weekly menu

Here's our menu for the week.  Our baskets were pretty typical, except for getting butternut squash in the spring, and fava beans.  I had fun figuring out what to do with all this interesting stuff.  ;o)

Tuesday's meal is pretty boring because I'll be in Billings with Maizie so she can get her bottom braces on, and I needed something that Curtis or one of the kids can throw together.  Not that Curtis shies away from tough recipes, but I know what my afternoons are like and he'll be doing all his work plus mine, so I wanted to keep it easy.

Monday's meal is something I'm just sort of throwing together, but I'm using this recipe for the vinaigrette.  I'll blanch the favas, coarsely chop the peppers, cool the cooked pasta and toss it all together.  

Thai curry with lentils

Roasted butternut squash alfredo (I'm really looking forward to this one.  People say it's amazing!)

weekly menu

Here's my list of produce from today.  The organic baskets were great, and I also got the guacamole pack and a flat of strawberries.

cherry tomatoes

baby lettuce heads

green beans

broccoli

purple kale

majoram

thyme

russet potatoes

arugula

green onion

onions

garlic

cilantro

jalapeños 

apples

strawberries (in the basket and the flat)

avocados

lemons

limes

I forgot to put the green beans on the menu, but I'll roast them and serve them instead of the kale chips on Thursday.  We'll have the kale chips for snacks.  :o)

The pulled "pork" sandwiches are super easy and so yummy!  You just soak some soy curls in warm water for about 10 minutes, drain, and then dump them into a crock pot.  Then dump in a bottle or two of barbecue sauce and cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Serve on hamburger buns.

The curry recipe can be found here.  

Depending on how much time I have on Thursday, I may make my own chili or will use Amy's canned chili.  

Amazing sugar cookies!

I came across a recipe for Swig sugar cookies on Facebook last week and decided to veganize them.  Oh my gosh they were amazing!  I wanted to post the recipe with my modifications, but the woman who posted it asked that it not be copied.  So, you can find the original recipe here, and just know that I used vegan butter, sour cream, egg replacer and milk.  Oh, and I used yellow food coloring rather than red.

weekly menu

This is the menu for the coming week.  A bunch of us (including me) are sick with some awful stomach bug, so there's nothing planned for today.  I've had a cup of white rice in the last 24 hours.  ;)

Creamy black bean taquitos (We make these all the time and they are yummy!)
Warm fingerling potato salad (I'm adding broccoli and tempeh bacon to make it more of a main dish.)
Cheesy mushroom quinoa (I chose this because it will use up my kale, mushrooms and bokchoy, plus it sounds tasty!)

Here's what we got from Bountiful Baskets this week, and there are a few other things I already had on hand:


oranges - lunch
mandarin oranges - snacks
mangoes (small and large) - snacks, later
strawberries - lunch
watermelon - lunch
pineapple - Tuesday
grapes - lunch
bananas - later

bok choy - Wednesday
green peppers - lunch
kale - Wednesday
green onions - Tuesday
red potatoes - later
rainbow carrots - Thursday
baby carrots - lunch
snow peas - lunch
mushrooms - Wednesday
broccoli - lunch and Tuesday
spinach - Thursday
romaine lettuce - Thursday
green leaf lettuce - Thursday
asparagus - Wednesday
tomatoes - later
roma tomatoes -Thursday

weekly menu

Sorry there are no recipes for this week.  With all we've had going on with Thalia and me being gone for so many days, this is the best I can do.  I will confess that the falafel balls are coming from a mix this time, and I plan to bake them rather than fry them.  I'm making the tzatziki sauce from plain almond yogurt.  I have some really yummy soft pita bread I got at Costco that we'll stuff everything into, along with some lettuce.  Okonomiyaki are Japanese pizza-like fried pancake-type things.  There are a few vegan recipes out there, but I'm thinking I'll use a traditional recipe and just replace the eggs with flax meal.  It's my favorite egg replacer for things that need a good binder.  I'll be mixing napa cabbage, green onion and maybe bok choy into the batter, then topping with mushrooms and bacon (which get fried into the pancake).  Then we'll top with nori flakes, mayo (Kewpie is the traditional kind, but we'll use Vegenaise) and homemade okonomiyaki sauce.

