Make-a-Menu Monday--March 30, 2015

In light of the 3-Week "David Avocado Wolfe Challenge" to start next week, I thought I would plan a menu for the week that avoids certain potentially common processed foods and includes plenty of veggies.  Being frustrated lately with trying to find new ideas for a week-long menu plan and finding only 5-day plans, I made sure to make this week's plan a full 7 days of meals. The plan, as usual, is dairy-free, and with some simple substitutions (gluten-free tortillas, gluten-free pasta), can be completely gluten-free, as well.


Monday: Crock pot whole chicken with baked potatoes, garden salad (think green or red leaf lettuce, cucumber chunks, chopped tomatoes, shredded carrot...), and cooked green beans.

Tuesday: chicken fajitas with homemade seasoning mix, red onions and different coloured peppers and garden salad.

Wednesday: spaghetti with homemade spaghetti sauce (with meat or meatballs or without) served with Caesar or garden salad

Thursday: chicken and vegetable fried rice; I've made that recipe before but substituted broccoli and cauliflower and went heavy on the veggies. It's delicious!

(Good) Friday: Since many will be going meatless today, a simple casserole made with macaroni noodles, jarred pasta sauce (check the label to find one without weird chemicals in it), and mixed frozen vegetables topped with your choice of cheese.


Saturday: lasagna (Daiya cheese for mine) with cooked carrots and homemade vegan Caesar salad dressing

Easter supper/Sunday: ham served with dairy-free mashed potatoes, roasted baby carrots, lemon-parsley green beans

Enjoy! :)

Make-a-Menu Monday--February 23, 2015

A young girl the other day said to her friend, "My mom never knows what to make for supper!" I laughed--but understood. How about you? If we had a menu plan, then we'd know what to make, wouldn't we?

So, I'm back to menu planning. I see why figuring out what to make each day is hard because sitting down to figure out what to make this week has been hard because I want to cut back on the wheat. And looking back on menu plans I posted on this blog before, I can see that what we eat hasn't really changed much in the past couple of years. *sigh* I'm sure my whole family would benefit by having some nice new things.

Running out of time before I head to the grocery store, I don't know what will be new, but I have considered things I don't make very often. Here's my supper plan for the week:

MONDAY (*gluten-free, dairy-free): pan-fried chicken (I'll use a gluten-free flour blend) and mashed potatoes (with rice milk and vegan margarine) with steamed broccoli


TUESDAY (*gluten-free, dairy-free) (early supper with kids; need something that reheats well):  Italian sausage and penne marinara with a salad; I'll probably make a batch of wheat flour penne and a batch of gluten-free penne and just have the sauce on the side for people to add to their choice of noodles. I've made this before and it was delicious! (Although I admit I ended up modifying, but I can't remember why... I think I just ended up putting in far more spices because I didn't have the stewed tomatoes.)

WEDNESDAY (*gluten-free, dairy-free): slow cooker day: I'm not 100% decided on what I'll make Wednesday, other than it will be a slow cooker day. I'm thinking either Lemon Chicken with Potatoes and Mushrooms or Beef Roast and Vegetables. If I get a chance to find something vegetarian, dairy-free, wheat-free and sounding tasty, I will make that instead.

THURSDAY (*dairy-free) (only husband, son and I for supper): sloppy joes (at my son's request); my daughter's not super thrilled with sloppy joes and the "men folk" like it so much that one recipe doesn't really make enough for the four of us (I suppose I should fill them up on veggies or something first!) so Thursdays are good days.

FRIDAY (*gluten-free, dairy-free) (only both teens and I for supper; it's also Lent, so meat-free): vegetable stir fry, possibly chop suey-style or with chow mein noodles

SATURDAY (only both teens and I for supper): We might actually go out for supper. If not, I'll make it a simple supper or each-to-his-own night.

SUNDAY (*dairy-free):  lasagna (one with cheese for them, small one with Daiya cheese for me). We normally reserve lasagna for a special occasion, but it's been a while! Served with Casear salad and possibly cooked carrots and garlic bread.

Looking at that all typed up and seeing 4 days of gluten-free meals, I'm pretty pleased with it!

What's your menu plan for the week? How do you go about deciding?

