I need snack ideas badly. And breakfast and lunch!

  17. Elise (Post author)
  18. Elise (Post author)

    common breakfast fare is oats w various toppings (nuts, seeds, nut/seed butters, bananas, etc). thats my go-to for sweet breakfasts. granola or some sort of gluten free grain/cereal w almond milk and fruit is good too.
    for savory fare i like corn meal/grits w eggs or whatever topping (avo, nutritional yeast, tomatoes, etc).

    i love sweets. too much probably but when im being a good little fodmaper i stick to dark chocolate, candied ginger, and home-made raw treats made from dates, nuts, seeds & nut butters.

    hope that helps

  19. Dlbarry

    Hey elise, your recipes look super yummy, wanted to give you my ultimate trick for a dish very much like your Mexican one on Tuesday, I use my rice cooker to cook the whole thing, I throw in brown rice a can of black beans and a cup or so of salsa some liquid and whatever veggies I have around usually corn and peppers, turn it on and wait till it clicks off, it never fails and I never measure a thing. It’s great topped with avocado and hotsause. Hope you enjoy my time saving trick seriously less then 3 min prep and no monitoring!

  20. Elise (Post author)

    sounds like something id make for sure! thanks for the idea 🙂

  21. Beth

    thank you so much, Elise. So helpful! 🙂

Comments are closed.