Once a Month Meals

So after I had a baby and went back to work at 6 weeks, we spent a lot of time trying to get into a recipe of batch cooking.  We tried to find good recipes, to come up with shopping lists and prep plans and finally I just broke down and paid for Once a Month Meals.

So I would like to post a review that is basically all of the questions my husband asked me to try to figure out why we were paying for this service:

• What are you getting?
• You get: 
• A menu plan that you can swap out the dinners you don't like for ones you do 
• A shopping list
• A prep list (things you need to do to be ready to batch cook)
• Cooking instructions (what order to cook everything in) 
• Freezing instructions 
• Can't we do this ourselves?
• The only things we were successfully able to do ourselves was create a menu plan (which was not very creative) and a shopping list.  Even keeping the cooking instructions organized was complicated because everything came from different sites.  
• Batch freezer cooking resources for vegetarians that understand protein are few and far between.  All the lists on Pinterest of freezer meals to make are just chicken and beef with different sauces.  
• Batch freezer cooking for the crockpot vegetarian recipes are downright impossible to find.  
• Isn't this really expensive?
• Really expensive becomes relative.  $16 a month saves us from ordering takeout or going out to eat, which we do more than we used to, and from eating more expensive frozen dinners from Trader Joe's or the grocery store.  Basically, the cost of OAMM is the same as one emergency takeout dinner.  
• Isn't it still a lot of work?
• Yes - you still have to do all of your own prep and chopping and assembly for freezer meals.  It's a ton of work if you follow the site the way it's written, which is one twelve hour day and a ton of prep work the night before.  That is a lot of work that I can't do with a toddler.
• If you do the custom menu and select mostly "easy assembly" meals, you can cut the prep time in half.  I have twice now prepped and assembled meals in 2-3 naptimes and post-bedtime cooking stretches.  
• How much food does it make?
• So this is the downside.  We have found that the portions are a little light, probably because the site isn't designed to build you a dinner that will allow you to have two servings for leftovers the next day.  
• Each menu makes a set number of dinners, lunches, and breakfasts.  It winds up being something like 16 dinners I think, which is less than half of a month, but we find that with a few routine quick cook meals, like fish, and then our usual dinner out at least once on the weekend and our weekly pizza night, making even as few as 6 dinners a month has been enough that we always have reserve in the freezer.  
• Are the recipes good?
• There have been a few duds, but for the most part we have liked a lot of the stuff we have made and have either ranked it "definitely make it again" (tonight's spicy seitan flautas) or "do we really have to eat the second one of this?" (tempeh mushroom stroganoff).  The only downside really is that if you've already made two of something, the other one is lurking in the freezer.  
• How do you fit it in the freezer?
• Timing, excellent Jenga skills, and not hoarding your freezer meals.  I tend to save freezer meals for a rainy day and our freezer was PACKED.  We started to eat the freezer down more routinely and not only has it made an actual noticeable difference in our lives, it means that by the time another month rolls around we are ready to batch cook again.  
• You can treat it more as a make-one-freeze-one idea, so save 3-4 of the meals you make in the fridge to eat the week after your once a month cooking day.  

The thing I will say is the most awesome is over the summer, when we had something like 2-3 weeks worth of CSA that we had done nothing with, I created a menu to use up all the eggplant, zucchini, sweet potato, etc. and we took care of all of the produce we had.  

If you are on the fence about signing up, I would definitely recommend giving it a shot and see how you like it.  

Gestational Diabetes - Dessert

It's been almost a month since I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and it's definitely been interesting.  I'm learning all kinds of things about what foods I can tolerate and what I can't.  One of the biggest concerns is whether or not I'm getting enough calories total, which is a huge challenge when you are eating a significantly lower number of carbs.  I'm making up a lot of the difference with fats and I'm getting probably more protein than I ever have since becoming a vegetarian.  There are two meals that definitely suck the most - breakfast, and dessert.  I'm sure there are psychological reasons why it's bad to be upset I can't have dessert and that means I'm a sugar addict but I'm 35 weeks pregnant and sometimes just need some ice cream.  

So far, I've found two desserts and one sweetish bedtime snack that agree well with me.  The key with all snacks is to make sure you are getting enough protein.  So here are mine:

Chobani Indulgent - we have both the mint chocolate chip and the raspberry flavors.  They have only 14g of carbs in a serving, and my snacks need to be under 15, and they have 7 grams of protein.  

Homemade banana almond butter ice cream.  This one is definitely an occasional snack, because the carb count and sugar count are pretty high, but it's certainly helpful to kick an ice cream craving.  

