What's for Dinner this Week - A Week of Menus

Today was beautiful and sunny and I spent the morning with my little Miss No-No taking pics of things around our house - and of her!!

Someone still had their 4th of July flag out, but it was different than the other ones I have seen.

Miss No-No liked our neighbors' flowers....and since I can't keep ANY flowers alive.... I just took the pic for Miss No-No.

This is our "community" aloe plant - it's great for cuts, burns, scrapes, and even itchy skin.... Looks like someone may need to start watering this guy a little bit more!

And.... the lovely Miss No-No!

What are you eating this week?
We are once again inundated with beets...and zucchini!! It's that time of year again!
Since we have had enough of beets for awhile (see my pics from last week), I decided to freeze the beets and we can have beet soup and microwave beets when the weather gets a little bit cooler. I will have a post later this week about freezing beets.

In the meantime, here's what we are eating this week:

Monday
Sage "Spiced" White Beans
Sauteed Greens with Garlic
Brown rice

Tuesday
Oven-Baked Tofu
"Fried" Zucchini
Toasted Israeli Couscous

Wednesday
Cuke and Red Potato Salad
Falafel and Pitas
Sauteed Zucchini with Oregano

Thursday
Left over Bonanza

Friday
Garden Burgers
Zucchini "Slaw"

Saturday
Dinner out

Sunday
Italian Pasta
Green Salads
Garlic Bread

Notes:

1. White beans: You can use either canned or pre-cooked (from dried) beans. I use whatever I have on hand! Put the beans with liquid or a little bit of vegetable broth in a small/medium saucepan with one crushed garlic clove, some black pepper, and some dried sage (to taste, but I usually use about 1/8 tsp).

To make the sauteed greens: trim and wash the greens (I am using swiss chard so I will have to remove the center rib, cut the greens into bite sized pieces, and wash). Heat a little bit of olive oil in a skillet, add 1 - 2 cloves of minced garlic; let cook for 30 seconds; add in greens. Cover and cook over medium heat for 10 - 15 minutes, adding a tablespoon or two of water when needed (so greens don't overcook and stick to the pan). Remove the lid and cook off as much residual water as possible (or as much as you have time to cook off!). The greens should be tender and wilted down a lot. Press out any extra water against the side of the pan before serving.

2. Oven baked Tofu: my recipe was inspired by the recipe in Veganomicon, the cookbook. I slice one cake of tofu, put it in a cast iron pan, make a basting liquid from about 1/4 c. vegetable broth (or water), a 1/2 - 1 tsp. Braggs Liquid Aminos, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, the juice of 1/2 a lemon. I pour some of this over the tofu slices and then broil (on low) until the liquid is gone. I usually add the rest over the tofu and continue to cook. If I need more liquid, I will either make some more really quick or just use water. It's best to let this cook for at least 35 - 45 minutes, but sometimes, I just don't have that kind of time... I will cook it for as long as I can and then serve (which still tastes good, but the flavor doesn't soak into the inside of the tofu as well).

The "fried" zukes only seem to be fried - - I actually cook them in a skillet! Thinly slice the zukes long-wise and briefly marinate in Braggs Liquid Aminos (you could probably also use some soy sauce and water). Add a little bit of olive oil to a skillet, let heat up, and then add in the zuke slices. Cook, turning occasionally, for approximately 10 minutes until they are browned in places on both sides... This is really about your preference - sometimes I start them first and just let them go until dinner is ready and other times, I just flash-fry them (when they are sliced very thin) and go with that. You could cook them for 10 minutes and then take one out and try it and then keep cooking if you need to.

3. My falafel secret is this: Box Mix. I know, I know, it's not extremely healthy, and I COULD make them from scratch, but since I don't have the time to do that (and have actually never done it before), I just make them from a box mix and bake them instead of frying. It works great and I can make everything else while those are cooking.

4. Cuke and red potato salad: Thinly slice cooked red potatoes and raw cukes. Add either a homemade or store bought potato salad mix (sometimes, I use Italian dressing mix packets mixed with vegan mayo), add a little bit of dill, some black pepper, and a tiny bit of salt. Occasionally, if I have them, I will also add thinly sliced red onions or celery, but they aren't absolutely necessary. Let sit in the fridge at least until dinner is ready (or for a few hours) to let the flavors blend together a bit.

5. Zuke Slaw: Shred (using a shredder or mandolin) a couple of zukes and some carrots. Blend together with a slaw dressing. I love to use this recipe (scroll down about 1/2 way), but feel free to use whichever suits you best.

I am trying to link up to all these Monday Linky Parties!!

What's bountiful in your pantry / fridge right now? What veggies are you using the most of?

