Your Vegan Mom

The Plan

 

 Viva Vegan! came in the mail yesterday and I would really like to throw out my whole plan and just eat empanadas and flan this week, but I can't.  This week's busy, in a good way - it's my birthday Sunday and there are a lot of celebratory meals to be had and not cooked, and also I'm baking a bajillion tiny desserts for a fundraiser thing on Friday.  So during the time I would ordinarily be preparing sensible meals for my family, I will be rolling out pie dough and making pudding and frosting cupcakes.  As kitchen helper and chief taster, the three-year-old is excited.  

Monday: batter-fried tofu (My best gal sounded a little revolted when I told her I was deep frying while I was talking to her.  You shouldn't talk on the phone, or do anything else for that matter, while you deep fry tofu.  This involves some seriously threatening bubbling oil.   And every time I do it [rarely] I wonder if it's worth it, and then I sit down and bite through that light, crisp coating into the soft tofu, and I say, yes, yes it is.  Really, I say this out loud.  It is so, so good.  The recipe is from Nonna's Chinese Kitchen.), steamed vegetable dumplings (You know, the ones from Trader Joe's?  Like I said, it's a busy week.), and dipping sauce

Tuesday: pizza night (take-out pizza with grilled eggplant, tomatoes, and basil)

Wednesday: grilled cheese and tomato soup (I think the forecast has since changed, but Paul told me over the weekend that it was supposed to rain on Wednesday and that is reason enough for my favorite comfort food.)

Thursday: Quinoa-lentil bowls with spinach, but really I think instead we'll get tamales at the Farmers Market.

Friday: Macaroni and cheese and greens

And you?  What are you eating this week?  

More Vegan Meal Plans
Shelley
Scrumptious

Samosa Quesadillas and Creamy Mango Salad Dressing

 

I'm kind of excited about this recipe.  I had been meaning to put this idea into action for a long time, but it wasn't until I had a slew of leftover mashed potatoes and a last minute gaggle of moms and kids to feed that I made it happen.  And it was just what I thought it would be - everything good about a samosa - squishy, mildly spiced potatoes and peas encased in a crisp, pick-up-able package, but with all the ease of slapping together a quesadilla.  Good stuff.  And perfect as a super-simple, kid-friendly, mid-week dinner.

We ate this with a salad of red lettuce, spicy pickled onions, and chickpeas, all drizzled with the creamy mango dressing.  Everything was served separately so that the boy could dip all his component parts in a tiny cup of the sweet vinaigrette.  The pickled onions were a nod to the grown-ups in the party, because everything else is mild and easy on a toddler's sensitive taste buds.     

We dipped the quesadillas in the dressing, but if you're not making the salad, these would also be good with store-bought mango chutney.

 

Samosa Quesadillas

• 3 cups left-over mashed potatoes (I've also made this with half sweet potato.)
• 2 teaspoons curry powder (or to taste)
• 1 cup frozen peas (run them under cool water to get rid of any freezer taste and defrost them a little)
• salt to taste
• 6 whole wheat tortillas

Mix together the potatoes, peas, curry powder and salt to taste.  Heat a griddle.  Spread half of each tortilla with potato filling, fold over, and grill on each side. 

Creamy Mango Salad Dressing
makes 1 cup 

• 1 cup mango chunks
• 3 tablespoons lime juice (or the juice of one big juicy lime)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Blend until smooth and creamy.

What the Jaconi Bierys Ate for Dinner, the April Edition

 

Paul says that I shouldn't pull aside the curtain quite this far - that I should maintain (establish?) some sort of Martha Stewart-style magical un-realism.  I say this blog is pointless if I'm not showing you how this incredibly imperfect family eats - quite well, thank you - just not always according to plan.  

The men-folk have been working crazy hours, so we got some moms and kids together for dinner a couple nights last week which led me to improvise a bit for larger quantity meals and more universally kid-friendly fare.  Then, there was a last minute girls night out when my pal, Alexis, came into town from North Carolina, necessitating a mid-week sleep-over at grandma's house and more welcome changes to the plan. 

Here's what we actually ate:

Monday - pan-fried seitan (I'm going to link to the method I used.  It's a photo tutorial for pork chops.  If you don't want to see that, then don't click on this link.), mashed potatoes, and salad with agave-mustard salad dressing
Tuesday - samosa quesadillas and salad with creamy mango dressing and spicy pickled onions (recipe to come!)
Wednesday - Taco Spot
Thursday - burgers at my mom's house 
Friday - Those hand-held salads and mac and cheese
Saturday - Desmond and Uncle Denny ate the rest of the mac and cheese, but this time with peas! while Paul and I went out (two grown-up nights in one week!) 
Sunday - We finally ate the asparagus, like this, with bread (It was too wine-y for the boy so Paul and I hogged it to ourselves, smashing the garlic onto slices of bread, and I made a super-quick broccoli cheese soup for the boy from broccoli puree that I had set aside for the baby.)

Hey, let's meet back here later for recipes.  (Say, Wednesday?)

Here's some more meal plans:

• at this Menu Meal Plan blog event, (a tiny bit vegan)
• and from the fishbowl, (vegan)
• at Family Bites , (not vegan)
• and at another blog I love, Home Ec 101. (not vegan)

How was your week?  Did you stick to the plan?    

Hand-Held Salad and Your Basic Dipping Sauce

 

 And now that we have discussed what the Jaconi Bierys are eating for dinner this week (In theory.  I have strayed so far from my plan.  Do you stick to it?), let's talk about lunch.  I go through lunch kicks.  Last month (and by that I do mean approximately thirty consecutive days), I ate a quinoa-lentil bowl with avocado and walnuts and a quick dressing of flax oil, lemon juice, soy sauce, and sriracha.  And last week was hand-held salads: lettuce leaves, slivers of carrot (the crunch is key, though I imagine bell pepper or jicama would work as well), avocado (gotta have that creamy richness), and sticks of extra-firm tofu.  Take a lettuce leaf, place the other stuff on top and roll up into a little burrito.  Dip in sauce.  

 

Basic Dipping Sauce
This is perfect for dipping vegetable dumplings from the freezer section at Trader Joe's or these hand-held mini salads.  I don't generally measure, just throw in a little salty, a little sweet, a little tangy, a little spicy (if the boy's not looking), and a little sesame until it tastes good.  But for you, I measure.

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar 
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil   
minced chili or hot sauce to taste

Stir to combine.  Adjust to your taste.  And dip.  

 

 Look!  There's my kid eating salad.  I love that.  And there in the back is the present wrapped in blue tissue paper that I haven't sent to my new niece yet even though she was born over a month ago(!).  Plus, one of my two raddest nephews turned eight three days ago and we haven't even told him how much we love him.  I have to work on this being a better aunt thing.  Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.  

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?