For the pizzas, I have pre-made brick oven flatbreads for the base.  I'll use the white cheese sauce that I often use in recipes and have posted many times here before (use the search box and look for baked ziti for the recipe).  Then we'll top with arugula, mushrooms and asparagus, all of which we have in ample supply this week.

My lettuce wrap sauce is a little different every time, but usually it's soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger, red pepper flakes, garlic, sugar, Sriracha, and a little corn starch to thicken.  This time I may make a peanut-y sauce, but I always have to make separate sauce for my peanut-allergic Zoe when I do that.  Anyway, even though we don't like to use too many processed vegan "faux meats" in our meals, I'll be using Boca veggie crumbles for this.

weekly menu

This week I got only organic baskets, and I think that's what I'm going to be doing from now on.  I like the variety we get when I get half conventional and half organic, but the organic is such a good price (compared to what I can buy around here), and I've read so much scary stuff about conventionally grown produce that I really want to keep it to a minimum.

So, with 4 identical baskets, we ended up with a TON of spinach and asparagus!  I had to come up ways to use those things up, and I'm really looking forward to our meals for the week.  :)  I'll be gone on Monday and part of Tuesday because Cora and Thalia are having their tonsils and adenoids out in Billings, so I picked easy things for Curtis to make.  He's capable of making anything, but I know those two days will be crazy for him.  

Here are the recipes for the week.  On Wednesday, I'll steam a bunch of rice and roast a boatload of veggies (zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, asparagus) with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  We'll top the rice with the veggies and "Yummy! Sauce" (see recipe below).  All the other meals have recipes below.


Spanakopita (this is supposed to serve 8, but I'll cut it into 12 pieces)
Ingredients:
½ cup, olive oil
2½ pounds fresh spinach, cleaned and de-stemmed
6 green onions, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh dill, chopped
2 pounds firm tofu, drained
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 tsp. dried oregano
Dash of nutmeg
¾ cup walnuts, ground
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp. salt
Pepper
1 package frozen phyllo dough, thawed overnight

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 375º.
2. Heat 2 tbsp. of olive oil over medium heat, and then add spinach, green onion, garlic, and dill, and sauté, stirring frequently until spinach is limp and the liquid that sweats out has boiled away. Set aside until the mixture fully cools to room temperature.
3. Meanwhile, drain the tofu (press out excess liquid). Place the tofu in a bowl and use a whisk (or your hands) to mash it. Add the (cooled) spinach mixture, lemon juice, oregano, nutmeg, walnuts, ¼ cup olive oil, yeast, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Taste and adjust the seasonings, as needed.
4. Lay out a sheet of phyllo in the baking dish. Brush with oil, lay another on top, brush with oil, and repeat for a total of 8 sheets.
5. Gently spread half of the spinach mixture over the dough. Prepare another 8 sheets of phyllo as above and lay on top of the spinach mixture. Spread the rest of the spinach on top. Layer with the rest of the phyllo sheets.
6. Brush the top layer of phyllo with oil and tuck the edges of the phyllo sheets into the pan.
7. Score the top layer of dough into eight pieces.
8. Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, until golden-brown and crispy – be careful not to let the phyllo burn!

Zucchini brownies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
powder
1/4 cup margarine
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies spring back when gently touched. To make the frosting, melt together the 6 tablespoons of cocoa and margarine; set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together the confectioners' sugar, milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies before cutting into squares.

Green and Gold salad with Citrus-Ranch dressing (serves 8-12)

6 cups chopped fresh broccoli
3cups diced mango
2 large navel orange, sectioned and chopped
1 cup pecans, toasted
2 (6-ounce) packages fresh baby spinach
4 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.  Toss with citrus-ranch dressing.