Thanks for all your comments last week! Creating a menu is easy once you've been doing it for awhile. I generally can look into my cupboards and come up with something - - and if you look at the menus, you realize...it's not gourmet, or anything. And it doesn't have to be! YOU know what YOUR family likes and doesn't like, so you can work around that and create stuff on the fly. I have come up with some interesting things just deciding to throw together what's in the fridge. Although, I can admit, it's much faster to have a plan that you have already worked out the day before (or earlier in the week). Some great resources for menu planning are: 1. Mrs. No-No Knows (hahahhaha, just kidding!!). Really, some places to start are just about any women's magazine or their websites (BHG, Real Simple, Rachael Ray, All You, Vegetarian Times). I have gotten some good recipes in those places and a lot of them with come with calorie counts and listed RDA numbers.

Happy Eating!

More later! :)

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Yay! I'm Ba-a-a-a-ack!!!!

I had some personal things to take care of and had to take some time "off" from blogging to get things handled here at home. But, now I am back - - and I am soooo happy about it!!!

Here's what we have been doing since I have been away:

We made a cool bento for Miss No-No the day before Thanksgiving:

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went up to see my cousins who have RVs and rented campsites to hang out at all week. It was so much fun to just relax and have a nice time. Miss No-No got to play with my cousin's daughter (who is about a year older than her) and they were inseparable the whole time! It worked out so well, and I had so much fun, we have already rented a space there for next year. I am renting an RV for us tomorrow so that we can reserve it for that weekend. Which means.....1 - we will be there with my cousins next year, 2 - Miss No-No will get to spend some more quality time with her cousin Ava, 3 - Miss No-No and Mr. No-No will get to have fun camping in an RV for the first time, and 4 - we will be having Thanksgiving dinner at a campsite!!! hahahahaha! That will be a fun change!!!

We went to a birthday party for one of Miss No-No's friends. This place was crazy!!! It's this big warehouse that's divided into a couple of rooms. And in each of the rooms they have these HUGE bounce houses!! In the first room, there was a small obstacle course, and then a very big obstacle course. There was also a covered "house" that was like a little basketball court inside (complete with hoops and balls). The second room had another, bigger obstacle course, a small boxing ring with huge boxing gloves and headgear, and then this unbelievable slide - you had to climb up on to this small trampoline and then up through this lattice style maze (straight up) probably about 30 feet and then go down this huge slide (Miss No-No didn't even try to go through that last one!). She had so much fun. I went in some of the houses with her, but I think that a couple of the dads there had more fun than the kids - because some of those guys were into EVERYTHING - hahahhaa!! Afterwards, all the kids went into another room where they had pizza, fruit, and cake. ...and then the present-opening-event began!!! :)

She loved it! She told us that next time she has a birthday, she wants to have it there!!! And I can totally understand why! :)

And, we just spent some time relaxing, being a family together, and being VERY thankful for the love and goodness that is so awesome in our lives!!!

More later! :)

T-day and Shopping, Shopping, Shopping

WOW! Thanksgiving weekend is now coming to a close... Miss M is finally asleep (late, late nap), but she is down and I have a minute here to myself.....aaahhhhh! Our Thanksgiving day was busy, but fun - - I, of course, tried some new recipes: thanksgiving tart (recipe from vegweb?), spiced acorn squash, green beans, mashed sweet potatoes, and a vegan pumpkin/pecan pie (recipe from wholefoods.com). Everything came out sooo good. YEA!!! I didn't cook my pie the day before, so it wasn't QUITE cold enough, but it was dessert and it was still good.
Miss M had a good day, too. She hung out with my mom and dad all day and loved it...they never stop playing with her....hehehehehe. And, obviously, she really LOVES mashed sweet potatoes... hahahha. We didn't know. I don't usually cook them that way - guess I should do that more often.
Friday, I decided to just shop - on the internet ONLY - but, then found out the laptop that I wanted to buy could only be bought in the store! grrrr! So we mosied on over there and even though they had sold out of the laptops, I was able to get one (they had done some thing where you got in line, got a "certificate" for your computer and then came back and picked it up later and I guess that some people got certificates, but then never came back....they said they had a few computers and were holding them but the time had lapsed and they were giving them away to any one who asked or something like that). Anyways - I got a new laptop. It is soooo nice. I didn't think that I would enjoy using it so much, but I really do. And that's where I am now :) It's cool, it's an HP with a 17.3" screen and a webcam buit in (which is one of the big reasons that we bought it since are separate webcam on the desktop doesn't seem to work all the time anymore). And then we went over to Costco - holy flat screen TVs - seemed like everyone we saw had a flat screen. We just walked around and looked at stuff, mostly. We were just there to do regular shopping, not to pick up anything special.
Our CSA basket was full of leeks and lettuce again this past week - so I am making my famous leek and potato soup with salads on the side for dinner tonight. MMMMMM. Only thing is we end with leftovers when I make it and, I do believe, we are pretty left over-ed out. I don't think I will really have to cook at all for the rest of this week after this soups done. Hahahhaa. <- We will have to see how that goes over, I guess.
But, more later!
:)