Going Dutch on a vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but Duck is an amazing thrifter. He has amazing skill and amazing luck. Practically our entire house is furnished and decorated from thrifted or free furniture, artwork, cookware, appliances… I could go on and on. The best was when we needed a new sleeper-sofa. Duck picked out the exact one he thought would work best for us from the Ikea catalogue. Then he used his incredible powers of thrifting to find both pieces – the mattress and the frame – from separate people on craigslist, one for free and one for a fraction of the original cost.

His most recent conquest is our very shiny, very beautiful, very orange Le Creuset Dutch oven (well, according to them it’s a French oven, but I think they’re just being snobs). We’ve been wanting a Dutch oven for a long, long time, but even used they still sell for hundreds of dollars. I’m not even going to say how much (or little, rather) Duck found this one for, but I will say the woman we got it from was fully in her right mind and understood what a treasure she was bestowing on us, and when she showed us her stunning, brand-new set of cobalt blue Le Creuset cookware we felt quite equanimous about accepting from her our incredible bargain.

We lugged it home (they tell you and they tell you, but still nothing prepared me for how heavy this baby actually is) and thunked it proudly on the stove. Where it sat, admired, for several days.

“Do you remember why we wanted a Dutch oven?,” I finally asked Duck as we basked in the warm glow from our stovetop.

“I just like how they look,” he told me, gesturing to the vibrant enamel glaze that starts out fiery orange at the bottom of the pot and then fades up to almost sunrise yellow.

“But what did we want to cook in it?”

I remembered that at some point I decided I needed a Dutch oven, that there was something I just couldn’t cook without it, but now more than a year later I had no idea what that was.

Duck shrugged. His job was done. The prize had been attained. But as I wracked my brain and scoured the internet, I had to wonder – had we just gotten the world’s best deal on the world’s heaviest paperweight?

(Here’s the thing, in case you’re wondering if I’ve never cracked a cookbook in my life. I know what you use a Dutch oven for, but, you see, we’re vegetarians.)

Finally I came across a recipe online for Wine Braised Lentils over Toast, with credit given to Deborah Madison from her cookbook Vegetarian Suppers. This is one of my favorite cookbooks, and so when I saw that, memories clicked back into place. Debbie M. to the rescue again, this time incarnated as the Queen of the Meatless Dutch Oven.

So, without further ado, I present you with a meal plan designed for a week of glorious, vegan, gluten-free celebration of that enameled treasure of the stovetop, that weighty jewel of the kitchen, the Dutch oven.

Monday
Wine braised lentils over toast with Tuscan kale and pearl onions (Vegetarian Suppers)

Tuesday
Butternut squash green curry with mushrooms, eggplant, and tofu (Vegetarian Suppers)

Wednesday
Brussels sprouts and mushroom ragout with herbed vegan, GF dumplings (Vegetarian Suppers)

Thursday
Braised fennel with saffron rice timbale (Vegetarian Suppers)

Friday
Grits and greens with spinach, chard, scallions, parsley and dill (Vegetarian Suppers)

Saturday
Moroccan chickpea stew with harissa and apricots

Sunday
Greek-style braised green beans
Gigantes in savory tomato sauce (using canned gigantes beans)
Tzatziki

This week I have the honor of hosting the weekly Gluten-Free Menu Swap, and of course I self-servingly chose Dutch ovens as our theme! Check back as the day goes on for more wonderful gluten-free menu plans from all over the web.

Heather at Celiac Family is getting her Thanksgiving planning in gear (hmm, I should be doing that, shouldn’t I?) and on top of that she has a delicious, ambitious week planned. Butter chicken, boneless pork ribs, and GF pizza will all be new recipes this week, capped off by a Leftovers Buffet that’s sure to be gourmet if the rest of the menu is any indication of the contents of Heather’s fridge!

Kim at Gluten Free Is Life is enjoying glorious weather and a perfectly Fall menu. Bourbon chicken, honey-baked lentils, and sweet potato hash browns just conjure up crisp, clear days with lots of running around outside followed by tummy-warming suppers. She also just celebrated her anniversary – Happy Anniversary Kim & Aaron!