14 Wheat Thins with Trader Joe's White Stilton With Apricots.  (Photo from here.)  This cheese is delicious and the dried apricots make it feel gloriously sweet and indulgent.  The cheese itself has 5g of carbs, so I don't eat it for my regular daytime snacks.  For bedtime, I need to make sure my snack is a little more filling so I feel okay going a little over the 15g carb limit.  

I've also been eating a lot of cottage cheese with homemade applesauce, but since that is easy to pack into small mason jars and take to work, I simply eat it there.  Making your own applesauce is very easy and delicious.  I like chunkier applesauce, so that's what this recipe is for.  Leave the peels on the apple for convenience and fiber.  

Ingredients:

- 4 apples

-Cinnamon

-A tiny bit of water, like maybe a couple tablespoons

Procedure:

1. Chop apples into 1-2 inch pieces 

2. Put apples, water, and cinnamon into a pot on medium-low heat.  

3. Occasionally stir and break up the apples.  When delicious, remove from heat, put in jars.  

Somedays, it doesn't help to be barefoot.

One of the downsides of being eight months pregnant is that it really hurts to be on your feet for extended periods of time.  It's always kind of bugged me to spend long stretches in the kitchen without shoes, because my feet don't have any support and my legs start to wear out, but now, it feels like I can't stand for more than 30-45 minutes or so.  So tonight, the 4-5 hours we've spent cooking and prepping food for the week has been interspersed with a lot of breaks, and things got a lot better once I went and put on my sneakers.  Hopefully the end result of this will be that almost every meal for the week is good to go and we don't have to do a lot of prep work to have delicious, healthy meals.

I haven't posted in awhile, mostly because I haven't come up with many new recipes and because Pinterest basically serves most of the purposes for which I started this blog (a way of cataloging my favorite recipes, etc.)

Anyway, I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes this week and while there are plenty of posts and blogs out there, since I have a high chance of having GD again with subsequent pregnancies (the jury is still out on whether this kid gets a sibling, ever), I figured it would be useful to me and perhaps to others to compile recipes.  I haven't met with the endocrinologist/diabetes educator or learned to test my blood sugar yet, but a few friends gave me some advice so for the past few days I've been eating low-carb, upping my protein, and eating 3 small meals and 2-3 large snacks.  I've been tracking everything on My Fitness Pal and trying to figure out how doable being a vegetarian with GD is.  I only have 8 weeks to go in my pregnancy, so if I do end up needing to eat meat to get the nutrients I need and not overload myself or the baby with sugar or salt, I will do so.  (There is very little I won't do to avoid having an 11lb baby, it turns out.)

So here is my meal plan for this week:
Sunday: Burgers and Zuchinni Fries - I used whole wheat bread crumbs and had my burger bunless, with a side of greek yogurt (the black bean burgers from Costco are pretty spicy so the yogurt cuts the flavor.)  I recommend not using panko, or running the panko through the food processor first.
Monday: Lentil Tacos (I'm trying this recipe) on whole wheat tortillas (I buy the whole wheat ones from Costco)
Tuesday: No Noodle Zucchini Lasagna 
Wednesday: Kale Quinoa Salad with Roasted corn and Lemon Vinagrette - I'll probably skip the corn on this one.  My lemon vinagrette is just lemon juice and olive oil and some garlic and salt.  You can add mustard if you want it to hold together better.
Thursday:  Stir fry with tofu and all of the vegetables from our CSA and a side of brown rice.
Friday: Fish with a side of rice and...something with lima beans.

Something that helps me a lot is to make rice and quinoa in advance, because during the week, it's hard to remember to start the rice cooker as soon as one of us gets home from work so that the rice is done at a reasonable time.  (It's possible they make rice cookers that stay warm for hours for exactly this reason but ours burns stuff if it's beyond the time.)

I also made some cookies and chocolate chip bread to use up the 8 very large zucchini that came from our CSA (we went with the Jones Family Farm for any Baltimore locals and it's been great).  Mr. Barefoot approved of the cookies and pronounced them "pretty edible, in fact good."

What are you eating these days? Any low-carb, high protein suggestions for me?

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve tradition is to make an outrageously elaborate meal, just the two of us.  Something we have never made before and probably won't make again.

What is this one?
Lasagna

Now, before you roll your eyes and are like, "um, you've never made a lasanga before?" Let me elaborate.
We will be making our own pasta.  Our own cheese.  And our own tomato sauce.  There is some debate as to whether to use canned or fresh tomatoes for the tomato sauce, but I'm leaning towards canned because they are likely fresher than out of season imported tomatoes.  I'll report back how it went.

What are you doing?

Menu Plan

I thought I would share our menu plan for this week, since I know coming up with weekly meal plans is challenging for some folks and sometimes inspiration is nice.  This is actually just pulled from our "Menu Planning" master Google Doc, which is the best system we've come up with for sharing our menu plans and keeping recipes in one place.