Menu Planning Can Be HARD

My 16-year old has been having increasing stomach pains, but has also been eating an increasing amount of wheat lately. Although in the past some activated charcoal did the trick, it doesn't seem to be helping the pain. Whether the pain is from something else or whether it's just so prolonged and she keeps eating wheat so it's not going away, we're not sure, but it's time to do something. Add to that, I've been feeling the need to go wheat-free for a while again, so with the two of us wanting to work on it, it's definitely time.

She wants to just cut back on her wheat; last time she had these pains, it took a few days of being wheat-free for them to disappear completely. So, I want to encourage her to at least go three days wheat-free and see if it helps. But that means having a menu plan. And although we previously did a couple of weeks straight of wheat-free, I'm sitting here trying to plan a wheat-free supper plan for the week and struggling! It's kind of sad that wheat is that much a part of our lives again, that we're that dependent on it.

Ideas I've come up with so far (and given they are for me, too, they are dairy-free, or able to be made dairy-free):

*chicken piccata (from the Wheat Belly 30-Minute or Less Cookbook) with potatoes and veggies
*a veggie or chicken and veggie stir fry with rice
*tacos (without the wheat tortillas; the Wheat Belly 30-Minute or Less Cookbook has a wheat-free recipe I could try or I could see about a traditional Mexican corn soft tortilla)
*pizza, with one of the crusts made with the recipe from Cooking for Your Gluten-Free Teen
*chili or spaghetti with gluten-free noodles
*skillet rice, kidney beans and tomatoes

This felt very hard to come up with. And it only covers 6 days, not the next 7. AND this is just for supper, not the other meals. She has already requested that I make the stuffed peppers recipe from Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Every Meal of the Day for lunch. I'm not sure I have what I need to make it, although I modify it anyhow because I can't eat one of the nuts in the recipe. But she'll need more than stuffed peppers to make it through even a few days of wheat-free eating!

Why does this feel so hard? It's not like we haven't done it before. But it's like a vague memory. I will have to see what I can dig up from this blog about what we've eaten in the past!

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Cookbooks mentioned above:

This Week's Supper Plan

I'm taking it fairly easy today as I nurse a cold that has hit me hard. Other than taking a nap and drinking tea, I thought it would still be nice to actually get something done. I had thought about posting on my vacation site, but realized that the info I need to access it is on a disconnected, damaged hard drive at the moment. I have a back up... somewhere... lol. I'm in no mood for searching for it, so I decided I would look through some cookbooks today and come up with some supper ideas for the week.

ALL of my menu ideas on this blog are automatically dairy-free or easily adaptable between dairy and dairy-free. I don't consume any dairy at all--except for movie theatre popcorn butter which is clarified butter that doesn't have any of the protein that bugs me. So, if you are dairy-free or wanting to go dairy-free, EVERYTHING I post on this blog is safe!

The first book I've got beside me is How It All Vegan!: Irresistible Recipes for an Animal-Free Diet by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer.



*I already know that I want to make the Holy Moly Hummus on page 95. This is the most delicious hummus I have ever eaten! It is great as a veggie dip but also with tortilla chips, especially the Tostitos round chips. I was actually going to make some yesterday and discovered that not only was my tahini several months past the best before date, but that I didn't even have half of what the recipe called for, so I need to get to the store before I can make this. I actually change the recipe slightly and don't put in the parsley and have never tried it with the jalapeno. This recipe is actually so good, and I think I'm allowed to share a small number of recipes from books, that I'm going to share it here now for you:

1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
splash of olive oil
2.5 cooked or canned chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
3/4 cup of tahini
1.5 tbsp Braggs (or soy sauce; I use Braggs)
1/2 cup lemon juice (or you can use 1/4 cup water + 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar; I use lemon juice, mmmmm mmmm)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (haven't ever tried it with the parsley)
1/4 cup chopped jalapeno pepper (optional)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt

It's very easy to put together: You sauté the chopped onion and garlic in the splash of olive oil on medium heat until the onions are translucent. In a blender or food processor (if you use a blender, it had better be a large one!), put the onion, garlic and all the rest of the ingredients. Blend until it's the consistency you want. It makes about 2 cups of hummus. You can freeze whatever you won't eat in the next few days!

But that's for snacking and dipping. How about the supper ideas?

