Um, out of money...

So, yeah, I didn't do the best job at meal planning and staying on a budget, so the next few days I'm getting creative!

Tonight I made a soup using frozen turkey stock, the vegetables I had in the house, and some rice. I have no idea what this would be called, but it's definitely high in carbs! I had zucchini, yellow squash, and some carrots on hand, so those were our veggies tonight.

In my book, as long as you add enough garlic salt, anything can be delicious! It actually was decent, and of course filling, with all that rice. It reminded me of a rice-y casserole. Mmm, comfort food.

This is how much I gave the kids:

I also gave them a plate of sliced apples and told them if they ate the apples and ONE BITE of carrot, they could have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, too. They both chose to just eat apples. No skin off my nose...more leftovers for me!

Yummy winter soup!

I made a lentil soup the other night that was surprisingly awesome! I'm pretty sure when Kyle heard "lentil soup" he died a little inside, but he was hooked at the first bite!

This winter lentil soup has an entire bunch of kale and also sweet potatoes...yummy antioxidants! I feel like it didn't have enough lentils so after it was done cooking I added a can of drained/rinsed garbanzo beans.

It was similar to the lentil soup I made a while back, but this one was tomato based and just really tasty. We had enough for 2 dinners and a lunch for Kyle, so it's a winner in my book. Nope, the kids didn't eat it.

I say potato...

who really says po-taaaaahh-to? I don't think I've ever met anyone who does.

Anyhowzerz, I made a potato soup last week that Isaac called his "favorite soup ever!" I KNOW...amazing!!

My favorite potato soup is a potato leek soup recipe that my sister's mother-in-law gave me at my bridal shower. It's made with butter and heavy cream and is SO good! Just dreamy!! But alas...it probably has 8 billion calories per serving and definitely has dairy in it! I was lucky enough to find a similar, vegan recipe on chezbettay.com. I didn't have celery seeds, so I used some celery salt instead. It turned out fantastic and also made plenty for leftovers AND the freezer. Just the fact that Isaac ate it made me happy.

I'm thinking you could add some carrots and broccoli in place of some of the potatoes to make this a little more nutritious. This is also a really cheap, filling meal, which makes it perfect for when you have more month left at the end of your money!

Cooking ahead

Yesterday I ended up cooking two dinners, so I didn't have to cook tonight. Wahoo!

I tried a crock pot minestrone soup that I stuck in the fridge for tonight. I added onion and garlic and also used 3 cans of beans: garbanzo, kidney, and great northern. I also added macaroni to the kids' portions. It turned out ok...nothing to knock your socks off. I like the other kind I made a while back better.

I had some bananas that were on their way to mush-town, so I made some pumpkin banana bread. It's not vegan, but is dairy and soy free. You could easily make it vegan by using Ener-G Egg Replacer. I made a loaf and a batch of muffins, gave about 1/2 loaf to a friend, and this is what was left the next day.

I think they liked it.

Last night I made my usual stir fry, but added chicken this time! I used a 3/4 pound breast for the whole meal. Two breasts that size set me back $10...ugh. I need to go to Costco, I think. Asparagus was on sale, so that was a nice change, and I also added orange slices and used the sauce from the peanut butter noodle recipe. So good. Yum. The kids didn't eat it. Kyle and I could eat that every day!

Making a few changes

Breakfast has been kind of tough around here. I'm not one to get up and make a hot breakfast, unless it's Saturday and we don't have anywhere to be. Sometimes I can manage to make some scrambled eggs, but that's about the extent of my AM cooking. With that option gone, everyone seems to be just having cereal with almond milk, and the kids also like toast or English muffins. Hello, processed carb city! I've tried getting them to eat oatmeal, but that doesn't really fly. For some reason, they also think fruit is not a morning food. Whaaaa? So, over the last couple of weeks, I've been making eggs a few mornings a week. Those are really the only days that I feel like Isaac goes to school without being hungry, and full of a meal that will actually sustain him until lunch!

Another change is that Kyle has started a new workout routine that is pretty intense. The exercise combined with eating healthier and cutting out alcohol (!) has resulted in him losing 9 pounds in a little over 2 weeks! With all that exercise and muscle building, he feels like he needs more protein.

Now, we COULD add some protein by using meat substitutes (fake burgers, bacon, etc.) but those are all soy-based. Esther can't have soy, and it's really not good for anyone, so those are out for us. And a person can only eat so many beans and still have any friends. Haha. Kyle's been tracking his diet and exercise with an app and discovered that a very large percentage of his diet is from carbs. They aren't simple, processed carbs, which is good, but he'd still like more protein.

So, we're going to add a bit of lean meat to our diet. For example, if I'm making a stir fry, I'll use one chicken breast to feed the whole family. The vegetables will be the main dish, with a little meat as a side. Since we're using a small amount of meat, it seems reasonable to only buy organic, free range, blah blah blah. For eggs, if this is something people will eating on a daily basis, it has to be free from hormones and chemicals. I wish I could have a couple of chickens, but they'd never survive here! As far as dairy goes, we're still going to steer clear. The one exception is using real butter in moderation because the substitutes are just full of junk! I'm still going to shoot for having our main source of protein being plant-based.

Whew. I'm glad I didn't name this blog something to do with vegan. It's simply documenting our attempts at healthy eating. We'll see how we feel adding a little more protein, but still eating mostly whole foods!

Last week

Somehow I didn't take any pictures all week, so it's hard to even remember what I cooked!