This morning, I prepped all of the veggies, etc. for this week and it only took a couple of hours to prep everything and saute up the onions/peppers for the chili and for the enchilada filling.  I made the sweet potatoes in the crockpot while I did that, so all I'll need to do on Tuesday is put them in the oven or microwave to warm back up, and then top them with homemade cinnamon marshmallows.  Mostly, this week just required chopping onions and peppers (and I used frozen) and some garlic, but was pretty easy, so if you are wary of menu planning, I would recommend it.

Week of 11/17/13

• Sunday: caramelized tofu - http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/caramelized-tofu-recipe.html
• Monday: crockpot enchiladas  http://www.thekitchn.com/easy-dinner-recipe-slowcooker-127016
• Tuesday: fish, sweet potatoes, green beans (I'll probably do the fish with a honey mustard sauce)
• Wednesday: BBQ lentils http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/08/barbecue-lentils.html
• Thursday: 3 Bean Chili with chive flecked cornmeal Dumplings (CR) - http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/01/cookbook-challenge-fresh-from.html
• Friday: Pasta and sauce

Thanksgiving Awaits

Today I made marshmallows for Thanksgiving using this recipe.  I added two giant tablespoons of cinnamon and cut the vanilla in half, but they smelled really good and I'm going to test drive them on sweet potato casserole this week.

It seems like every year I go a little crazy and try to make something elaborate from scratch that I could just buy at the store.  One year I made my own stuffing bread, one year it was my own crescent roll dough.  I actually still make my own some of the time because it's much easier to work with.  This year I'm planning on making little brie-cranberry-crescent roll muffin cups, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Are you making anything from scratch? Is anyone having a very Pinterest Thanksgiving? I feel like soon I won't be able to log in without seeing a million pins of roasted turkeys wearing pilgrim hats on a bed of cranberries or something.

Crepes

I'm making this crepes recipe right now and it's delicious.  These are my most successful crepes yet. I made them in the food processor and started by sifting the flour in the food processor.  They are lump free, spreading easily, and not sticking to my crepe pan.  Today's fillings are nutella, almond butter mixed with nutella, and goat cheese with Italian herbs and seasoning.   I wish I had apple and brie.

Other crepe filling ideas?

Half-30, Weeks 2 & 3

Oh dear. I started a blog post with my remaining menu plan, and totally failed to continue. This was for a few reasons, the first being I found out there is actually a whole vegetarian paleo forum and movement, with websites with meal plans and stuff, so I started to feel obsolete, and secondly, um, I'm busy.

Breakfast:
-Sweet potato hash with fried eggs (I have made this 2-3 times a week and smoothies the other days)
-Paleo Oatmeal
-Oatmeal Minus the Oats
-Smoothies

Dinners:
- Coconut Red Lentil Soup

- Sauteed Scallops over Spaghetti Squash - I did not use this recipe. I used this one, and it was gross, and worse reheated.

-Catfish sauteed with cajun spices

-Salmon patties with a big salad and homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing (Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard)

- Chili Rubbed Salmon with coconut cauliflower rice

- Almond encrusted Tilapia 

-Black bean salad with avocado, tomato, and roasted peppers.

Snacks:
-Nuts
-Apples with almond butter
-Bananas
-Raisins

I'm on Week 4 now and this week I'm adding some grains back in.  This is partly because I just haven't been feeling as good this time as last time, and I realized that last time, I cheated way more. I had occasional potatoes or rice, and I felt much better. I had no energy through most of last week, and I was just really tired.

I also have concluded, that while a number of things on the Whole30 website talk about the importance of healing your relationships with food, and not "slipping up" or "cheating" and how horrible it is, I also decided that I'm sorry, but I do not want to look back on the awesome camping trip I took with my cousins and remember bitterly watching everybody else roast marshmallows around the campfire and feeling upset and like I missed out.  So I bought gluten free graham crackers and tried to make my own marshmallows but I failed at that so I bought some, and I bought really good dark chocolate, and I bought normal food for the other people, and I ate exactly two s'mores, which is less than usual, and I did not continue roasting marshmallows for the fun of it, which I hope indicates I'm working on my portion control.

I'm not sure what the next step is. I'm not sure whether I'm adding gluten back in. I think I will be, because I don't actually have a problem digesting it, but I think I will be limiting my intake of wheat to weekends/evenings so that I don't experience a carb crash during the day.  My new eating philosophy is to eat as little processed food as possible, and sleep as much as possible, and I think these two things combined will make me feel my best.  I think cutting sugar has been good for me, although I'm unable to kick my sweet tooth entirely, I'm very much so hoping to be able to kick soda for good one of these days. I also don't believe my body doesn't know the difference between raisins and chocolate, and I'm going to try to switch to healthy snacks instead of grabbing something toxic and candyfilled at the convenience store.