I asked my kids what they would make for supper this week. My 13-year old son said he wanted to make spaghetti and my 16-year old daughter had been wanting to make spaghetti, largely so she could make a meatball recipe we all love that she got from her foods science (aka home ec.) class. They are going to work together to make supper one night this week with my son making the sauce (family recipe) and his sister making the meatballs. Just got to figure out other nights they can help with. :D

Tonight, we are having pizza. I use a mix of Daiya cheddar and mozzarella on my pizza (well, my half of the pizza). I find that the mozza can easily be overdone but the cheddar doesn't bother me at all, so my pizzas usually have more Daiya cheddar than mozza on them! I'll be using my breadmaker to make the crust. Well, the dough for the crust.

We have some fish I'll serve with rice and veggies and salad one night.

I've got some turkey sausages I can make with potatoes another night. (Yes, and add in veggies, but we usually eat our veggies raw at supper so it doesn't really require any specific planning!) I'm pretty sure the sausages are gluten-free, so that will make a dairy- AND gluten-free meal.

I think I'll try the Chicken, Broccoli, and Carrot Stir-Fry on p. 122 of Cooking for Your Gluten-Free Teen: Everyday Foods the Whole Family Will Love.


We've really liked everything we've tried so far from this book and we love stir fry meals, so it should be good. :)

How many meals does that bring me up to? Five. Including tonight's. That'll bring me to Thursday. Okay, we'll have chili one night. There. Brings us to Friday. Good enough for now. lol

So, quick recap for a dairy-free menu plan for the week (er, part of the week):

*homemade pizza made with Daiya cheese (could use the pizza crust recipe from the above-mentioned Cooking for Your Gluten-Free Teen for a gluten-free option; the crust is really good)
*spaghetti and meatballs (could easily be gluten-free by using gluten-free pasta and gluten-free bread crumbs)
*crispy fish and rice
*turkey sausages with potatoes (gluten-free!)
*chicken, broccoli and carrot stir fry with rice (gluten-free!)
*chili (gluten-free!)

Clearly, I am not focusing on meatless meals this week, but I will be looking at vegan and raw vegan things during the day, like Ani Phyo's  Coconut Breakfast Cakes (I finally found golden ground flax seed!) and some other things. I also got a free Actifry recently and have only so far used it to make French fries. It would be nice to explore other recipe options, for any meal.

Do you plan dairy-free meals? Do you have a plan for this week you'd like to share? Or are you looking for more dairy-free supper ideas--or perhaps specific recipes? Let me know!

Dairy-Free Menu Plan

More and more people are going dairy-free and searching for ideas of what to eat. So many people tell me they couldn't do it, they couldn't go dairy-free. Sometimes it takes not having a choice--to have horrible reactions--to finally do it. But I think that if I had also seen "normal" menu ideas, I might have had an easier time with the switch. So, I've decided to share a basic weekly menu plan with you!

MONDAY
Breakfast: oatmeal with milk alternative; I prefer almond (naturally high in calcium) or calcium-fortified rice milk (if you use instant oatmeal, check the ingredients; I like to eat Quaker Brown Sugar instant which is dairy-free here) and orange juice

Lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwich with carrot sticks and hummus or tahini; if you use butter in your sandwich, use a vegan margarine instead (Becel Vegan or Fleischmann's non-hydrogenated margarine--apparently a Canadian product and I don't know if the American Flesichmann's spread is dairy-free or not. BEWARE! Most margarines contain whey, a milk product.)

Supper: chili with pasta and an assortment of raw veggies (carrots, broccoli, cucumbers...)

TUESDAY
Breakfast: cereal with milk alternative (many, many cereals are dairy-free, like Rice Krispies, Cheerios, Special K, many Nature's Path cereals...)

Lunch: salad with leftover chili

Supper: chicken and veggie stir fry (super easy way is to stir fry chicken, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower, maybe some snow peas, and use a bottled teriyaki or other sauce to add some flavour) with rice

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: sandwich with dairy-free deli meats (I tend to buy the prepackaged ones because the deli counter doesn't seem to always have ingredients readily available!), lettuce, cucumber--NO cheese. Mayo (here, anyhow) is dairy-free.

Supper: minestrone soup (find an easy recipe online; some are truly super easy!) with salad

THURSDAY
Breakfast: choice of cereal with milk alternative

Lunch: leftover soup

Supper: Tacos. Just skip the cheese (or try an alternative cheese if you like; I was a cheese lover and have found I'd prefer to just skip the cheese!)

