In last week’s menu plan, I didn’t mention that the meals were actually what I was planning for the kids and that Hubby and I were going on what I call a Crazy Diet. Really, it’s a liver-cleanse-thing his doctor recommended where we eat only fruits and veggies.
For two whole weeks.
I didn’t mention it because I was in a rather bad mood about the whole thing and might have gone on a snarkiness-overload-binge if I wrote about it.
Honestly, I also didn’t think we could really do it. When Hubby was complaining of a really bad headache for the second day in a row on Tuesday . . . I was secretly hoping he was going to call it quits. I was ready to be an encouraging wife and assure him that it was okay, and that fruit/veggie-only diets just aren’t for some people.
But he kept going, and so did I. And honestly, it hasn’t been nearly as bad as I expected. We’ve tried lots of new ways of fixing veggies, our kids have eaten way more vegetables than usual because there are so many options on the table at each meal, and we’ve been amazed at how just a week of this kind of eating has positively affected our overall appetites.
Anyway, this Crazy Diet will have a big effect on our menu plan this week. One more week.
Only . . . one . . . more week . . .
Monday – Veggie Stir Fry (water chestnuts, broccoli and kale) plus Ramen for the kids.
Tuesday – Baba Ganoush (recommended by Mary on facebook after my Eggplant Catastrophe Saturday night)/Quesadillas for the kids
Wednesday – Caramelized onions with spinach and mushrooms/Fajitas for the kids
Thursday – Shredded sauteed Zucchini with a marinara sauce made from fresh Roma tomatoes. (Unless I can find a spaghetti squash.)/Pasta for the kids
Friday -Spinach and artichokes/Pizza for the kids
Saturday – Portobello Mushrooms and salad
Sunday – Hummus and veggies
I seriously can’t wait to make NEXT week’s menu plan.
Please PLEASE feel free to leave links to any vegan recipes you love in the comments! We also aren’t eating grains, so that rules out a lot of the ones I’ve found.
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Did you listen to my interview with Debba from Girlfriendology on BlogTalkRadio yet? Warning, it starts playing automatically when you click over.
I’ll be linking this up to Menu Plan Monday over at Orgjunkie.com.
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Good luck on one more week of veggies only! You might try searching for paleo vegetable dishes. Paleo main courses are meat-centric, but the side dishes are grain-free and (usually) dairy-free. There are lots of good veg dishes to pick through here: http://nomnompaleo.com/recipeindex Also, cauliflower makes great “rice” (and makes great fried rice), coconut milk is an awesome cream substitute (perfect for cream soups), and you can make pancakes out of bananas and sweet potatoes.
My husband was soooo excited when I mentioned the possibility of cauliflower fried rice!
Thanks for the link!
it is kinda wrong for poor Nony that the first picture on that page is of Bacon & Guacamole Sammies. You can do it Nony and I bet you could do your chicken stir fri (that has become a family fav at my house) with out the chicken and sub the cauliflower.
OOhh! I have been meaning to try super chopped up cauliflower as taco filling.
I’d suggest raw recipes. Are you allowed to have nuts? They are great substitutes for grains and cheeses. Also, cabbage makes great noodles when sliced thin.
We can have nuts. So, boil the cabbage like you would noodles?
We had ours raw. If you let them sit in the sauce for 10-15 min. they soften up nicely. You could steam them too. Boiling would probably make them too mushy. It depends on what you like.
Since you can have nuts, blending 2 cups almonds with 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup water and a clove of garlic in a food processor or good blender makes a nice cheese substitute too. Looking around for raw recipes will give you lots of other tricks you can do with nuts and seeds.
You might also want to look up “Daniel Fast” recipes. My church does a Daniel Fast each year, and this is basically what the diet is. (Only things that can be grown, in natural form). So you would probably find a lot of recipes that way as well.
Your creativity working in your parameters and your determination are inspiring! Thanks for sharing and have a blessed week!!
Grilled or roasted cauliflower with basil and Olive oil = yum.