Citrus-Ranch dressing

Ingredients:
1 cup vegan mayo
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tsp fresh chopped parsley
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp fresh chopped dill or 1/4 tsp dried
4 tsp orange zest
6 tbsp fresh orange juice

Yummy! Sauce

Ingredients:
1/2 cup canola oil (preferably cold pressed)
1/2 cup almonds (for a creamier sauce, use almond flour)
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup chickpeas or 1/2 cup garbanzo beans, cooked
1/4 cup silken tofu
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 -2 garlic clove (small to medium size)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried cilantro

Directions:
In a blender or food processor blend almonds beans and oil.
Add all other ingredients and puree until creamy smooth.
Cover and let stand in the refrigerator for one hour.
Don't cover too tight, remember the yeast.

weekly menu

It's been a while since I posted a picture of my Bountiful Baskets haul, so here's one for old time's sake.  :o)

As you can see, there's a LOT of of zucchini, so even though we just had roasted veggie burritos last week, I'm doing it again for this week.  I also grated a bunch so I could make zucchini bread, and some of them are going to my friend.  She's also getting the fennel and some celery.

I still have quite a bit of strawberry jam from the last batch I made, so I think I'm going to cut and freeze most of the strawberries for smoothies and stuff.


Here's what came in our baskets:

grapefruit
oranges
apples
kiwi
bananas
strawberries

rainbow carrots
leaf lettuce
asparagus
roma tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
zucchini
mushrooms
swiss chard
celery
fennel
mini sweet peppers

And here's what I still have from previous weeks, plus a couple items from the grocery store:

potatoes
sweet potatoes
butternut squash
acorn squash
spaghetti squash
onions/garlic
apple slices
mandarin oranges
avocados
mangos

I forgot to put it on the menu, but on Wednesday we're having roasted asparagus with our BLTs.  And by BLT I mean tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado and Daiya havarti cheese.  SO yummy!

The grilled veggie burritos from last week link back to the original recipe, so look there if you're dying for instructions.  I'll be using zucchini, mushrooms, frozen red peppers, and onions.  For the curry, I'm using a new organic jarred sauce I found at Natural Grocers, and I'll add chard, potatoes, frozen cauliflower, and carrots and serve it over Basmati rice.  I have some naan in the freezer, but I think I'll save it for another time.  So the only real recipes are these two:

Coconut rice with black beans, plantains and mango salsa  This is a recipe my friend Heidi turned us on to.  It's DELICIOUS!  We use pre-made salsa, with some fresh diced mango sprinkled on top.

Pizza Casserole  (This is not even remotely healthy, but as you know, we don't very often eat a bunch of processed fake meat stuff like this.  Once in a while is OK in my book.)  :o)

1 (13-16 ounce) package uncooked rotini pasta
1 lb soy Italian sausage
1 (24 ounce) jar pasta sauce
1 (16 ounce) container vegan ricotta cheese
1 (2 1/4 ounce) can sliced black olives, drained (optional)
8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms
12 ounces shredded Daiya mozzarella cheese
2 (3 ounce) packages sliced veggie pepperoni

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9X13 casserole dish.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place pasta in the pot, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

In a skillet over medium heat, cook the sausage until evenly brown, drain if needed. (Simply slice if not using the type with removable plastic casings.)  Mix in the cooked pasta and pasta sauce. Pour into prepared casserole dish.  Meanwhile, sauté the mushrooms in a little water in a small pan until soft, drain.

In a bowl, mix the ricotta cheese, olives, mushrooms, peppers, and mozzarella cheese.

Spoon the cheese mixture over the sausage and pasta mixture. Top with pepperoni slices.

Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until bubbly and lightly browned.

weekly menu

We didn't get Bountiful Baskets this week because all the site coordinators were gone for Easter, so I was forced to fend for myself at the grocery store.  After three different trips, I managed to get about 75% of what I needed.  So disappointing and annoying!  I'm so grateful for Bountiful Baskets making my shopping and meal planning so much easier.