The biggest thing I got out of this was being totally convinced that the Once a Month Meals philosophy is a good one.  One big monthly cooking day to have most of my meals ready/prepped for the month is going to go a long way in the future, so now it's just a matter of clearing my freezer and making space one weekend a month.

Half-30

Half-30 started Monday. Alternatively, we could call it Whole 15. Basically, we decided to start with 2 weeks rather than the full 30 days.  Which basically means I'm throwing all of the rules of Whole 30 except no dairy no grains to the wind.  I picked Half-30 because I think it's short for "Half A$$ed 30" rather than pretending I'm actually doing this diet the correct way.  Do I recommend doing it the correct way? Absolutely. I think it will have even more benefits.  But for us, we're going to do 2 weeks, and then spend the next two weeks focusing on a way to live sustainably.  Anyway, I thought I'd post our menu plan for this week and talk about prepping for Half-30.

Sunday, I went to the farmer's market, Costco, and the grocery store. I spent all day cooking. I made a sweet potato black bean chili, I made a sweet potato frittata, I roasted sweet potatoes for snacks, I hard boiled eggs, I chopped onions and green beans and zuchinni and squash and sauted those things so they would be ready for the week.  I bought salad and spinach and all kinds of nuts.  I made nut butter so that I can have it on apples for a snack.

Being prepared is half the battle, and I knew for the first week, having easy snacking items on hand if dinner took a little longer, and having dinner ready to go, was paramount.  After the first week last year, I noticed I no longer got ravenously hungry and therefore could handle actually cooking food, but the first week is all about making sure dinner is ready and you have enough snacks so you don't turn to bad choices in the meantime.  I've been taking a giant bag of food to work with me so that I have enough food.  The only problem is that I'm really sick of all of my breakfast options.

 So here is our menu plan:
Breakfast:
-Sweet potato frittata
-Almond milk - banana - frozen berry smoothie
-Almond milk - spinach - banana smoothie

Lunch:
-Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili (recipe below)
-leftovers (I packed up the chili so that we would have lunches for the first day and then just in case we don't have leftovers from other stuff)

Dinner:
-Sweet Potato Cashew Chili with Cauliflower Rice
-Falafel with kale chips
-Grilled salmon salad with pecans, dried cranberries, homemade balsamic dressing
-Vegetable frittata (I pre sauted zuchinni and squash for this, I will just add eggs and omit the usual milk, yogurt and cheese)
-Seared scallops on spaghetti squash

Snacks:
-Hard boiled eggs
-Apples with almond butter or sunbutter
-Baked sweet potatoes
-Nuts
-Almond-date-cocoa balls  can also be made with

Sweet Potato Chili
1 Tbsp  oil
green pepper, sliced
red pepper, sliced
onion, sliced
2 cups vegetable stock
2 cans (15.5 oz each) black beans, undrained
1 can white beans
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 medium yam, peeled and diced 
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp cocoa 
2 Tbsp honey
3tbs  chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp  cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. Heat basting oil in medium stockpot on MEDIUM-HIGH. Add peppers & onions. Cook, stirring, 3-4 min until soft, but not browned. Add stock, beans and liquid, tomatoes, yam, vinegar, garlic, cocoa powder, honey,chili powder, cumin, and cinnamon.
    
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer on LOW, uncovered, 25-30 min. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Vegetarians and Whole 30

I've attempted Whole 30 twice and found it had great effects.  However, I've been reluctant to post about it because I'm a vegetarian, and therefore I'm not actually doing Whole 30 and the people who designed Whole 30 tend to be strict about what Whole 30 means, and the hardcorest fans tend to be really uptight about what Whole 30 means and I didn't want to get hate mail.

Whole 30 is pretty much impossible if you are a vegetarian - because it requires cutting out legumes and dairy.  If you are a pescatarian, this means you are surviving on nuts, eggs, and fish.  If you are a vegetarian, nuts and eggs for you (and not too many of either of those!)  While I think there is a good argument to be made for possibly cutting out soy, I'm not sure I buy this "beans are bad" argument.

So Whole 30 for me looks a lot more like my standard detox diet.  No gluten, no grains, no sugars, no processed food.  The reason I encourage people to try even my totally hacked, cheater version is because it works.  Both times I've done Whole 30, I've had races and I've had the best races I've ever had - feeling strong all the way to the finish line, and scoring a new PR.  I also notice that I'm not distracted by my hunger and I don't get hangry or ravenous.  I am probably missing out on 50% of the great benefits of Whole 30 by the brazen ways that I cheat, and I still find massive benefits to making this dietary shift.