Grate 3-4 zucchinis & one large onion (halved and finely sliced is fine for the onion) in a pot + some salt to sweat, leave for a while till juicy, squeeze out and pour some salty liquid in the sink, + sweet smoked paprika and black pepper and cook on stove for about 20 minutes. At this point I add a dollop of sour cream to a steaming bowl and eat with fresh German rye bread, but it is also good on its own.
My hubby and I are also on a “crazy diet”…We started last Sunday (so this is day 8) of eating only plant foods in preparation for a juice fast. The website we are using is jointhereboot.com and under the Plan Your Reboot tab you will fine tons of recipes for plant foods/juices/smoothies.
Enjoy your final week…they say it gets better 🙂
I am planning on 10 days on the juice fast then 5 days eating plant foods to break the fast then gradually back to the “real life” foods. We are feeling energy that we haven’t felt since….well, ever!!
Blessings,
Amy ~mom to nine in MN
*day 8…..not 8)
Dumb symbols don’t know what I mean!
I don’t know if people know how to “save” or “store” vegetables. It is possible to freeze veggies. Most cases wash (to remove pesticide residue derived from the growing process, even organic produce) then blanche fairly quickly (hot water for about a minute or more, less if it’s homegrown vegetable matter; same for cooking homegrown veggies…a lot less cooking time) then dry and pack in a freezer bag. One can even pack tomatoes whole in the freezer and when they thaw the skin will practically fall off. (I might remove the core, though.) Date the packages so you can keep track. Onions keep in a bin in the fridge or the basement. Same with potatoes. They actually keep a fairly long time. A good read on growing one’s own produce and saving for consumption is the book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
When preparing a mostly vegetarian menu, I do recommend finding a way to include sufficient protein. Even for Adults’ menu. Vegetables do contain some protein, but there are things one can add that really boost the protein. Such as Tofu (a complete protein, and vegetable-based protein).
Don’t eat too much hummus in one sitting. It can bloat one and fill the house with terrible farting. No company that night!! LOL
Have you tried green smoothies? Just add spinich or kale to your favorite smoothie recipes. You can hardly taste the veggies and if you use blueberries or sometrhing else dark, you can barely see them, either. But what a vitamin boost! Skip the milk and use juice (even concentrates) and ice cubes or frozen fruit for added texture.
I found your site on I’m an Organizing Junkie. To be honest it was the veggies that drew me in. I have a daughter with PKU, so she’s pretty much a vegan minus the soy. She can’t eat protein,so that strictly limits her diet. I’m finding so many great finds on your site thanks to all of the comments from your readers. Good luck with the cleanse. Ever since our daughter started eating solid foods, we’ve found that the rest of the family has been eating a lot more fruits & veggies too. It definitely makes us feel as though we’re being better parents, because until LIly was born, fruits and veggies were a minor thought in our family! 🙂
Google weight watchers 0 point soup! Yummy and all veggies. 🙂
http://healthygirlskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/big-list-of-no-oil-salad-dressings.html
Good dressings for a big salad. I usually do about 6 cups of lettuces, 1 can of rinsed beans, a chopped up crunchy fruit, some other veggies, dressing and dried onion, garlic or sesame seeds sprinkled on top.
Yummy Peanut Sauce
1/2 cup nut raw nut butter of your choice,
1/2 cup Bragg’s liquid aminos, coconut aminos or low sodium soy sauce,
6 large medjool dates soaked in a little hot water,
6 tbsp lime juice and zest,
fresh ginger and garlic to taste (I add a teensy bit of powdered ginger too), optional -red pepper flakes.
water for desired cosistency
Mix in food processor or high powered blender. Recipe from Chef AJ.
I put this over about 6 cups of a mix of either steamed swiss chard (salty!), kale, zucchini (sweet), cabbage, green beans, broccolini, broccoli, and I guess cauliflower might be good. I feel oinky noises coming on right now.
Or I just dip celery or cukes in it, or I just open the fridge and stick my finger in the bowl.
