Menu Plan Monday

It is our last week of school! Yeah! We are all really looking forward to summer vacation. The last week of school is usually very hectic for us and so in our menu you will see some convenience items. At this point, I feel the need to keep it simple and just get through this week. You will also see a few things we didn't get to last week.

Breakfast Ideas:
Maple Banana Loaf (from freezer)
cereal
toast w/almond butter and jelly
creamy oatmeal
zucchini spelt muffins
egg burritos
yogurt banana splits

We normally serve green drink with our breakfasts.

Lunch Ideas:
almond butter and jelly/tuna sandwiches
pasta and meatballs
ABC pasta soup
Goddess Garbanzos in a WW pita pocket (similar to chicken salad w/garbanzos)
chicken strips
mac and cheese w/peas
leftovers

We usually serve raw fruit and veggies with lunch.

Dinner Ideas:
Chimichangas
Orange Sesame Tofu w/brown rice
burgers (beef and portabella), corn on the cob, roasted potatoes
vegan risotto
lentil and barley soup in crockpot
pizza night


We usually have fresh bread/rolls and salad with dinner.

Have a wonderful week!

J

PS - Check out www.orgjunkie.come for more menu ideas!

Raw Vegan Truffles - Super Easy

Recently I went to a seminar presented by folks from Hallelujah Acres. It was wonderful. I strongly encourage you to check out their site. Basically, they teach about healing and maintaining your body using a diet of 80% raw foods and 20% cooked. They shared a lot of recipes. One of my favorite is this one for raw vegan truffles. They require only a few ingredients, are super easy, and healthy. They will surely satisfy your sweet tooth. My whole family loves them!

Truffles
1 cup organic raisins
1 cup raw pecans (I have also used other nuts and they came out wonderful!)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
unsweetened coconut

Place all ingredients in your food processor with the S blade. Let it blend until the mixture forms a ball. It will take a little bit. Then pull out about small amount (about the size of a tablespoon) and roll into a ball.

(see how greasy my hands are from the oils in the nuts!)


Then roll each ball into unsweetened coconut.


You can eat them just like that and they are wonderful, but we think they taste even better if you put them in the freezer. They don't really freeze solid. Oh so yummy this way. They are usually gone very quickly in our house.

We actually added some vegan chocolate chips to the processor last time and that was really yummy, but they do eliminate the raw factor. I was thinking you could also roll them in raw chocolate powder.

I hope you'll give these a try! Let me know!

Blessings,
J

Menu Plan Monday

As you may know, I haven't done a weekly menu plan in a while. It has been very hard to manage without a plan and I must admit, our meals have been a bit boring. Now that school is winding down, I am hoping to get back to sharing our menu each week. I have been given the green light to try a week of all vegan dinners. I am going to serve meat at lunch only. We'll see how it goes. This is great for me because it enables me to try some different recipes. If they turn out, I'll be sharing them over the week.

Here is what I have planned for this week:

Breakfast Ideas:
-granola w/almond milk
-Maple Banana Loaf
-cereal
-toast w/almond butter
-creamy oatmeal
-Blueberry Carob Pancakes
-Apple Hemp Muffins

We normally serve green drink with our breakfasts.

Lunch Ideas:
-stromboli
-taco salad
-almond butter and jelly sandwiches
-chick pea and pasta soup
-leftovers
-Goddess Garbanzos in a WW pita pocket (similar to chicken salad w/garbanzos)
-beef and barley soup in crockpot

We usually serve raw fruit and veggies with lunch. (On meat days, I'll be enjoying salads)

Dinner Ideas:
-Chili Pasta Bake
-Brown Rice ‘n’ Beans “Jumble-aya”
-Mac and Cheeze
-Chimichangas
-Orange Sesame Tofu w/brown rice
-Roasted Tomato-Fennel Pasta w/pine nuts and capers
-vegan risotto

We usually have fresh bread/rolls and salad with dinner.

snacks
Kale chips
Celery w/dressing
Apple slices w/almond butter
popcorn

guacamole w/chips

Have a great week!

Banana Cream Pancakes (vegan)

Hey there!

I know I have been gone a while, but the end of the school year is a bit brutal for me. As things begin to close out, I am hoping to blog a lot more. I have really been encouraged by those of you that noticed my absence and have asked when I will return to the blogsphere. I really didn't think anyone would notice. So thank you for your kind words.

I am not coming back in full force yet, but I promised a sweet friend this recipe for her daughter's birthday! So here you have it....Banana Cream Pancakes.

This recipe comes from one of my favorite vegan cookbook authors that I have mentioned many times, Dreena Burton. It is in her most recent book, Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan. This is a really wonderful book with many, many great recipes. I highly recommend it!

Banana Cream Pancakes
1 1/3 spelt flour ( I order mine in bulk, but you could get it from the bins at Whole Foods)
1 tbs + 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg (I used cinnamon)
1/8 tsp salt
1 can light coconut milk
1 cup banana (1 large)
1 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl mix together all your dry ingredients. Then I place all the wet ingredients in the Vitamix and blend until smooth and creamy. It is much faster than doing it all by hand. I am sure any blender would work here. Then I just pour the wet into the dry and mix until well combined.

Oil your griddle/pan and cook then pancakes as you normally would. When I make pancakes I use the Pampered Chef scoops to get them to be all uniform in size. It is also less messy.


As you can see below I added a few vegan chocolate chips to each one. I don't add many because we use pure maple syrup on pancakes and that is just too much sugar for me! But if you notice there is no sugar in the recipe at all, which I LOVE!

Here are some pictures. I know they are not that great. Need to really work on that over the summer, but none the less, here are some that I took over the weekend.

I hope you enjoy!