Monday Menu Planning – Week 6
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Good Monday morning, everyone! Welcome to another week’s edition of Monday Menu Planning! I love sharing my plant based meal plans with you! If you’re interested as to why I eat plant based, check out this post.
Last week, I said that I hadn’t been doing a great job of sticking to menus at all for the last few weeks due to the move. This week I’m happy to say that I mostly stuck to a menu. If you’re interested in checking out what we made last week, you can find that here.
The only meal I didn’t end up making was the Sweet Potato Kale Skillet. We did try quite a few new recipes last week, though. We liked the rice pilaf. I think I liked it more than everyone else (especially Claire put too much salt on hers, so she wouldn’t eat most of it #momlife). I also made the Thai curry coconut soup. I thought it was delicious, but it was a little spicy. Peter thought it was too spicy, but still managed to eat a bowl. Anything with even a hint of spice renders a meal inedible for Claire, so she tried one bite and wouldn’t eat the rest. Once I tasted it, I knew that would happen. Girl can’t hang with spice. I would make it again, but I would cut down on the Thai red curry paste I put in the soup. Depending on the brand of red curry paste you use, it will be more or less spicy. They’re all different. I included the brand we use in the menu post last week.
On to this week’s menu!
Clean Eating Instant Pot Summer Soup (from Pinch of Yum) – I made this soup the week we moved in to our new home and everyone LOVED it. We all had seconds and Claire even had thirds. Peter has started making homemade sourdough bread, so I thought I would make it again so we could enjoy it with his homemade bread. I’m not sure what recipe he has been using for that, so I will have to get it from him and post it on here. I definitely modified this recipe. It calls for chicken, but I replaced that with chickpeas. I also used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. And lastly, I swapped the farro for brown rice. It took a little longer to cook than the recipe said (maybe brown rice takes longer than farro? I’ve never used farro and couldn’t find it at Aldi, so that’s why I swapped it). Don’t have an instant pot? Neither do we! There are recipe modifications at the bottom of the recipe to cook it on a stove top or crockpot, rather than an instant pot. I used the stove top directions.
Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie (from Budget Bytes) – This is one of our family’s all time favorites! It substitutes brown lentils for ground beef. I’ve made this meal for plant based eaters and meat eaters. It’s a hit every single time! We’re not big mushroom lovers in our house (although that’s been changing, at least for Claire & I – more on that in a second), so I’ve always left them out and added a little more veggies and lentils. I also typically make the filling and freeze half. The filling is a little time consuming, so it’s nice to have it to pull out of the freezer on a busy day. Using half of the recipe makes enough for our family of 3 (with no leftovers).
Lentil Shawarma Pitas (from Connoisseurus Veg – which is an awesome blog name, by the way) – I’ve made this once before and it’s super yummy. Last time, I tried making homemade pitas and it didn’t end well. Our counter space in our new home is very limited (especially since we need to repair our over the range microwave, so our other microwave is taking up room), so I didn’t really want to try out a new recipe for pitas this time around. Whole wheat pitas at Walmart weren’t expensive at all, so I went that route. For me, the salad makes it, but both Claire and Peter loved it and they didn’t put the salad on top (they both hate raw tomatoes and Peter isn’t a cucumber fan either). I did leave out the mint and the sumac in the salad. The mint was kind of expensive and I couldn’t find sumac anywhere. I also left off the olives, because that’s the one thing I absolutely hate. Maybe that’ll change one day. I don’t foresee that happening, but I said the same about mushrooms. Which brings me to my next recipe …
Grilled Portobello Mushrooms (by SkinnyTaste) – I have always hated mushrooms. Once I started eating a plant based diet, I would try them again occasionally, because I felt like I should like them. Mushrooms are often a meat substitute in recipes and I didn’t know any other plant based eaters who hated them. I discovered that I didn’t mind them raw, but still didn’t love them cooked. They always ended up slimy and kind of icky. Except on pizza! Both Claire and I like mushrooms on pizza, surprisingly.
We went to an awesome sushi place in Springfield recently and Claire ordered shrimp fried rice. She didn’t want all the veggies in it, so I was eating some of them. I tried one of the mushrooms and was totally wowed. It was not slimy and was actually delicious. I found out it was a portobello mushroom, which was totally different than every other mushroom I’ve eaten.
So, when we went to Aldi last week and they had portobello mushrooms AND pretzel buns (which you need to get. They’re only at Aldi in the summer and they’re AMAZING), I decided to give mushroom “burgers” a try. I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious it was, but the recipe I used called for italian seasonings and a few other things that didn’t really fit in the “burger” flavor profile for me. So, I found this recipe by SkinnyTaste that I decided to try out this week (because, pretzel buns). I’ll let you know how it is!
Chipotle Sweet Potato Noodle Salad with Roasted Corn (from Pinch of Yum) – This is the epitome of summer deliciousness. Have you ever had sweet potato noodles? I’m sure most of you have heard of using a spiralizer to make zucchini noodles. That’s super yummy, but (in my opinion) can’t hold a candle to SWEET POTATO NOODLES! This is the best “swoodle” recipe I’ve found. Since the dressing has chipotles in it, it’s too spicy for Claire, but she’s not a huge sweet potato fan either. When I make something that I know she hates (which rarely happens, but I do it sometimes), I will let her make a sandwich or something for herself. However, she is missing out!
Also, don’t buy one of those handheld spiralizers. They are annoying and just make zucchini look like a sharpened pencil. Below is the spiralizer I use. It’s a Paderno, which is a well known and well loved brand. It’s reasonably priced, very easy to use, has different size blades and all the blades store in the spiralizer, which is so convenient.
Easy Veggie Pizza with 20 Minute Crust (from Vegan Richa) – 20. Minute. Crust! Trust me, plant based or not, you need this pizza in your life. It makes a very small crust, though, just so you know. I usually make two pizzas – one without cheese for me and one with cheese for Claire and Peter. I love topping my pizza with this protein packed vegan cheese sauce from Pass the Plants. It makes a TON, so I use some and freeze the rest in one cup increments for future recipes. Peter will be out of town the second half of this week for district assembly, so Claire and I are planning a pizza/sleepover in Mama’s bed night. It softens the blow (for both of us) when Daddy is out of town.
Well, that’s it for this week’s menu! I have quite a few meals planned, so we’ll see whether or not I get to them all. I sometimes plan an extra full menu (aka not having a leftovers night) when I have trouble narrowing down my meal list for the week. It all just looked so yummy this week! Hope you all have a good week and find a new recipe to try and love!
