vegan consulting

Family Meal Planning Tips

5 tips I use to make meal planning easier:

1) To save money and time, keep breakfast as simple as possible. Mornings are already crazy enough, so use this time to make delicious and healthy meals that take less than 10 minutes. You can serve oatmeal, grits, tempeh bacon with fresh fruit, smoothies, and much more.

2) Take a main food and plan a few meals around that ingredient- Google the ingredient with the tag “vegan recipes” and many options will be available to plan your meal around that item. Black beans are a great example of a main food to plan meals around.  One night you can make black bean burritos, and the next spicy black beans and rice. Save money by picking up dried beans opposed to the canned option. You can make your beans on the weekends and serve later in the week.

3) Put a spin on favorites and make enough for leftovers-Spaghetti is one of those meals that is very easy to change up.  You can literally serve spaghetti every week with a new spin.  One week try adding in sautéed mushrooms and the next lentil balls.

 

Come Grocery Shopping with Me! #1 (Video)

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Hey! I hope you're having a great weekend. :-)

When I went grocery shopping the other day, I decided to take the camera along to talk about organic food, my love of Wegmans (and grits lol) , the numerous emails I get telling me to stop eating tofu, and also do a mini-haul of some of the items I picked up.

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Check out the video below and be sure to subscribe to my channel for more vlogs and recipe videos.  Thanks for reading & watching!

Purple Dinosaur Smoothie

Even though my kids aren't in Barney's target audience anymore, the purple dinosaur is the first thing I thought of while working on a name for this recipe.

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For whatever reason, #thesekids are over green smoothies for the moment, so I came up with a simple fruit one to get them back on the smoothie train.

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Purple Dinosaur Smoothie

by Brown Vegan

Keywords: breakfast dessert snack vegan

Ingredients (Serves 3 kids)

  • 2 cups soy or almond milk
  • 1 cup frozen blueberries
  • 1 frozen banana, peeled
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

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Grocery Haul

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I always get excited when I'm up and at the grocery store before the crowd.

Since we're not completely out of food at home, I was determined to spend no more than $100 on this trip.

What I picked up...

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Black rice (1st time trying it), kale, tomatoes, garlic, lemon, onion, peanut butter, bread, rice flour, boxed waffle, slider buns, TVP, Vegenaise, Earth Balance vegan margarine, avocado, soy yogurt, apples, tamari soy sauce, canned kidney, garbanzo & pinto beans & tomatoes, salt, 6 red bell peppers, frozen corn, fresh basil, cilantro & parsley,  bananas, chick'n flavored bouillon cubes, rice flour, grits, sun-dried tomatoes and lettuce.

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My total was $106. I'll take it!

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I could've easily maintained my $100 goal, if I didn't throw in that last minute bag of fries (#thesekids love them), vegetable broth, peanut butter and Thai Kitchen's instant rice noodle soup.  When I wander away from the grocery list, it never fails that the bills goes higher. Duh! lol

This grocery haul should last us about 5 days.

What's on the menu?

I'm making buffalo chickpea nuggets (will actually make a BBQ version for the kids), veggie burgers, bean chili, falafel sliders, polenta squares, green juice, pancakes and tacos.

What's on your menu?

Stuffed Red Bell Peppers Recipe

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A couple of months ago, I saw Sorted Food make a vegetarian version of this recipe using mozzarella cheese.  I made it vegan and the kids loved it.  These bell peppers make for a perfect lunch or weeknight recipe.  

Watch me make the recipe in the video below, and update me if you try it.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more recipes and vlogs. 

Stuffed Bell Peppers Recipe

by Brown Vegan

Keywords: bake entree vegan

Ingredients

  • 3-5 large red bell peppers, seeded and cut in half
  • 1 tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 2 cups rice, cooked
  • ½ cup red onion, chopped
  • 2 tbsp cilantro
  • ½ cup black olives, chopped
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • ½ tsp dried oregano
  • 1/3 cup vegan cheese, shredded

Instructions

Preheat oven at 325º

Sprinkle garlic powder olive oil on each bell pepper. Bake for 10 minutes.

Adjust the oven temperature to 375º

Mix all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and spoon mixture into each bell pepper half.

Season to taste.

Bake for 10-15 mins (mine usually takes 13 mins).

Enjoy!

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