Deb at Green V-Neck is miserably hung-over but still managed to put together a fabulous vegetarian, gluten-free menu with international flair. A little visit to the British Isles with lentil and rice shepherd’s pie, all kinds of Indian goodness with rajma masala and bean curry, and some Mexican heat to banish that hangover for good with her taco salad and black bean soup with guacamole. Hope you feel better soon, Deb!

Cheryl at Gluten Free Goodness is still hampered by her kitchen remodel, but she pulls off a spectacular menu as well. (Maybe our theme this week should be “triumph through adversity”!) More fall flavors, with turkey and celery in chestnut sauce, rosemary salmon, and something I’d never heard of before that has now become the new object of my obsession – hazelnut butter cups. Yum!

Esther of The Lilac Kitchen is trying to get more veggies back into her meal plan, and she succeeds wildly this week with a mouth-watering menu that includes sweet potato rostis, bean and veg stew, and butternut squash gratin. And just so things don’t get too wholesome, there’s an amazing white wine and cream sauce in there as well…

For a huge compendium of menu plans (most not veg or GF), check out the Menu Plan Monday round-up over at OrgJunkie.

Oh! And if you’ve been meaning to share a favorite bean, lentil, or other pulse or legume recipe for the Steady Pulse event, it’s not too late! Just send it to me by tomorrow (Nov. 17th) and it will still make it into Wednesday’s round-up and of course into the final Recipes You Can Count On compendium.

Welcome home to a vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

I just got back from a long trip. I had a great time (I was with my mom on the East Coast and in Canada), but the traveler’s diet is not heavy on dark leafy greens, and it was such a relief to come home and dive back into a delicious pile of kale. Duck had one waiting for me, of course, the minute I walked in the door.

We’ve put our CSA box on hiatus again, which means we can menu plan from cookbooks this week. So most of our meal plan is from Veganomicon or another cookbook, The Vegan Table, that we are trying out from the library. I hated it when I first looked at it because it seemed to be full of ingredients like “eggless mayonaise” and “tofu cream cheese,” but then I looked it over again and found many recipes that excited me, and then I tried a few and am back to feeling wary. I’ll let you know how the week goes.

Because of the heavy reliance on cookbooks I don’t have a lot of links or photos for you this week, just a few of the old standards – sorry!

Cheryl at Gluten Free Goodness is hosting the GF Menu Swap this week with the theme of Carrots, which inspired me to take on the delicious (and time consuming, but worth it every once in a while) Moroccan butternut squash and carrot stew shown above. If you’ve been trying to eat quinoa regularly but are running out of ideas, try the quinoa pilaf that goes with the stew recipe. It’s so good that I often make it on its own. And of course, for a huge compendium of menu plans from all over the web, check out the massive Menu Plan Monday round-up over at OrgJunkie.

And please don’t forget – Sunday is the deadline to send me a favorite, tried-and-true, tested-and-approved recipe for beans, lentils, dried peas, and other pulses. I am putting together a master collection to help me – and others – conquer beanphobia. No need to write up something new for this event – the recipe can be in an old blog post, and in fact the longer you’ve been making it the better! Then come back here Wednesday, Nov 18th to check out pulse inspiration from all over the world!

Monday:
Broiled smoky tempeh (VCon)
Smoky sauteed kale with onions (VCon)
Millet

Tuesday:
Rice bowl with black rice, kale, and leftover broiled smoky tempeh

Wednesday:
Hot and sour soup with tofu, carrots, shitake mushrooms, napa cabbage, and button mushrooms (VCon)
Braised bok choy with toasted sesame seeds (VCon)

Thursday:
Chana masala (made with canned chick peas)
Pumpkin coconut curry (The Vegan Table)
Brown basmati rice

Friday:
Cornmeal pizza crusts with chard & caramelized onions (Vegan Table) and balsamic portobellos (Vegan Table)

Saturday: Movie night – Little Chihuahua chile verde tofu burritos to sneak into the theater

Sunday:
Moroccan butternut squash and carrot stew with quinoa pilaf

Still crazy for pulses on a vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

This week’s menu plan is sort of half-retroactive and half-hopeful. We get our CSA box on Wednesday so we’ve been trying to make our menu plan then, but I didn’t make it to the store for the rest of the stuff we needed until Thursday, so the whole week’s plan got moved to Friday. So this is the ghost of menus past, present and future.