FRIDAY
Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: pasta salad with rotini noodles, tuna, cooked peas and mayo; can serve on a bed of lettuce

Supper: grilled cheese with salad or veggies. I prefer Daiya cheddar-style for the cheese; if you choose another cheese, make sure there isn't any milk in it since many of the alternative cheeses have casein, a milk protein

SATURDAY
Breakfast: eggs and toast with orange slices

Lunch: Hot dogs (check the ingredients!! many have milk products!) with raw veggies and hummus

Supper: Spaghetti with tomato-based sauce; some recipes are very simple, but you could always go for a bottled version, but, as usual, check the ingredients! A lot are dairy-free, but a good number also have cheese in them. Serve with a salad. And maybe some garlic toast (just pop bread in the toaster, spread with vegan margarine and sprinkle some garlic powder over top). You can purchase soy-based parmesan cheese or, if you are willing to go a step further, check out Mimi Kirk's Caesar salad recipe, specifically the cashew parmesan part. This stuff's AMAZING.

SUNDAY
Breakfast: something light--a single piece of toast, an orange, a banana, a fruit smoothie...

Lunch/Brunch: pancakes (made with milk alternative; your regular recipe works just fine with almond or rice milk, but if you use a prepackaged mix, check the ingredients first!). If you use real maple syrup, you will be adding to your calcium intake.

Supper: roast chicken (consider purchasing a pre-cooked one at the store; they are sometimes cheaper than purchasing a fresh or frozen chicken and roasting it yourself!) with roasted potatoes, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower and salad

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This is all just a suggested basic, hopefully simple, menu plan that does not include snacks and desserts, which can also be easily dairy-free. It is not intended to cover all of your calcium or other needs (like fruit and vegetable consumption) and, for the most part, tries to avoid prepackaged foods. If you use microwave meals and such, just check the label first, but be prepared to find that most have milk in them. Fill in the above with fruits and vegetables, and additional foods for calcium intake, such as tofu made with calcium sulfate, soy or other alternative yoghurts with calcium (read the label!), plant foods high in calcium such as almonds, sesame seeds (tahini, made with sesame seeds, is a very good source of calcium), dark green leafy vegetables, Chinese cuisine foods such as bok choy... There are many more possibilities and various things we eat, but I tried to keep things as simple as possible for this first menu plan. The cookbook Calciyum!: Delicious Calcium-Rich Dairy-Free Vegetarian Recipes has more ideas AND includes calcium content.

If you are trying to go dairy-free and use the above menu to give it a whirl, let me know how it goes! It's been a while since I've been dairy-free newbie and it can be hard to make things simple when we've been beyond simple for a while. :) If you have any questions about the above suggestions, let me know, too!

A Tuesday Mishmash

Make-a-Meal Monday--completely forgot about it. The way this week is, I can't even remember what we had last night. (lol). We will be having pancakes tomorrow evening (yes, that's right, Ash Wednesday instead of Shrove Tuesday--a tradition in my husband's French Canadian family) and Thursday, we might have Chinese take-out or something for Valentine's (yes, the whole family; my husband and I have never done something special for Valentine's Day just the two of us!) and Friday... Well, who knows. lol

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I've failed my family--Yes, somewhat melodramatic, which is funny given I'm probably the least melodramatic person you'll come across, but I feel I've failed in everyone's nutrition education and like I need to really take charge of our nutrition around here and not only get some much needed education in, but really make sure that I eat properly, which will make it all the easier to make sure they eat properly. A certain someone, who shall remain nameless but let's just say I am not homeschooling this person as s/he's much too old for that, said last night, when I pulled out the cut up raw veggies, that s/he had had a bag of veggies at lunch so didn't need to have anymore. Like you can have too many veggies.

I did some searching this morning: If one of the baggies constitutes 2-3 (Canadian) servings of veggies, this particular person is supposed to be having 8-10 servings (possibly more, given this person's high metabolism) of fruits and vegetables a day according to the Canadian guidelines. Now, from everything I've read, a higher percentage of fruit and veggie intake and fewer than the recommended grains would be better, but I digress: This person, who may have had something like 3-4 servings of juice at lunch, which I refuse to count as 3-4 servings of fruit since it's not like it's fresh juice, and possibly had a banana at breakfast--but not guaranteed, had therefore had at best 8 servings of fruits and vegetables during the day, but probably more like 5-6. But what to say since I know I'm not getting lately anywhere near what I ought to be?

