The Plan

 

I go about meal planning in several different ways.  The varied approach helps keep getting dinner on the table from ever becoming a tedious task.  This week, I'm going about it in my most favorite way - the go-crazy-at-the-Hollywood-Farmers-Market-then-figure-out-what-to-cook approach.  Here's what I've got:

• a dozen purply baby artichokes
• 7 very fat spears of asparagus
• a pound of fava beans
• 5 ounces of chanterelles
• 2 baskets of strawberries 
• 1 basket of raspberries
• 1 big bunch of kale
• 1 big head red leaf lettuce
• 1/2 pound purple blossoming broccoli
• 2 heads of garlic
• 1 bunch of tiny little purple spring onions

I also have a gazillion meyer lemons and navel oranges because my pal from Ojai just moved back into the city (4 blocks from me to be precise) and brought her rural bounty along with her.  Man, I love friends with fruit.

This is not how I shop every week, because going crazy at the Hollywood Farmers Market can get pricy.  I was doing pretty well until I inadvertently spent $15.00 on a tiny sack of chanterelles.  

We already ate the broccoli in a super-simple lemony pasta for lunch.  And then the artichokes and fava beans became a creamy gratin for dinner.  Here's what we're going to eat the rest of the week.

Monday: pan-fried seitan and asparagus (Did you click the link?  Something like that recipe.  Russ Parsons is just so convincing when he talks about asparagus.  I'm not exactly sure how a vegan brown butter sauce will go, but I'll follow his basic technique at least.  Also, this noodle dish with asparagus sounds like a great mid-week dinner, but as you can see, we already have the pasta covered this week.)

Tuesday: pasta with chanterelles (hot pan, olive oil, mushrooms, garlic, maybe some of those spring onions, salt and pepper, cashew cream - on top of fettucini) 

Wednesday: lefotvers or take-out (Wednesday afternoons are busy, man.)

Thursday: big ol' salad and bread (My current favorite salad has good lettuce, chunks of orange, avocado, and toasted pecans with a lemon chive vinaigrette.  I'll write down the recipe for this super simple salad dressing tomorrow.  Also, if there's any seitan left over, it will go in there as well.  When we eat salad, the toddler has a deconstructed version that he can pick up and dip.)  

Friday: strawberry milk shakes, kale chips, oven fries, tofu sticks (Desmond's current mantra is "I want something crunchy.")

I'm late to sharing the Meal Plan.  Here's some more from around the internet:

• I know Shelly shared her plan a few weeks ago. (Vegan.)
• Jan Scott at Family Bites shares her weekly menus.  (Not vegan.)
• And wow, 300 people share their weekly menus here.  (Not necessarily vegan.)

Hey!  If you don't have a blog, it would be super-rad if you jotted down your meal plan in the comments.  This could be a really helpful vegan resource, don't you think?