Here's our menu for the week.  I know that what we have planned for Easter dinner might not seem "special" enough, but it's something that we all LOVE and I just couldn't think of anything better.  The pies are super yummy - I know because I licked the spatula after scooping all the pie filling out of the pot.  It's my right.  ;o)

Roasted veggie/lime rice/black bean burritos
Lemon icebox pie
Grilled cheese - yes, I know you don't need a recipe for grilled cheese, but if you're here because you're vegan, you should trust me when I tell you this - use Daiya havarti cheese and you'll die of yumminess!


Baked ziti

Ingredients:
1 jar pasta sauce
1 recipe “cheese” sauce (below)*
16 oz ziti (or other larger tube-shaped pasta)
2 cups shredded vegan mozzarella (if desired)
1/4 cup fresh minced parsley

Optional: mushrooms, bell peppers, or other veggies

For "cheese" sauce, blend the following ingredients in a food processor or blender
1 cup silken tofu (the shelf-stable, boxed kind - can be any texture)
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup dairy-free plain soy milk or almond milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 T. tahini
1 t. onion powder
1 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. salt, or to taste
2 T. corn starch

Directions:
Heat oven to 375.  Boil and drain ziti and dump into 9x13 casserole dish.  Pour in pasta sauce and stir to combine.  Pour cheese sauce evenly over the top of the pasta, and top with shredded cheese, and finally with parsley.  Cover with foil and bake for 35-45 minutes, until bubbly, removing foil for last 10 minutes of baking.

*I use this cheese sauce for lasagna and eggplant parmesan, too.  It’s yummy!


Tacos - we're using Yves soy crumbles.  We try not to eat too much soy, but we really like these crumbles for things like tacos and chili, and it's non-GMO soy.
Pizzas - we're using flatbread and will top them with peppers, veggie pepperoni, mushrooms, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, etc.

Cooking and swinging

Today the littles helped me with making two lemon icebox pies and some cookies for Easter.  The cookies were from a mix because I wanted something that would be easy for them to do.  They had a blast making them, and once they were cooled and frosted, they took two big plates of them over to a neighborhood nursing home.  After that, Curtis took them to the park for a little while, and Thalia was over the moon! It was her first time to go there.

Thalia was quite intent on managing the cookie scooper on her own

Maizie is waiting patiently for her turn

Baking pride!

Jack and Beck team up on the lime cookies

Beck's a pro!

Cora and Sofie arrange the vanilla wafers for the lemon icebox pies

Lemon icebox pie

Here's a short video of Thalia swinging at the park with a little help from some siblings.  I think she might have liked it.  ;o)

weekly menu

Here's our menu for a week.  I didn't get a chance to make the rice noodle salad last week because I didn't get home from Billings in time, so I moved it to Sunday this week (the recipe appears in last week's entry).  I also picked a couple of options for Thursday because I don't know if I'll have time to make the cauliflower pizza, but if I do, that's what I'll make.  Otherwise it's Amy's chili out of a can.  ;o)

Sweet potato curry with spinach and chickpeas
Asparagus-potato soup with dill (I will probably add some cashew cream or soymilk to this)
Cauliflower pizza crust

weekly menu

I think I'm finally back on track with our menus for each week.  Now that everything has settled down since my mom's passing and our trip, I think I can handle this again.  :o)

Orange-roasted tofu and asparagus

Crock pot chile verde "pork" tacos (serves 6)

4 cups Butler's soy curls, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
1 onions, minced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 green pepper, finely chopped
2-3 tomatillos, husked and chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
1 16-ounce jar green salsa
1 4-ounce can green chilies
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 tsp cumin

Dump all ingredients into crock pot, stir.  Cook on low 6-8 hours.  Serve with corn tortillas, shredded lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, etc.