Tangy Red Lentils

We have another menu that’s heavy on the beans and lentils. We just can’t get enough! So cheap, so filling, such good protein and nutrients. We’ll get bored soon with the recipes in our own repertoire, though, so I hope there will be some great recipes in the Steady Pulse beans & legume recipe round-up!

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted by the lovely Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness. The theme for the menu swap this week is apples, and I don’t have any in my dinner plans, but we’ve certainly been crunching along all week long on the delicious first-crop apples that arrived in our CSA box! For millions more menu plans, check out the giant Menu Plan Monday compendium over at Orgunkie.

I usually do a little “mash-up” photo of some of the food from the menu plan to act as a header, but this week, for fun and inspiration, I give you the full-size experience!

Friday:
Nasu dengaku (broiled eggplant with miso)
Steamed bok choy with pickled ginger
Sloppy sushi with avocado

Nasu Dengaku - Broiled Japanese Eggplant with Miso Sauce

Saturday:

GF Mac and cheese (or “cheeze”) with green beans, tomatoes, and kidney beans

Sunday:
Cumin-crusted potatoes (5 Spices, 50 Dishes)
Punjabi creamed greens with kale and chard (5 Spices, 50 Dishes) (made with soy yogurt)

Punjabi Creamed Greens (kale and chard)

Monday:

Lentil dal (5 Spices, 50 Dishes)
Home-cooked cranberry beans
Dandelion greens with walnuts and raisins
Quinoa
Chocolate pumpkin loaf (made without eggs)

Tuesday:
Sweet potato and kale soup with fennel seeds
Pamela’s drop biscuits

Sweet Potato and Kale Soup with Fennel Seed

Wednesday:
Tangy red lentils
Roasted broccoli with pine nuts and lemon zest
Brown rice

Thursday:
Tinkyada brown rice spirals with vegan pesto, roast zucchini, tomatoes

Gluten-free spirals with vegan pesto, zucchini, and tomato

Don’t forget to send in your favorite tried and true recipes for beans, lentils, and other legumes and pulses!

Triumph and disappointment in a vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

It’s so nice to be back again after so long away! Here are some notes from the trenches of another (retroactive) vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday…

This week I tried to check out Veganomicon a bit more for inspiration, but I still get the feeling I might be happier with their previous book, Vegan with a Vengeance, since all the “basic” recipes I look for – tofu scramble, chocolate chip cookies, etc. – aren’t in the fancier V’Con because they already appear in the humbler first effort. I think that was a poor choice on the authors’ (or publishers) part. By including all those basic recipes in V’Con, they could have created a book that would be the cooking bible, the Joy of Cooking for vegan folks, but instead their big book is just one more on the shelf.

We have switched our Farm Fresh to You CSA box to a smaller size because we were getting a little overwhelmed, but we did a good job this week of using up all the veggies that came, even the lettuce, which is usually our downfall. Duck has also been volunteering at the food bank in our neighborhood, and they always insist on sending him home with some nice organic veggies, so those informed our meal choices this week as well. Last night I rediscovered a huge bunch of gorgeous black grapes that had gone past the point of eating raw (Duck and I like our grapes very, very firm) but were in no way rotten, so I tried something I’ve never done before and improvised a little gluten-free, vegan grape cake. It turned out a bit more like a grape bread pudding, but it was delicious!

This week’s menu post is light on recipe links, but that’s because the potato leek soup, the biscuits, and the tofu scramble were all first-tries and all disappointments. (Not so bad that dinner was ruined, but I wouldn’t recommend the recipes to anyone else.) If anyone knows a recipe for fantastic vegan, gluten-free biscuits, let me know and I will be forever in your debt!