I have not figured out how to switch from Fake Whole 30 to an actual Vegelo lifestyle - there's a lot of stuff out there about eating Paleo, but it focuses on meat.  I'd like to still be able to eat some grains and since I don't have any kind of gluten intolerance, it's unnecessary for me to cut out gluten, but cutting back or only making my own bread, etc. seems like it would have benefits.

We are in the process of moving right now, which means we are eating fast food and quick fix meals and big casseroles of pasta that I make on Sunday to last the week.  So I'm gearing up to do Whole 30 in September when we have finally moved and settled in a bit.  This will also get me through the Baltimore Marathon, for which I plan to run the relay, which is a short distance, and possibly through a yet-to-be-determined half.

The biggest problem with Whole 30 when you are a pescatarian is the amount of forethought required.  Since you aren't getting calories from carbs, you have to get them from vegetables and you have to cook a lot of vegetables.  They take awhile to prep and it can get exhausting.  So to gear up, I'm planning on assembling and freezing some crockpot meals with our summer garden produce, and creating a full menu plan for all 30 days so that thinking is not required and I can do as much prep work on the weekends as possible.

This is my spreadsheet from last time, with general meal plans and a few recipes.  I'm going to brush it up, find actual recipes, and make as much as I can in advance.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Week 1	Sweet Potato & Cashew Curry	Veggie Frittata	Grilled Salmon Salad	Chili	Stir Fry and Rice	Grilled veggie kebabs	Soup
Week 2	Salmon and green beans	Falafel and sweet potatoes	Shrimp sub for tofu http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/01/stir-fried_bok_choy_and_mizuna_with_tofu	Barbecue Lentils with kale	Shakshouka http://paleodietlifestyle.com/shakshuka/	Scallops and veggies	Soup
Week 3	Grilled fish salad	Barbecue Lentils, kale chips	Chili	Fish w/ Veggies	Squash and Bok Choy	Grilled vegetables and fish	Soup - Black Bean
Week 4	Bean chilli	Fish with vegetables	Salad with nuts and fruit	Chickpea curry	Veggie fritata	Stir Fry with shrimp	Soup  http://paleodietlifestyle.com/leek-and-sweet-potato-soup/

I also need to assemble a list of snacks and prepare as much of those as possible in advance.  I buy big bags of nuts from costco and toast them in the toaster oven so they are ready to eat; I make homemade date balls with walnuts and dates; I roast sweet potatoes and have them as a snack.  I prep kale so that I can toss it in the oven to eat as kale chips as quickly as possible.  I might try making my own barbecue sauce.    I also need to prepare breakfasts in advance - stock up on eggs, make some hardboiled eggs, prepare some mini frittata type things for grab-and-go mornings.

I'm thinking to start September 15th, and go until October 15th.  But moving is stressful, so we'll see.  I realize there are people who probably think that gearing up this much in advance for Whole 30 is also cheating, but really, I'm cheating so much that there is no point in calling this Whole 30, so if you are going to comment to tell me I'm doing it wrong, how about instead you just suggest a different name for whatever this 30-day-detox-no-processed-food-no-carb plan is?  Because "this weird diet I'm doing" is what I've called it in the past.  

Is anyone interested in hearing more about this? Is it worth my time to put together a couple more posts on gearing up and menu planning?

Kale Chips

Kale chips are delicious, but they are often somehow too crispy on the outside and too mushy on the inside.  Sister-in-Law Barefoot was making them a few weeks ago and we learned the secret is to cook them low and slow on about 200 degrees.  This is problematic in the summer when you don't want to run the oven, and your toaster oven doesn't make more than a single serving.  But they do cook faster - about 30 minutes on 250 (lowest setting our toaster oven has that isn't keep warm).  But otherwise, let's talk flavoring.  I found this Carolina Mustard Barbecue sauce at Harris Teeter and it makes for some really good kale chips - just enough kick, just enough flavoring.  Ironically, I hate barbecue chips, but these are pretty much the best kale chips I've ever had.

Recipe:
-4-6 leaves of kale chips, rinsed, torn into bite sized pieces
-Carolina Mustard Barbecue Sauce or some other mustard based barbecue sauce.

1.) Preheat oven to 250.
2.) Toss 2-3 tsp of barbecue sauce with kale chips until all leaves are well coated.
3.) Spread kale leaves in a single layer on baking pan.
4.) Bake at 250 for 30 minutes.

Strawberry Rhubarb Hand Pies

The farmer's market is open and I finally got to go.  I bought rhubarb, strawberries, and asparagus.  I don't make pie for almost the entire rest of the year, but ever since I discovered strawberry rhubarb pie a few summers ago, I make at least 2-3 pies in a 1 month period. 