There is a part of me that is hoping that as I work on nutrition and perhaps figure out charts or something that can be on display that this particular someone that I love dearly will learn a little something? This person was somewhat reluctant to accept that white sugar wasn't what was meant by people needing to consume sugar (glucose). I'm not actually sure I've convinced him/her. But at least I can tackle the kids--and my own--food consumption!

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Might have overdone the stairs--I decided to do 5 sets straight of my stairs today. I'm not feeling the type of discomfort I had yesterday, but actual moments of pain. Too much too quickly once again. I will do some good stretching/yoga this evening and cut back to 4 sets tomorrow. On the flip side, the kids and I went to the mall today and we never just stand on the escalator--what a waste of muscle use and time!--so we walked up as we usually do. I could tell that it was much easier than in the past. I can't believe how much difference just a few days has made. Makes me feel optimistic for the parent duty day next week!

That's it for now!

Make-a-Menu Monday

Last week's menu plan was such a great thing for me to have done! It was just nice to have that part decided ahead of time. I didn't have to figure anything out during the week, other than just a quick check to make sure I had everything I needed.

Thursday's plan didn't end up being followed, unfortunately. That story's long and uninteresting, but a lesson was learned: I can't just plan a simple supper, I must make sure I actually have all the ingredients (um, yeah, was missing a key item) and that the alternate simple supper isn't going to take forever to make since I can't start supper until about 4:30-4:45 on Thursdays.

We still haven't heard back from the doctor about my 15yo's tests for gluten intolerance/allergy (celiac), which I'm hoping means is good news. I still like the idea of working toward wheat-free/gluten-free meals (or meals that are easily made gluten-free), but I'm not so focused on it this week.

What I've been doing when making my meal plan is keeping in mind what's going on this week: are there time constraints? do I need to pick up specific items? is there a time during the day I can stop at the grocery store if I need something else? (At the same time, this process makes me really wish we were on holidays still as the busyness is feeling a bit overwhelming!)

With that in mind, my meal plan:

Monday: chili

Tuesday: stir fry with rice; I bought a bag of stir fry veggies mix today and a bottle of VH stir fry sauce

Wednesday: something with the Swedish meatballs we have in the freezer downstairs. Made it with rice last time; might find a recipe to make with potatoes this time.

Thursday: super simple night--maybe just grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. Maybe I'll make it the evening that my son makes supper. ;D

Friday: I'd like to make a crockpot recipe. Or maybe a pressure cooker recipe. Either way, I'm going to have to figure something out, but didn't manage to before posting this! Deadline: Wednesday morning. That way I can purchase any ingredients I might need while my daughter is in her dance class at lunch time.

Yes, I'm stopping there yet again. I do need to start figuring out the whole week, I know, but right now, this is a good start. ;)

Care to share your menu plan for the week?

Make-a-Menu Monday

I have a thing with titles. It just kind of gets my attention, helps me stay focused or committed. I'm on a "FlyBud" list (people using FlyLady's approach in one form or another in their homes) where we've done things like post our list for the day, but the subject line is "Marvelous Monday"--just to play around with our minds and not let ourselves get thinking, "Ugh, another Monday!"

"Make-a-Menu Monday" tells me I need a menu plan for the week by Monday. I keep procrastinating starting a menu planning habit, even though I know that once I get into it, it will make things a lot easier around here. If you're thinking a menu plan would be good for you, too, please join me!

Here is the supper menu I've come up for this week, well, at least for Monday through Friday. I did keep them all to things that could be easily made gluten-free and thought about my son's desire to return to a higher number of vegetarian suppers. Given the craziness of last week and potential craziness this week, I also stuck to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Silly), focusing on things we've had fairly often, rather than venturing really into adding in a lot of raw or vegan:

MONDAY: Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, fresh veggies

TUESDAY: Chicken fajitas with peppers

WEDNESDAY: Mexican rice and bean recipe and fresh veggies (vegan version)

THURSDAY: Chicken and potatoes (probably dairy-free mashed) with cooked broccoli and/or carrots and a salad

FRIDAY: Minestrone (I need to find the recipe I wanted to do! vegan)

There! It feels nice to have that part all decided.Of course, now I have to make sure I have everything I need to make it all... ;)

Do you make a meal plan for the week? What's yours this week?