I had planned on making this lentil shepherd's pie...but it didn't quite work out. I bought all the ingredients and a few days later went to make it, then realized you have to roast the sweet potatoes first...which takes 45 mins. Plus the time to bake the pie! We wouldn't be eating until like 8pm or something! So I roasted the potatoes and put them aside to make the following day. Cut to 4 days later (pushing it for potato freshness!) and I'm prepping the ingredients...then discover the mushrooms had molded. Argh!!! So I scrapped that recipe all together and made the stand-by peanut butter noodles. I'll still make the shepherd's pie at some point, but it does seem like a lot of work. I'll need to do some of the chopping and stuff earlier in the day, or even make it during the day and re-heat for dinner. Four to six PM is kind of a nightmare around here sometimes!

Ok, so, backtracking. I think Monday was the shepherd's pie deal. Tuesday was Fat Tuesday so we had some wine with dinner (whatever it was, haha!) Wednesday, Kyle had a meeting so the kids ate a plate of snacky fruit and stuff, and I had Brussels sprouts (my favorite to eat when Kyle is gone...he hates them.) Thursday I made homemade pizza again, since the kids love it. We even used real cheese! Friday we picked up some Greek food on our way home from school as a special treat. Isaac had gyros (he LOVES gyros), Esther had hummus and pita, and I had falafel. It wasn't our favorite restaurant, but Kokoras in West Seattle is hard to beat.

We're assessing our vegan-ness and may be making some changes coming up. I'll save that for my next post!

A few in one!

I haven't become tired of vegan eating...just tired of blogging, I guess!

Last week I managed to stretch some meals out with leftovers (and feeding kids pb&j) so I only really cooked 3 times. Woohoo! One was just ok, one was "warning: do not try this at home", and one was a winner!

A while back I made baked egg rolls, which turned out fine, aside from the fact that I flipped some of them too soon and they fell apart. This time, I decided to try fresh spring rolls. I chopped up cabbage, carrot, cucumber, celery, green onion, cilantro, and bell pepper and let it soak in some sesame oil and rice vinegar. Then I wrapped them up in the spring roll skins (that still sounds gross to me) and let them chill in the fridge.

I made some rice and stir fried some veggies to go along with these, and we used some gluten free teriyaki sauce for dipping. The verdict: meh. The rolls were definitely cool and fresh, which makes them great for summer. They were just missing some spice or flavor or something. I guess that's where a recipe would come in handy! Esther picked the skin off and ate a few bites, and Isaac took one bite and spit it out on his plate. Lovely. 

I think it makes for a nice, green plate!

Anyway, moving on! I decided to make a lemon, sage, and tomato pasta with salad. The recipe sounded good...the result was NOT. The first problem was that it had NO flavor. I've never cooked with fresh sage and was really looking forward to it. Boo. And it didn't help that I overcooked the gluten free pasta. Blech. The kids wouldn't eat it at all, Kyle and I forced down one serving, and I actually threw away the leftovers. I never do that...I will eat the same thing for 5 days before I waste food! I guess one good thing is that we all, even the kids, ate a bunch of salad.

Uuuuuugh.

Finally, I made a lentil soup from allrecipes that was really good, and we all actually ate it. It had great flavor, lots of vegetables, and was really filling. It also made a TON. Kyle and I had it again for dinner the next night, and I also have 2 lunch sized servings in the freezer. Hooray! I added more kale, cilantro and carrots, and used crushed cumin instead of the seeds. I also used green lentils instead of red because that's what I had. PERFECT winter soup!

This week I'm trying one new recipe and some tried and true ones. And I'll try to post more regularly!

No turning back?

Ugh. You think eating vegan gives you gas? Try eating vegan for a while, and then NOT. Holy cow.

My parents were in town, so we went out to dinner on Sunday and went to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Their salsa is amazeballs and the beans are made with actual lard. Oh, yeah...you know how those taste! Kyle and I both decided to throw caution to the wind and ordered dishes with meat and cheese. Everything was fantastic, but I was SO FULL after. I DID eat 8 million chips, but still...oofda, I was really, really full.

So, you know that whole "throw caution to the wind" idea? It resulted in breaking wind. I'm not going into details, but dang. Not cool.

Pizza Night!

We try to do something fun together as a family on Saturdays...sometimes we are successful, and sometimes, not so much. I'd say the majority of our day wasn't the greatest. Since I didn't grocery shop on Friday, I had to do it on Saturday, which isn't fun.

BUT, we did make dinner fun! We let each kid make their own pizza using Trader Joe's dough. We splurged and got them some pepperoni because...it's SATURDAY! We decided to not even bother with fake cheese. I don't care what anyone says...it's just not good.

I made Kyle a gluten free crust using a mix from Bob's Red Mill. It made 2 pizzas (so he had lunch for the next day) and they tasted ok...kind of biscuity. I used a whole wheat TJ's crust. We topped them with fresh basil, zucchini, mushrooms, olives, sun dried tomatoes, spinach, and Kyle put a few pieces of pepperoni on his.

They both turned out great, and the sun dried tomatoes were especially good. You don't really miss the cheese when you load them up with goodies...next time I'll add much more. I just didn't want to add too many "juicy" things and end up with soggy crust. We'll definitely do pizza night again!

Day before payday...

Kyle got paid on Friday, but I never made it to the grocery store, so we just made due with what was on hand!

First, Esther had been BEGGING for cookies for days. I had a box of gluten free cookie mix, so we made it together. It does have soy in it, but I let it slide for her. I've been using Earth Balance soy free spread as a butter substitute for years. It's the only "butter" without dairy OR soy that I've found. When cooking from scratch, recipes often call for coconut butter or something like that, but using Earth Balance allows me to use my regular recipes. These cookies have eggs, so they are not vegan.

For dinner the only actual vegetables I had were carrots, so I just made those delicious peanut butter noodles again with stir fried carrots, mushrooms, and water chestnuts. YUM! This time I even shared with the rest of the family and they loved them.