For a massive dose of menu plans, check out the giant Menu Plan Monday compendium over at OrgJunkie. The Gluten Free Menu Swap is hosted this week by Asparagus Thin, with the theme of Superfoods. I got to feel all smug and healthy at how many superfoods from her list I used this week, and not even intentionally to meet the challenge. Avocados, chick peas, dark leafy greens, eggplant, flax seeds and hemp milk in the cake, garlic in everything, lots of nice fermented and sprouted soy, sweet potatoes, tea, whole grains, and yogurt – nearly her entire list!

Monday
Homemade falafel with tahini sauce, tomatoes, lettuce, and sriracha
Middle Eastern-style turnip pickle
Steamed kale with kale sauce

Tuesday
Semi-Nicoise salad with butter lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, steamed green beans, and red onion with Nicoise dressing (no anchovies)
Hot-sauce glazed tempeh (V’con)
White rice

Wednesday
Southern-style collard greens and beet greens with tempeh bacon and tomatoes (recipe to come)
Deborah Madison tofu
Quinoa

Thursday
Potato leek soup made with scrap stock
GF biscuits
Green salad

Friday
Bengan bharta (Indian eggplant)
Raita (goat yogurt with cucumber, mustard seeds, and spices)
Cucumber sunomono salad
Brown rice

Saturday
Pasta “alla California” (GF noodles with broccoli, red pepper flakes, and avocado) (VCon)
Roasted root vegetables (beets, carrots, red onion, sweet potato) with fresh rosemary

Sunday
Tofu scramble
Sweet potato fries with aioli
Tempeh bacon
Grape pudding-cake

Have a great week, everyone! And, if you have a favorite Bean, Lentil, Legume, or Pulse recipe, don’t forget to send it to me for the Steady Pulse round-up!

Steady on! A pulse-perfect gluten-free, vegan Menu Plan Monday

Beans, legumes, lentils, pulses – whatever you call them, they are incredibly healthy, with so many advantages and no nutritional downsides. They are high in protein and fiber, low in fat and on the glycemic index, high in B vitamins, folate, calcium, and potassium, and help to lower cholesterol and blood sugar. Dried beans, peas and lentils are some of the cheapest foods out there, and some of the most filling.

But pulses can also be intimidating, what with all the rinsing and soaking, long cooking times, and potential for coming out either too hard or too mushy or just bland and kind of gross. I’ve been put off myself for years from making bean and lentil dishes from scratch, but I’ve decided it’s time to conquer my beanphobia. It’s time to establish a steady collection of go-to recipes that will help to make cooking with pulses a regular and non-terrifying part of my life. 

I’m calling the project “Steady Pulse: Bean & legume recipes you can count on,” and I’m inviting food bloggers everywhere to contribute their most time-tested bean/lentil/dried pea/etc. recipes – the ones that will make legume converts of us all. The project will be ongoing, but I’m hoping to gather an initial round-up of folks’ favorite recipes by November 15th. For more information on participating, please visit the Steady Pulse page. 

To kick off the project and celebrate kicking my phobia, this week’s menu draws on my tiny personal collection of legume recipes, the ones I make again and again and love every time.

Monday:
French lentil soup with thyme, tarragon, and brandy (made with scrap stock)
Sweet potato fries with aioli

Tuesday:
Home-cooked cranberry beans
Fennel-marinated tempeh (Moosewood at Home)
Brown rice
Green salad with tomato, cucumber, carrot, pine nuts, red cabbage

Wednesday:
Home-fried potatoes with onion and tempeh
Fried eggs
Home-cooked cranberry beans

Thursday:
Tangy red lentils
Quinoa pilaf with red and white quinoa
Steamed broccoli

Friday:
French lentil salad with cucumber, tomato, mint, and feta
Steamed corn
Green salad with tomato and carrot

Saturday:
Chana masala from canned chick peas (Will try to get recipe up later this week)
Spanish rice
Steamed kale

Sunday:
GF fettuccine with vegan pesto, roasted yellow squash and red onions, and roma tomatoes
Salad of red-leaf lettuce, carrot, red onions, avocado, and beets

I also have the pleasure of hosting the Gluten-Free Menu Swap this week! My fellow gluten-free bloggers have planned out some amazing meals this week, so read on! 

