Woman in Real Life

Outside my window it already looks like it's the middle of winter - snow on the ground and no evidence of sunshine. But I can't complain - I hear they're getting hammered with snow in Buffalo today. It's a bit early for hibernation still, but you'll find me staying inside whenever possible nevertheless. Staying inside and eating. But hopefully not excessively.

We have pasta at least once a week in our house. I think my husband had it almost every day growing up in an Italian family. I am good with having pasta regularly, especially if we alter the sauce a bit. One time we might add chickpeas, another time a handful of red lentils. This week I spotted Gardein vegan "meatballs" in the freezer section at the health food store. I'm a Gardein fan so I really wanted to give them a try. The Gardein meatballs are a bit larger in size than any vegan meatballs I've tried before. They are firm and dense and I enjoyed the texture. I spotted some fennel seeds in the mix. Because I chose to cook the meatballs in my sauce, the whole sauce was infused with the taste of the fennel and other spices from the meatballs. I'm not going to say it was my favourite flavour - I'd probably cook the vegan meatballs separately next time.


This past week being one in which I did no meal planning whatsoever, I was left scrambling to find lunch and dinner choices some days. I opened up a can of Amy's lentil vegetable soup one day and enjoyed it along with toasted spelt bread topped with peanut butter. I never find canned soups as tasty as homemade, but Amy's lentil vegetable soup is a good one to keep in the cupboard for days when you don't feel like making your own soup. It's natural, organic and low in fat, while providing you with protein and iron. Amy's alphabet soup has come in handy lately. My son likes it. He has had two teeth removed and braces put on his lower teeth. So he has needed a lot of soup!


One night for dinner we had black bean and refried bean tacos with this Mexican rice and broccoli. The rice is easy to make and was my favourite part of the meal. (You can see that I was short on toppings for my taco!)


My husband made a tofu loaf on the weekend. He has a few dishes he likes to make - pasta, tofu loaf and noodles with peanut sauce among them. If I don't have to cook, I'm good with any of them. The kids don't mind complaining though. I took this (rather ugly) picture of the leftovers I had for lunch the next day. The vegan gravy had kind of congealed by then. We also had cranberry sauce and roasted potatoes, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and zucchini.


Sunday morning called for a big stack of vegan blueberry pancakes, made from one of our favourite recipes in Isa Does It. I doubled the recipe to ensure everyone could stuff their faces with pancakes.


While I was making the pancakes, my husband made us some decaf soy lattes using the Starbucks Barista espresso cappuccino machine we bought many years ago. That machine has served us well. The latte was a lovely change from my usual decaf green tea.

What's on your menu this week?


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