 

Last year, at the end of strawberry season, I saw a recipe for hand pies.  I didn't have time to make any more pies, so when I came home with two pints of strawberries and a batch of rhubarb yesterday, I got to work on these guys.

 

I didn't do the egg wash on top and I didn't have any orange zest.  I think they would be better if they had something on top of the pies, and I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that they were worth it, work-wise, but since I now have a tupperware of them in my office instead of having to go home to eat pie, they certainly win on transportability. 

 

Any other good hand pie recieps out there?

 

English Lasagna (Freezer Meal)

I have gotten super-into freezer meals lately.  I'm dying to try Once a Month Mom, but I haven't had a chance yet to completely clear the freezer.  Once we have a house and a chest freezer though, oh man.

Anyway, when the Snowquester Storm hit, I hunkered down and spent the morning making freezer meals.  I did an enchilada casserole, which was mediocre, and I made an English Lasagna, which was spectacular.  I'm on the hunt for more good vegetarian ideas, if you have any to share.  I currently have a frozen baked ziti and a frozen fried rice meal all set to go, but I'm trying really hard to make sure we always have something to pull out and thaw when we don't have time to cook.

English Lasagna is made with a creamy bechamel sauce instead of ricotta cheese.  Or in addition to.  I didn't have any ricotta, and it was raining so I didn't go get any, so I improvised a bit.  It was so delicious that when we thawed it and cooked it, my husband ate my leftovers.

Ingredients (makes four servings in a loaf pan, double the cheese/milk if you want to use an 8x8):
-one package no-bake lasagna noodles
-one package veggie crumbles (or you can use real meat, but I don't know how to cook that, or how much to use - I guess half a pound?)
-two cups shredded cheddar cheese (plus more for topping)
-two cups milk
-2 tbsp butter
-2 tbsp flour
-half an onion, chopped
-a few cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350 even if you are freezing this for later (it's best to cook the pasta before freezing).
1.) Saute onion and garlic together until translucent.  Add veggie crumbles and tomato sauce.
2.) Saute butter and flour together until flour is brown.  Add milk and stir frequently until sauce thickens.
3.) Add cheddar cheese and melt.
4.) Layer no bake noodles, "meat" and top with bechamel sauce.  Continue until you have reached the top of the pan (I like to use thin layers and a lot of noodles.)
5.) Top everything with cheddar cheese and some extra tomato sauce, if you have any.
6.) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered with foil.  Then allow to cool, cover the foil with saran wrap, and freeze.
7.) To reheat, thaw for 24ish hours and heat in 350 degree oven for 1 hour.  (Keep foil on for first 45 minutes, then remove for the last 15 minutes.)

Any other freezer meal suggestions?

What I've Been Cooking

Some of the latest recipes I have tried and enjoyed include:

Slow Cooker Black Bean Enchiladas - we didn't have corn, so I subsituted green pepper.  It was still pretty tasty.  I also used whole wheat tortillas and you couldn't tell.  This would be a great recipe for a chicken/veggie household because you could divide your crock in half with foil to separate the two.

Pecan Encrusted Salmon - seriously amazing.  We've been using a lot more nuts in our cooking, and this is recipe that is going to become a regular.

Slow Cooker Indian Spiced Chickpea Quinoa Stew - this was just so easy to put together.  I didn't have turnips or celery so just used other veggies we had on hand, which included onions.  I also found that it was somewhat lacking in flavor, so I added more salt and a dash of heavy cream, which made it pretty delicious.

Pecan Quinoa Stuffing - our acorn squash went bad before I made this, so Mr. Barefoot roasted up some sweet potatos and we had it with that.  Like I said, we've been using more nuts.

I found pretty much all of these recipes on Pinterest, which I both like and dislike as a search engine.  I like it because it allows me to sidestep all the spammy responses I get from Google that take me to sites which then force me to search again and only have terrible recipes.  I dislike it because when you google an ingredient, sometimes you just get a pretty picture of brussels sprouts and sometimes you get 300 of the same brussels sprouts recipe.  Does anyone have any way around that?

Vegetarian Thanksgiving: Baked Potato Bar

I have been meaning to write this post for forever, but I didn't have the pictures. I still don't but I want to get it up anyway. We threw a baked-potato bar party over the summer, and at the end, I turned to Mr. Barefoot and said, "this would make a great thanksgiving!"

For a baked potato bar party, it's a super-simple concept that is really easy to make potluck and vegetarian or even vegan - we provided potatoes, greek yogurt, sour cream, butter, and spices, and everybody else brought toppings for both regular and sweet potatoes. We had black bean vegetarian chili, pulled pork, candied pecans, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, etc. For Thanksgiving, you could add roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, corn salsa or creamed corn, mac& cheese, green beans, and all manner of vegetables.