Kimberly at Gluten Free is Life has redesigned her blog since I last visited and it’s all shiny and gorgeous! (Sorry if that’s old news, Kimberly – my computer has been in the shop for several weeks!)  She has no fear of pulses, adding chick peas and black beans and other legumes to her lunches and salads all the time. She has a great menu planned including a sweet potato with cinnamon and Greek yogurt that caught my eye (and made my mouth water), and there is definitely zucchini bread in her future (check out her post to see why and be astounded!!). 

Sea at Book of Yum takes another of her drool-worthy weekly trips around the world with a menu inspired by India, Mexico, and the American South. She’s just found out her new baby may have a casein sensitivity, which is sad news, but at least baby’s momma is one of the best vegan-recipe creators on the web. Sea’s latest dairy-free creation is a dreamy dairy-free soy-free pine nut basil tomato cream sauce for ravioli. It doesn’t get any better than this!

Cheryl at Gluten Free Goodness is a definite bean lover. She even uses beans in desserts and as a thickener for chocolate frosting (I want that recipe sometime, Cheryl!). She has a yummy, fresh-sounding summer menu planned and I basically want to eat everything on it. Chickpea crackers, roasted cauliflower, sauteed fennel, chestnut sauce – this week sounds like it’s going to be a flavor explosion of the very best kind!

For a whole host of other weekly menu plans, check out the mega-gigantic Menu Plan Monday compilation over at Org Junkie!

Gluten-free style from the Emerald Isle – Menu Plan Monday

About a month ago, Duck and I went to Ireland to participate in his sister’s wedding to a lovely Irish boy. (Boy? Man? He’s younger than me and quite hip, but maybe getting married gives you an automatic bump up to “man.”)

Things I was prepared for as I headed to Ireland: Serious difficulty and perhaps impossibility in sticking to our normal food regimes (vegan for him, gluten-free vegetarian for me). Ireland has has a much better climate for raising food from the animal kingdom than the plant one, and that means meat in and with everything. An unavoidable abundance of gluten; after all, drinking Guinness is one of the national pastimes, and that’s basically a big, dark, delicious glass of wheat. A whole bunch of new people to whom I would have to explain my dietary requirements and get funny looks or a frenzy of worry.

What I totally did not expect on my journey: Walking into the local Super-Saver and finding nearly half of a huge aisle devoted to gluten-free products. Pita bread, tender and fluffy; garlic-coriander naan, the perfect combination of crisp and soft; ciabatta rolls with a toothy crust an Italian grandmother would approve, just waiting to be layered with fresh mozarella, basil, and tomato. Table water crackers and digestive biscuits, which I thought I would never eat again. Scones with raisins. Pizza crusts that make Kinickinick look like rank amateurs. All of it packaged, not bakery-fresh and on the verge of going stale, happy to sit quietly on the shelf and be brought alive with the barest of toastings. I even found Worcestershire sauce that is both gluten-free and vegan, which I thought was like a mermaid or a unicorn, something only to be dreamed of but never actually encountered. Ireland even came up with the coolest not-that-healthy health food ever – thin rice cakes topped with a layer of that sweet yogurt that coats yogurt-raisins. (They come in chocolate-orange, too!)

Needless to say, I came home with an entire carry-on full of food. I’m trying to ration my new treats (they all have expiration dates around mid-July), but this week’s (retroactive, as usual) menu plan includes some full-on celebrations of Irish, gluten-free bounty.

For other marvelous menu plans, check out the huge Menu Plan Monday compendium over at Organizing Junkie. For more gluten-free menu plan madness, pay a visit to Cheryl at Gluten Free Goodness. She is hosting this week’s Gluten-Free Menu Swap.