Rice noodle with grapefruit-Sriracha sauce (I'm adding avocado and shredded cabbage)

Veggie and white bean curry - this is a variation on a recurring theme in our house.  For about 6 people, I use a can of coconut milk, a couple of tablespoons of curry paste, a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, veggies, and a protein (usually tofu, but in this case, beans).  I heat it all up and serve it over rice.

Weekly menu

I was in Billings all day yesterday, so Curtis picked up my baskets and texted me the following list.  See if you can spot the unusual item (and no, it's not the girbongs!).


10 small oranges
12 large oranges
4 grapefruit
5 girbongs
1 lemon
2 lime
14 bananas
4 kiwi
8 Asian pears
16 small red apples
5 green apples
2 fat tomatoes
2 containers cherry tomatoes
2 bags of small hot peppers
1 ginger root
10 avocados
18 carrots
2 celery
3 cucumbers
2 red beets
4 onions
2 bags green onions
1 bag spinach
2 head lettuce
4 bunches kale
2 butternut squash
1 human head (shrunken)

You may notice that I changed the look of the menu a bit.  This is because I don't have Word on my new MacBook Pro, so I made a new version with Pages.  :o)

I'm not posting recipes this week in an effort to simplify my life as we get ready to go to China.  I'm making doubles of Wednesday and Thursday nights' meals so I can freeze the extra while we're gone.  I'll do the same thing next week with two more meals.  

Weekly menu

One more week of no Bountiful Baskets due to the holidays.  Argh!  I hate buying produce at the store!

Here's what I have left or have purchased:

potatoes (red and fingerling)

butternut squash

acorn squash

spaghetti squash

broccoli

red bell peppers

mushrooms

French green beans

snow peas

yellow squash

avocados

spring mix salads

shredded cabbage

pineapple

apples

pomegranates

pears

kiwi

mandarin oranges

oranges

bananas

And here's the menu for this week.  I'm not going to post the recipes because they're all re-runs, and I've posted them before.  

weekly menu

weekly menu

Qdoba burritos
Pasta with pumpkin sauce  (I didn't get to make this last week, so I'm going to make it this week)

I'll be making some sort of dessert on Sunday, but I'm not sure what yet, so I didn't put it on the menu.  It'll be something easy and yummy, because come Monday morning, I have got to stop eating like there's no tomorrow!  I don't know what it is about this time of year that makes me want to eat everything in sight.  Ugh.

Here's our produce list from today:

Grapes
apples (two kinds)
Fuyu persimmons
papaya
oranges
Satsuma tangerines
bananas
pineapple
avocados

yellow squash
mushrooms
broccoli
Romaine lettuce
green leafy lettuce
acorn squash
onions
garlic
radishes
spaghetti squash
bell peppers

And here's what we had left over or that I bought separately:

mushrooms
zucchini
tomatoes
yellow cherry tomatoes
raspberries
blackberries
butternut squash
delicata squash
acorn squash
pears
pomegranates
pummelos
bell peppers

Weekly menu

Today has been an unusual day because I've only been out of my bedroom for a couple of hours and haven't left the house at all.  Starting at about noon, I pulled all the Christmas presents out of our secret hiding place in the attic and sorted them into boxes, one for each person.  Then I wrapped everything that will need to be mailed, plus a few extras.  I got a nice head start, but I still have hours and hours of wrapping ahead of me.  I hate to even think about it!  Anyway, because I was doing all that, Curtis went to get our Bountiful Baskets and is working on putting it away as I type.