There are tons of recipes for Creamy Cashew Sauce all over the internet, basically soaked cashews, salt free seasoning (Mrs. Dash) onion or garlic flakes, blend. Pour it on steamed greens.
Good job Nony! The headache is all the gross toxins flooding out, it means it’s working.
Hi,
Have you thought about a bean chili or a bean soup? It’s still cold enough in some places. Just put it all in the crockpot. I use black beans (I don’t soak and haven’t had any gas problems – sorry TMI) and put them in the crock with water. Let them go all day. Drain off some of the water when they are about done, then add some corn, diced tomatoes, spices. You could probably put some zucchini as well. Just a thought.
Mindy
We love to make cauliflower into smashed cauliflower. Also, you can make turnip fries, just slice and bake with some olive oil and salt. You can also julienne you zucchini instead of shredding. this will give it a thicker noodle like consistency. We do this all the time in the summer. My DH is T2 Diabetic, so we had to learn to ear veggies in several different ways to try and avoid pasta, bread and potatoes. Can you have tofu? If so you can make some greens, then stir fry some tofu, add some soy and have it on top of cauliflower rice. If you can have corn it tastes great freeze dried, like candy (sort of). The book saving dinner the low carb way has a bunch of veggie recipes in it. I haven’t tried an all veggie diet, but I remember when I tried the Atkins diet I had a headache for 3 days. Your drastically changing what you are imputing into your body, this change can cause headaches until your body adjusts. Good Luck.
http://healthyblenderrecipes.com/recipes/vegan_leek_and_lentil_soup/
This is a vegan leek and lentil soup that I absolutely adore. Just skip the optional grain ball.
Aileen
That is…unless beans are out as well?
You go girl! I would struggle with this diet. I might be able to go without meat but I would be grumpy without my grains! Let us know how it turns out.
I just wanted to sympathize… I’m doing gluten free and hoping it is only for a few months. There is still tons i *can* eat, but sweet Lord in heaven i want a sandwich and pizza and spaghetti with garlic bread and … This isn’t helping, is it? 🙂 sorry, just wanted to wallow in the suckiness with you. 🙂 good luck!
Vegetarian Quesadilla,
Saute onion and garlic, add cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, 1/2-1 can of canned tomatoes. Heat.
Serve with salsa.
Is really good on a wheat tortilla with a lil cheese.
wow, good for you guys for sticking to it! I don’t have any non grain vegetarian for you…but rooting you on!
oh but i love angela over at http://www.ohsheglows.com vegan site…so good and I’m not vegan
Eating vegetables according to both my dietician and Diabetic Nurse Educator should be 50% of your daily intake, so maybe you can consider this a way of introducing new tastes and flavours into your family menus.
I’m a big fan of lentil curry – which on the second day can be made into patties and eaten with veges.
Dhal – Lentil Curry
Ingredients :
200g red lentils garlic
1 large or 2 medium carrots turmeric
enough pumpkin for 2-3 serves coriander
2 onions ginger
2 tomatoes lime leaves
red curry paste
In a large saucepan, add red lentils, carrots diced roughly, pumpkin
cut into small pieces, tomatoes also cut into small pieces.
Add water to cover, with about 2-3cm of water above level.
Put on high temperature until water is boiling and then reduce to
low – simmer for about 1/2 – 3/4 hour – until the pumpkin and carrot
are soft.
Add lime leaves, turmeric, coriander and ginger once it is simmering.
In a small frypan, sautee garlic, and onion chopped finely.
Add garlic, onion and the oil they cooked in to the main saucepan, and
stir in. (Still on low heat).
Then in frypan, add 1/2 teaspoon of red curry paste and a bit of the
lentil water, to break the paste up into a liquid. Add to lentils,
and let simmer quietly for another 5 minutes.
(add salt to taste).
Remove lime leaves before serving.
SERVES 4
Also if you have a look for glass noodles made on bean starch rather than rice starch – you can have noodles which are still vegetable.