Monday: Homemade falafel with baba ganouj, heirloom tomato, red leaf lettuce, and Sriracha hot sauce, stuffed into an incredible gluten-free Irish pita, kale with kale sauce

Tuesday: Broiled tempeh marinated with fennel, soy sauce, and apple cider vinegar (Moosewood at Home), roasted broccoli with lemon zest and pine nuts, quinoa with coconut oil

Wednesday: Gluten-free Irish pita stuffed with broiled eggplant (marinated in balsamic, olive oil, and herbes de Provence) and feta and buffalo mozarella marinated with balsamic, olive oil, and fresh basil, fruit salad, green salad

Thursday: Rice, lentil, and potato pilaf with cardamom, Impressionist cauliflower, spicy collard greens, gluten-free Irish garlic-coriander naan

Friday: Sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic and chile flakes in a gluten-free Irish pita with Bravo farms cheddar cheese

Saturday: Gluten-free Irish pizza crust topped with pesto, tomatoes, mushrooms, and broiled eggplant marinated in balsamic, olive oil, and herbes de Provence, salad

Sunday: Dal with potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and ginger, red and white quinoa, raita of goat yogurt with mustard seeds and spices

The thing of it is, I don’t even care much for bread products. But until this week, I had forgotten how amazingly convenient they are. One night I was super tired but I really wanted to cook up two gorgeous bunches of organic broccoli rabe (my absolute favorite veggie, but I rarely find it organic, so it was a real treat). But after cooking them I was so tired that I was kind of like, well… what now? Will I just have vegetables for dinner? But then I grabbed a pita, tossed it in the toaster for a minute, and made a mouth-wateringly scrumptious sandwich with white cheddar cheese and sauteed broccoli rabe. No long-cooking grain, no need for mind-bending creativity, and absolutely no stiff, crumbly, barely-worth-the-title GF bread. Most of the time I love the challenge and creativity of GF cooking, and I love that it calls on me to make, not buy, most of the elements of my meals. But sometimes it sure is lovely to have a break – and not feel cheated or deprived when I do.

Cheese, glorious cheese, for a gluten-free, vegetarian Menu Plan Monday

This past week found me even more tired than the one before it. I still went out quite a bit and got a lot done, I just spent all the interim times collapsed in a heap. One of the big tasks I accomplished was a major shopping trip to the food co-op, where I hadn’t been since January. This meant I had cheese in the house for the first time in over a month. And it was cheese that came to my rescue this week, as the savior of the tired person. Cheese turns a snack into a meal and answers the question “I’m so hungry but so tired, what shall I have for dinner?” with a single, glorious word. (Oh, and for the record, I was way too tired to have taken the photos of Bravo Farms cheddar, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, and Clover Stornetta Monterey jack up above – all the pics of these humane, local, sustainable cheeses are cadged from the interweb!)

So read on for a very simple and decidedly NON-vegan menu plan. (Sorry to all my vegan friends that there is little here for you this week. And don’t worry, vegan Duck managed nicely on his own – things made with wheat are another easy answer to the dinner question.) This week’s Gluten-Free Menu Swap is hosted by that goddess of gluten-free and vegan blogging, Sea at Book Yum. Her theme for the week was nuts, and while my menu isn’t exactly peppered with them, I did end up eating a few this week. Toasted walnuts in the arugula salad, pumpkin seeds in the salsa (they’re like a nut, right?) and handfuls of almonds during the early part of the week before I went to the store and we had nothing else to eat in the house.

This week the huge compendium of Menu Plan Mondays from all over the web, usually hosted at I’m an Organizing Junkie, is being hosted by $5 Dinners. Take a look at the list – there’s something there for everyone!

And don’t forget! The deadline for this month’s Sugar High Friday dessert event is March 23rd. I really hope to see you all there!

