Monday, March 31, 2008

A picture and a menu

First I have to say, Oh my goodness, but Whole Foods is expensive! Partly it's me stocking up on several things, and partly it's the rising cost of food these days, partly it's their great selection of vegetarian products, partly it's the awesome prepared foods they have. Lots of partlys adding up to a big bill. But, it should be worth it in healthy, delicious food this week.


First a picture from a while back:

This is the gnocchi I made after my kids spent a day at my parents' house eating nothing but junk. It's gnocchi with lots of tomato sauce and spinach. On top, and lurking in the background of the picture, is Parma! vegan parmesan. We had to buy this, because it has raw organic walnuts, red star nutritional yeat, celtic sea salt, and love. With an ingredient list like that, how could we pass it up?

Now the menu:

Tonight: Carribean Beans and Quinoa--so incredibly good! The girl even liked it. I am so glad that she is finally more open to more complex flavors.

Tuesday: I am making a Rachael Ray Curry in a Hurry recipe with the new Trader Joe's chickenless strips. Plus rice, and some kind of vegetable (maybe salad, or broccoli).

Wednesday: Fried rice. I threw some together on Friday, and it was so good, I am making it again. I heated up some coconut oil, pressed some tofu (just between my hands), diced it and fried until golden. Then, I added some onion and garlic, and when the kitchen started smelling really good, I added some frozen spinach and peas, and two cups of cooked brown rice. After I mixed all that together, I poured about a third of a jar of Trader Joe's Chinese 5 Spice Chef Sauce on top, and heated it all up until the flavors were blended and it was all hot. I couldn't believe how good it turned out, for something just thrown together!

Thursday: West African Peanut Stew

Friday, the girl is going to sing at the Cardinals game with her choir! I have no idea what we will eat, but I am sure we will have fun.

That's as far as my planning has gone, but I am going to do more planning next week. We eat so much better when I know what we are going to have (not counting that serendipitous fried rice).

Friday, March 21, 2008

You learn something new every day...

Like, my last post? I posted that on Wednesday, March 19. But I started it on March 6, like the publish date says. I did not know that Blogger could pretend like that...

Anyway, a camping update:

Not totally vegan this time, so I'll skim over the first night, when we had salmon and sugar snap peas cooked in a foil packet with teriyaki sauce.

The second night, I went with the best kid-pleaser, beanie weenies, made with soy hotdogs. My friend made new potatoes, carrots and onion roasted in foil, and the kids devoured grapes with the beans.

The third night, it rained, so we had Taco Bell. Oh, for a larger town nearby with a Qdoba!

Breakfasts were largely fruit and whole wheat bagels with tofutti cream cheese, and lunches consisted of a lot of general snacking. I brought a bunch of guacamole this time, and whole wheat tortillas, and the boy ate some leftover hot dogs. Oh, and we had leftover beanie weenies. Hmm, we weren't very organized this time.

We did get some beautiful hiking in before the rains hit. We went down on a Saturday and stayed until Tuesday, so we were practically alone on the campground after Sunday morning. Monday night, when it was raining, we were the only camper there. We saw a lot of wildlife, though--probably 6 or 7 deer, some of them fairly close up. We saw a beaver on our way back from town on Monday, which was pretty cool. We played a lot of Trivial Pursuit and got a lot of reading done.

Wednesday night we had friends over and I made Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Vegetables. Andrea requested it last time she came for dinner, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so I got it all when I went to the store to buy some supplements after returning from the campground.

Last night we went to my parents' house for pizza, and I got to feed S something other than plain cheese pizza. She eats too much plain food, so we are experimenting with more complex flavors. We had pineapple pizza, and it was a big success! We used rice milk cheese, and it was very good, melty and delicious.

Now the kids are at their dad's so I expect some eating out this weekend, but I am going to try to make some healthy stuff this weekend to prepare for next week.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Update on my plan, new week

I just found this post hanging out on my blogger dashboard. I am not sure what I was planning to do with it when I saved it and walked away, but I am just posting it as is and I will come back with something more updated later. Something with more camping thoughts, as we did that again this past weekend....

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I did pretty good on my plan from last week. Monday through Friday was just what I planned. I did go out on Tuesday, but that was my tentative plan anyway. My friend made a delicious veggie chili on Friday with all kinds of good veggies in it--much healthier than I usually make mine. I just do a basic bean chili with tomato sauce and salsa, but not much else in the way of veggies (well, onions and garlic, but that's a given). She had carrots and eggplant and zucchini and all kinds of good stuff in there. Very good!



The weekend was all right. Saturday we just had Tofurkey Italian Sausages (hallelujah, the girl likes them! They have flavor, and she eats them!) and hashbrowns, because I didn't feel like going all out and making falafels and tahini sauce and all that, when I was pretty sure the kids wouldn't eat them, or not much. Sunday, we went out for Vietnamese food. The girl was so picky and rude about it, I decided no more eating out for her for some time. She will learn to like more foods at home, or no eating out. I am tired of buying her chicken fingers and french fries.



This week, we have only been home two nights so far. Tuesday, we had a Match crab and cabbage stirfry with some kind of pineapple teriyaki sauce and sliced carrots. Yum! The kids ate theirs with only minimal complaining. I am wearing them down, ha ha.



Last night we had friends over and made pizza. No arguing for a change, everyone was joyful.