I love this as a vegetarian concept because nobody has to bring meat, and you end up with a holiday that doesn't revolve around meat. It's also novel enough that people won't complain as much about there not being a turkey. It's also great for people who are not very experienced cooks, because it's pretty hard to screw up baked potatoes. Just put a bunch on a cookie sheet and bake them for awhile. If you do eat meat, but don't cook very well, I personally would crockpot roast some drumsticks or something, and shred them to be a topping, but you could also provide roasted drumsticks as a side dish to avoid cooking a full bird. It also would be a great idea for a side dish if you do want to host a meal with a beautiful turkey, but don't want to put in the work to do multiple side dishes - a few potatoes go in the oven as soon as the turkey comes out, and while it rests, they bake, and everything is ready to go at once.

It also makes a great Thanksgiving leftovers brunch idea - because what leftovers aren't better on a roasted sweet potato? Minimal work, maximum fun - that's my kind of holiday!

What are you doing for a vegetarian (or carnivorous) thanksgiving?

Disaster Preparedness

I hope everybody is okay and safe and your families and loved ones are all well.  We got very lucky here in Baltimore and survived the storm unscathed, with power intact and only a slight leak in the ceiling.  But I wanted to address the issue of disaster preparedness - after the derecho in June, it occurred to me that we were ill-prepared to spend a week without power.  So when they started calling for Sandy, I wondered what we should do.

I think you all know how I feel about canned goods.  So it probably isn't a surprise that when I went to consider what we had in stock in case Sandy knocked out our power, we didn't have much. A few cans of soup, a few foil packets of Indian dinners.  Pretty much everything needs to be cooked.  We have an electric stove and a propane campstove.  We don't usually lose power - and when we do, it never makes sense - so we are more concerned about things like our roof staying on and our car not getting hit by a falling stop sign. But a little bit of disaster preparedness never hurt anybody, especially if the grocery stores can't be restocked for awhile.

When I woke up Saturday, I felt sick, so I dragged the husband to the store to pick up soup and Spaghetti Os, in case of disaster and mostly because I wanted them.  We went to buy bottled water and couldn't find any. (When we got home, we just filled a couple spare pitchers and all of our reusable water bottles.  We contemplated what other stuff we might need, and wound up buying taco tortillas because we keep Tasty Bite Madras Lentils in the pantry, and they make surprisingly good cold tacos (great camping food).  I also picked up a few cans of baked beans and some more canned soup.

We happen to have crackers and peanut butter leftover from our last camping trip, and we picked up some more snack food and some juice (I drink a lot of juice when I get sick).  We have a few cans of Trader Joe's tuna - that and the Sustainable Seas tuna is the only kind I will eat - and a bunch of cans of beans, which is kind of all we have for protein.

My dad said that we can use our propane stove in the fireplace, which does vent properly.  This means we can cook the package of fondue that we have

In the future, we will probably start keeping a regular "emergency kit".  I'm not really sure what should go in it - maybe one or two gallon jugs of water, a three day supply of canned goods (Spaghetti O's, tuna, peanut butter, a few Go Picnic meals, canned beans and soup, foil packets of tastybite Indian Entrees, nuts/seeds), a couple of flashlights, a pack of baby wipes/antibacterial wipes, and a spare batteries for the camping lantern. All of these things, except water, are things we will cycle through anyway, so maybe it would make sense to get a collapsible jug instead - which could be something we take camping.

Any other suggestions for what we should keep in our "emergency kit"?  What do you make sure you always have on hand?

Mrs. Veggie and Mr. Meat

I have a friend who came over for dinner last week and she expressed a bit of frustration at the fact that her husband not only eats mostly meat, but he's a picky eater with a pretty limited palate.  She's a vegetarian and he isn't, so I'm a bit familiar with their situation.  I made a couple of suggestions for meals that could easily accommodate meat, like curries and stir fries.  But I kept thinking about it and I feel like there must be a wealth of possibilities for meals that you can do two ways, and also don't require my friend to prepare meat. I'm starting with a lot of convenience food suggestions, which is an easy transition for people used to ordering takeout.