Monday:
GF mac and cheese with baby broccoli

Tuesday:
Tangy red lentils with goat yogurt and mustard seeds
Stir-fry of cabbage, red onion, and carrots with white rice

Wednesday:
Salad of arugula, apples, warm tempeh bacon and toasted walnuts with Hollyhock dressing
Quinoa with borscht, yogurt, and caraway seeds

Thursday:
Raw foods salad of bok choy, carrots, daikon and kelp noodles with an almond butter-coconut water-cider vinegar dressing
Sprouted corn quesadilla with Clover jack cheese and pumpkin seed salsa

Friday:
Amy’s Lentil Vegetable soup
GF toast with Bravo Farms cheddar and Maille tarragon mustard

Saturday:
Pan-cooked frittata of eggs, bok choy, carrots, daikon radish, Bravo Farms cheddar, roasted green chiles, quinoa, and pumpkin seed salsa

Sunday:
Pink lady apple, GF black pepper crackers, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk cheese

A little less socializing for a gluten-free, vegan Menu Plan Monday

Well, the awesome energy that was propelling my previous MPM stuttered to something of a halt last week due to fatigue, an abundance of social activity and the poor customer service of Eating with the Seasons (in other words, no more CSA box). So here’s another retroactive menu plan that harkens back to those glory days where we were actually making lots of new Moosewood recipes and eating fabulous meals every night!

After you’ve taken a look at the menu, please check out the announcement for this month’s Sugar High Fridays event. This is a super fun and incredibly long-running sweets event, and I have the honor of hosting this month’s round. If you like sweets (and who doesn’t?) won’t you cook up something fun and join us?

This week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap is being hosted over at lovely Gluten Free Goodness. For a huge compendium of Menu Plan Mondays, visit the giant list at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

Monday:
Impressionist cauliflower
Raw kale salad with avocado and cherry tomatoes
Spanish stew with chick peas, potatoes, and artichoke hearts (Moosewood at Home)

Tuesday:
“Sloppy sushi” rolls with nori, sushi rice, toasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, and flax oil
Steamed asparagus with citrus dressing (Moosewood Low Fat)
Broiled portabello mushrooms with miso-balsamic glaze (MLF)

Wednesday:
Fennel-seasoned pan-fried tempeh (Moosewood at Home)
Glazed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and lime
Steamed napa cabbage with pickled ginger and vinegar-soy sauce

Thursday:
Nature’s Burger or homemade falafel with arugula and cherry tomatoes
Sweet potato fries (made with white sweet potatoes – the best for fries!) with vegan aioli
Baby broccoli with garlic and soy sauce

Friday:
Black-eyed pea curry (5 Spices, 50 Dishes)
Steamed beet greens
Quinoa

Saturday:
Broiled tofu (Moosewood at Home)
Kale with kale sauce
“Sloppy sushi” rolls

Sunday:
Quick vegetarian borscht (I added a Yukon potato and some caraway seeds to the recipe)

Simple inspiration for a vegan, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

At last I return, with another week of retroactive menu planning! Putting together this week’s menu plan was a bit of a triumph. I have chronic fatigue syndrome, which means I am very, very tired. Quite often I am can’t-get-out-of-bed tired, which means lots of delivery and take-out and burritos from the place down the street.

The reason I participate in Menu Plan Monday is because I love to get inspiration from other people’s menus, so I want to offer my own inspiration and ideas in turn. I am one of the few people creating menu plans that are vegetarian (mostly vegan) and gluten-free, as well. What this all means is that usually my “weekly” menu plan is a compression of several week’s worth of meals, since my actual week looks more like: cook something, eat leftovers, get delivery, go to bed without dinner, cook something, eat leftovers/get delivery, go out to eat.

But not this week, kiddos! This week was an awesome week full of easy-to-make food with plenty of fresh veggies and fruit for dessert. This week I ate out three times less than before.

