The weekly menu

This week we made two big steps for Patty-cakes’ plant based eating and I am very excited.  I made a batch of roasted chickpeas – which the little dude ate singlehandedly over the course of the week.  I also got up the nerve to try sunflower seeds (I’d tried an oral sunflower oil challenge previously and no reaction, likewise I tried superficially testing him by placing a dab of sun butter on his wrist and no reaction), which have become an easy favorite.  He loves the seeds a ton and is neutral on the beans, but will eat both no problem.  Hopefully it will stick and open up our options for vegan protein sources for le bebe.  I’m thinking of trying pepitas or flax soon, too.  Or black beans.  All in due time…

Anyway, this might mean more veggie meals in the future as long as I can keep our family all on the same diet.  In the meantime, here was our meal plan for last week:

In the interest of full disclosure, Kyle was actually out of town for most of the week so some of these meals are from the weekend.  I made myself simple leftover salads for dinner while he was gone.

 

Chicken Caesar salad for a lazy post-4th meal.  I coated my portion in mega amounts of nooch.

The next night we split the remaining potato salad and paired it with BBQ salmon and green beans.

My garden is still a green bean powerhouse so that’s why they are a weekly menu item.  I’m not really even a big fan, but they are one of Kyle’s fave veggies.  They a re a total pain in the a$$ to chop.  Anyway.  This time I fried them so they blackened a bit – a nice change up from steaming.

For the first time, we used a grill basket for the fish which helped prevent it from sticking to the grill.  It didn’t cook as evenly, for some reason, but I think Kyle figured it out so next time it’ll be better.  In any event, it didn’t matter so much that there were undercooked parts because they were mostly on the leftovers that I used for lunches throughout the week (so reheating them in the microwaved cooked them all the way and it wasn’t overcooked or dry as a result).

I used a Stubb’s BBQ rub for the fish.  Here’s some of it as leftovers for lunch the next day.

That’s chard from my garden, 1/2 an avocado, and extra BBQ sauce, which I treated as dressing.  I added a dollop of lactose free sour cream on top too just for fun.

Back to dinners though.

I didn’t have any sausage on the 4th but there were a few leftover links.  I tried one just because, and it was actually really good!  I ended up having them sliced on a kale salad massaged with avocado for dinner while Kyle was away.

Here’s what happened for the rest of the week while Kyle was away.  Massive pasta loaded with veg and eaten for almost every meal until he got back.  To make it different each time, I jazzed it up with fresh greens and/or avocado.  Because there were so many ingreds in it, I didn’t even get sick of it!  It had GF pasta, home-made balsamic vinaigrette, corn, tomatoes, chard, frozen spinach, cucumber, celery, orange bell pepper, hemp seeds, and salmon.  A lot of goodies huh!?!  I wanted to eat outside but ended up getting attacked by bees, which brought me to eat inside while pouring over this month’s BA mag.

Quinoa and BBQ chicken bowl.

I made this little number up and was quite pleased with it.  I made a salsa with tomatoes, corn, cilantro, lime juice, and red onion.  Basically all things we had leftover in the fridge or in the garden.

For the chicken, I just shredded it and tossed it in BBQ sauce.  Then served it over a bowl of quinoa and topped with avocado.  Boom!

I could have quinoa bowls like this every day of the week.  Kyle isn’t as into them so for now they’ll remain a weekly thing at most, but now that P is into chickpeas, I can see this being a fantastic vegan bowl.  You could roast the chickpeas in BBQ sauce or just toss them together straight from a can.

#FCC number two was a curry dish my mom picked out.

The protein in the recipe was either chicken or tofu, but I used chickpeas (in light of my little chickpea’s preference).

The spice blend was awesome and both Kyle and I looooved the dish.  It was similar to the vegan korma I made here in that it had tomato and coconut milk and curry, but the spice combo was more complex.  I used potatoes (instead of serving it over rice) and added cauliflower just because.

On to the next week!