Here's a sample menu plan & shopping list for a week:
-Burgers & fries with salad
-Curry
-Barbecue (Lentils for her, pre-made pulled pork for him, barbecue carrots on the side)
-Frittata/Torta Espanola 
-Stir fry (with baked tofu for her and chicken for him)

Shopping List-
Burgers and Fries
-1 bag frozen sweet potato fries
-1 package veggie burgers
-1 package meat burgers
-1 package hamburger buns (these will also be used for barbecue night)

Curry
-1 bag frozen peas
-1 bag carrots (also for barbecue)

-Curry powder, coriander, tumeric
-4 medium potatoes (need 8 total)
-1 can coconut milk
-Onion (need 5 total)
-Frozen chicken strips or a rotisserie chicken (use in both the curry and the stir fry)


Stir Fry
-2 bell peppers
-1 container sliced mushrooms or another pre-prepared vegetable for stir fry
-snow peas or green beans or another green vegetable
-1 bottle of stir fry sauce/marinade or 1 bottle soy sauce and 1 bottle sweet and sour sauce (combine equal parts for an easy marinade)
-1 box extra firm tofu
-onion (need 5 total)

Frittata
-Eggs
-3-4 Potatoes (need 8 total)
-Onions (need 5 total)
-Plain Greek Yogurt (use instead of cream)

Barbecue
-Lentils (brown)
-Barbecue sauce
-pre-prepared Pulled Pork
-Onion (need 5 total)



Anyone have any other suggestions for meals for my friend?  What are your favorite carnivore-pleasing vegetarian meals?

Falafel Tacos

I like falafel alot, but it's time consuming to make.  Recently I had a delicious falafel taco, and it occurred to me that deconstructed falafel tacos are definitely the way to go.  So I took the falafel ingredients from The Meat Lovers Meatless Cookbook and popped them in the crockpot, then made tacos. 

Ingredients:
2 cups chickpeas (dried and soaked, or a can of dried chickpeas)
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tps baking powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried cilantro
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cracked pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Tortillas
Greek yogurt, dill
Tomato, sliced thinly

Procedure:
1. Combine chickpeas, onion, and garlic in food processor and pulse until well combined. 
2. Add remaining ingredients, continue to pulse until spices are evenly distributed.
3. Spray crockpot with olive oil. (Alternatively, spray a 9x13 pan and preheat the oven to 350). 
4. Cook on low 4-6 hours or high 3-4 hours or until crispy/crunchy and warm through. 
5.  Combine greek yogurt and dill until dill is dispersed in yogurt. 
6. Fill tortillas with falafel, greek yogurt, and tomato. 

Enjoy!

Barbecue Lentils

I spent way too much of my vegetarian life assuming that barbecue sauce wasn't for me.  I was wrong.  I've also recently discovered I like baked beans, although they aren't my favorite food at the barbecue.  However, my new obsession to bring to outdoor cookouts might very well be barbecued lentils, as they are easy, tasty, and I think the closest I've gotten to mimicking the texture of pulled pork.

Ingredients:
-1 onion, diced.
-several cloves garlic (between 4-6) chopped
-1 green pepper (or carrots/celery/crunchy vegetable) diced
-bottle of barbecue sauce at least half full
-2 cups (1/2 lb) dried lentils
-red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper if you like spice

Recipe:
1) Rinse lentils and put in a rice cooker. Pour boiling water over to cover, and with plenty of room to spare - I would say at least 4 cups.  Our electric kettle is metric so I can't be more specific.  Turn rice cooker on.  (This could also be done in a crockpot or on the stove, but I don't know how long the cooking time would be for that.)

2) Saute onion, then add garlic, and green pepper until mostly soft.  This should take about 15 minutes, and the lentils should start to look pretty soft and be splitting apart by this point.  If not, cook the lentils for longer. 

3) Drain lentils, add to pan with vegetables.  Add about half a bottle of barbecue sauce, and some cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes for heat if you would like.  

4) Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls

Too. Much. Cabbage.

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls:
Ingredients:
-1/4 shredded head of cabbage (shredded in the food processor so it's super thin)
-1 block of firm tofu, drained and run through the food processor
-5 spice powder (or any spice mixture you like - 5 spice powder is surprisingly sweet)
-1 onion, sliced thin (I just ran it through the food processor after the cabbage)
-soy sauce (I used Trader Joe's soyaki) - probably about 2 tablespoons.
-egg roll wrappers - about 10
-Olive Oil

Oven at 400.

Process:
1. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium high heat, add in tofu and spice powder and a little soy sauce (1 tbsp) and scramble until browned.  Set aside, or push to the edge of the pan.
2. Saute onions until translucent, add cabbage and saute until soft (about 5 minutes.)  Add remaining soy sauce.
3.  Wrap filling into egg roll wrappers - if you buy the nasoya brand, they have a diagram. Basically, make an envelope, then wet the flap and close it down.  Put rolls flap side down on a greased baking sheet.  Spray the tops with olive oil
4. Bake for 15 minutes.  I flipped them at about 12 minutes to get both sides equally crispy.

Enjoy!