Here are the dishes that kept the home fires burning:

Monday:
Tangy red lentils (this recipe sounds so unassuming but it is AMAZING)
Steamed brussels sprouts with Hollyhock dressing*
Sweet potato fries (from TJs) with vegan wasabi mayo
Red quinoa

Tuesday:
Roasted parsnips and carrots
Steamed kale and beet greens with kale sauce
Deborah Madison tofu
Brown rice

Wednesday:
Tinkyada brown rice spiral pasta with baby broccoli and white beans sauteed in fresh rosemary and garlic (a distant relative to Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers, p.187)

Thursday:
I am DIY Rice Bowl with black Chinese “forbidden” rice, avocado, kale, scallions, nori and sesame seeds

Friday:
Sweet potato and kale soup (from freezer)
GF toast with olive and pine nut spread (Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, p.49)

Saturday:
Stir-fried baby bok choy with hijiki (MRCH, p.89)
Broiled marinated tofu (MRCH, p.261)
Brown rice

Sunday:
Spanish stew with chick peas, potatoes, and artichoke hearts
Red chard with pine nuts and raisins

*(Duck used to make this dressing all the time when he was a cook at the meditation retreat center where we used to live)

You can find a bazillion more great menu plans over at Organizing Junkie. This week Asparagus Thin is hosting the delicious Gluten-Free Menu Swap, with the theme umami. There is umami all over this menu! The original umami research began as an investigation of kombu, a kind of seaweed that infuses the Tangy Red Lentil recipe with absolutely no seaweed or fishy flavor but plenty of savory deliciousness. There’s also nori (another umami heavy-hitter) on the rice bowl and hijiki with the baby bok choy. Add to that nutritional yeast in the Hollyhock dressing, balsamic vinegar in the kale sauce, soy sauce in the rice bowl dressing and the tofu marinade, sweet potato fries and yellow potatoes in the Spanish stew, and this week’s menu is an umami explosion! I also find that broiling and roasting are two cooking methods that bring out that savory, “meaty” umami flavor, and both found their way into this week’s cooking.

Read on after the break for more about how I avoided eating out ALL WEEK! and download my what-to-cook-when-the-fridge-looks empty spreadsheet to tape to the fridge!

Cleaning out the fridge to find a vegetarian, gluten-free Menu Plan Monday

It’s another week’s worth of retroactive menu planning! Why retroactive? Check out my post here for an explanation. Much of this week’s menu is based around the results of my New Year’s project – a thorough reorganization of my fridge. Basically I used a burst of energy to clean out my refrigerator for two days straight, staying up until 4 am on the second night to finish cooking everything I pulled out of the fridge. The results were a tidy fridge full of lovely little things to eat, which went into our meals in various combinations.

Check out more divinely, deliciously gluten-free menu plans at the Gluten-Free Menu Swap hosted this week at Fresh Ginger. This week our GF Menu Swap hostess set us the theme of “Local.” And what could be more local, I ask you, than “shopping” in my own refrigerator? (I hear all the “recessionistas” are trying to “shop their closets” these days- maybe I can kick off a foodie trend…) Our week also featured Duck’s homegrown collard greens, right from his little plot in the back yard. It was a good week for local, and a good week for eating in general!

Monday:

Crock-pot lentil-spinach curry with quinoa
Baked beets and onions with horseradish sauce
Roasted carrots with parsley
Balsamic roasted fennel

Tuesday:
Homemade falafel with quinoa and lemon-miso-tahini sauce
Carrot and daikon salad with black and white sesame seeds

Wednesday:
Chili-glazed tofu
Crock-pot lentil-spinach curry
Baked beets and onions with horseradish sauce

Thursday:
Eden Foods 100% Buckwheat soba noodles with steamed kale, roasted zucchini, and sauteed portabella mushrooms and red onions, dressed with kale sauce

Friday:
Home-grown collard greens with walnuts and raisins
Deborah Madison tofu
Quinoa with lemon-miso-tahini sauce

Saturday:
Mariposa Bakery GF pizza crust with pesto-tomato sauce, pine nuts, goat gouda, red onions, black olives, mushrooms

Sunday:
Leftovers!

Treats:
Cranberry Chutney Cobbler
Homemade Applesauce

As always you can check out the whole world of food blogger menus over at Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday compendium. To find out where next week’s Gluten-Free Menu Swap will be, visit the info page at GF Goodness.