Here's what we got:

2 box mushrooms
9 lemons
8 green bell peppers
2 cucumbers
4 pomegranate
18 "unhealthy"persimmon (I'm going to make persimmon cake out of them)
4 zucchini
24 bananas (half of them ruined by Beck when he tore them apart)
2 cantaloupe
22 apples
2 onions
2 garlic
17 tomatoes
28 carrots
16 grape fruit
6 broccoli
2 heads lettuce
4 romaine lettuce
2 papaya

And here's what we already had:

blueberries
blackberries
strawberries
raspberries
yellow cherry tomatoes
portabella mushrooms
persimmons
orange, red, and yellow bell peppers
butternut squash
tangerines
granny smith apples
honeydew melon

If anyone wants our Ethiopian recipes from Sunday, just comment or email me and I will send them.  We do them from memory, so I don't really have anything written up.  Frankly, the only real recipe I'm using this week is the one below, and I'm planning to modify this by adding cashew cream.  The Stromboli will be made with homemade pizza dough, jarred pasta sauce, bell peppers, mushrooms, and Daiya mozzarella cheese.  I might throw in some veggie pepperoni, too.  I'll roll it up and bake it.  The curry sauce I'm using is some pre made stuff I picked up at Costco, which just happened to be vegan.  It's made with coconut milk and was in the refrigerated section.  The stir fry will be made with whatever veggies I have left, and served over rice.  My stir fry sauce is water, soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, red pepper flakes, garlic and sugar, but I just kind of eyeball everything.  Sometimes I add a little cornstarch to thicken it.

The pasta recipe below is from Vegan Unplugged, which I just received this week.  If you're LDS and vegan (or anyone else who's vegan and is working on building up a store of food), this is an EXCELLENT resource.  Forget storing only hundreds of pounds of dried beans and rice.  You can each pretty well (and still vegan!) from your food storage!

Weekly menu

Last week, I didn't bother to post a menu because it seemed pointless with Thanksgiving coming up.  To be honest, we ate pretty junky stuff because I was putting so much effort into getting ready for Thanksgiving that we didn't have time for much else.  We ate out one night and had stuff like Boca chick'n patties and nachos on the other nights.

Since there was no Bountiful Baskets on Saturday due to the holiday, we're really lacking for produce this week.  I do have quite a bit of fruit left, but virtually no fresh veggies.  In spite of that, I've vowed that I will make do and not go grocery shopping this week, other than to buy TP and fabric softener, which we are nearly out of.  Thankfully I have some frozen veggies from previous weeks which I'll be using in our dinners, but there isn't much of the veggie variety for our lunches.  We'll live.  ;o)

BBQ "pork" sandwiches (slow cooker)
Spinach and mushroom pasta - I have no recipe for this, but I plan to sauté some mushrooms, frozen spinach and garlic, add it to prepared pasta, top with Daiya Havarti-style jalapeño-garlic cheese (the BEST vegan cheese ever!) and bake it.
6-layer tostadas - tostada shells topped with refried beans, Yves soy crumbles made with taco seasoning, lettuce, tomato, Spanish rice, guacamole, cheese, etc.  I guess the number of layers will vary.  ;o)
Potato bar - baked potatoes topped with chili, broccoli, French-fried onions, tomatoes, cheese, etc.
Barley bean burritos (This is an old recipe of mine, and the only thing we do differently is use veggie broth instead of chicken, and use vegan cheese)

Friday is our date night and I don't know what we're fixing for the kids yet.

weekly menu

Here are the recipes for the week:

Pumpkin-kale lasagna (sorry to be lazy, but I don't want to type it all out!  It's from this month's issue of Veg News, and I'm leaving the parsnips out because I don't have any and didn't want to use the carrots I had planned for soup.  I'm also subbing chard for the kale.)

Chickpea noodle soup - just use your favorite chicken noodle soup recipe and sup veggie broth for the chicken broth and chickpeas for the chicken.  Mine will have homemade noodles, carrots, onion, celery, and whatever spices I want to throw in.

Stroganoff - I'm using eggless ribbon noodles (not gluten free) and I may add some seitan.  We'll see.  :o)

Potato bar - we do this a lot!  We just bake some potatoes and put out a bunch of toppings like Amy's chili, broccoli, cheese, sour cream, Bac-os, french fried onions, etc.

Quesadillas - I plan to roast some peppers, corn and onions in the oven and then sandwich them between whole wheat tortillas with a little Daiya cheese and vegan queso.  The soup will be -gasp- from a can.  :o)

And here's what we got today in our Bountiful Baskets:

bananas
oranges
watermelon
honeydew melon
kiwi
pears
apples
avocados
grapes
pineapple

green leaf lettuce
romaine lettuce
potatoes
sweet potatoes
celery
corn
onions
carrots
tomatoes

And here's what I either bought or had left over from last week.  We made a trip to Costco last week, so I couldn't resist all the gorgeous berries and red bell peppers!

strawberries
raspberries
blueberries
blackberries
persimmons
mushrooms
chard
carrots
sugar snap peas
cauliflower
butternut squash
carnival squash
acorn squash
spaghetti squash
vinegar cucumbers
red peppers

weekly menu

Here's our exciting menu for the week.  :o)  I'm proud of myself because it uses almost everything we got in our baskets, minus spaghetti squash, and a few acorn squash, plus it uses up a few things I had left over from last week.  I didn't plan anything for Friday because I'm not sure what our plans will be that night, but I'll figure that out later.  :o)

Here are the recipes!

Black bean quinoa - I'm adding tomatoes, zucchini and avocado
Candied acorn squash (I usually don't do sugary squash recipes because I think it's sweet enough, but everyone raves about this recipe, so I thought I would give it a try)
Fettucine alfredo sauce - this is my own recipe, and it's yummy!!!
Butternut squash fries (The black bean burgers are not, alas, my husband's beloved zombie burgers, but instead some packaged ones from Light Life that I wanted to try.)

The sesame broccoli "beef" thing is something I'm throwing together from Gardein beefless tips, broccoli, boy choy, and some sesame-ginger sauce.

And this is our veganized Panera cream cheese potato soup recipe.  If I have any leftover broccoli and/or cauliflower, I will add that too.  We top it with a little Daiya cheddar, green onions and Bacos.  I'll be making breadsticks from scratch, but I'm not sure yet which recipe I'll use.


PANERA CREAM CHEESE POTATO SOUP

serves 4-6

Ingredients:
4 cups veggie broth
4 cups peeled and cubed potatoes
1/4 cup minced onions
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, cut into chunks (I use Follow Your Heart, but
Tofutti is also good)

Directions:
Combine broth, potatoes, onion, and spices.
Boil on medium heat until potatoes are tender.
Smash a few of the potatoes to release their starch for thickening.
Reduce to low heat.
Add cream cheese.
Heat, stirring frequently, until cheese melts.

weekly menu

Here's the menu for this week.  I'm only posting one real recipe because it's been a busy, crazy weekend and I'm just too lazy.  ;o)

The BLTs are of my own creation and require several key components: Fakin' Bacon (tempeh bacon), Daiya Havarti-style cheese, avocado wedges, lettuce, and tomato slices, all on sourdough bread.  A panini grill makes it all that much more exciting but isn't necessary.  These are seriously the BEST sandwiches!

The roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts and beefless tips "recipe" is a variation on a dish I do often, depending on what veggies I have.  Sometimes I use a Asian-type glaze using soy sauce, a little sugar, some sesame oil, ginger and garlic, but a balsamic dressing of some kind is also good.  That's what I'm planning this week.  We usually serve it over rice.  I'm making brown rice.

I don't know why I forgot to add in the side dishes for the enchiladas, but since these are stuffed full of beans and squash (I'm using summer squash), I'll probably just add some fruit and call it good.  I might be coaxed into making some rice, too.  We'll see.  Here's the recipe, but I'll be using Daiya cheese in place of the goat cheese called for.

The stuffed acorn squash have been on the menu for the past two weeks and since they are somewhat labor intensive, they've been pre-empted both times.  Hopefully I'll actually get to it this week.  And since I now have carnival squash in addition to acorn, I may use those instead.