Weekly Meal Plan

In order to simplify things for Bill and Kayleigh, I've tried to pick recipes all from the same book or location each week.  Last week we focused on this book:

Vegan Casseroles: Pasta Bakes, Gratins, Pot Pies, and More

because my mom just bought it and was asking for good recipes to try.  We made quite a few when I first got it a couple months ago but I tried to pick new recipes that we hadn't tried yet.  We repeated Aloo Gobi, however, because Bill really likes that one.  On Sunday, we had the two appetizers along with tacos.  Other than that, all our meals for Monday through Friday are listed below.  I took leftovers every day in my lunch and we all finished everything off between lunch and dinner on Saturday.  So very little waste and no disasters.  Not a bad week!

Unlike past weeks, I actually remembered to take pictures of a few of the meals this time.

One-Dish Appetizers
We had both of these on Superbowl Sunday.  Bill is the only one who actually watched the game but it seemed like a good excuse to make some snacky-kind of things.

Caramelized Onion Dip  - I found beet chips and kale/spinach chips to eat with this.  It was thicker than regular onion dip but good and I ate it all week.

Loaded Nacho Fries - Although the recipe calls for frozen fries, I made my regular baked fries instead.  I took a large portion of this to work on Monday for lunch and it warmed up surprisingly well.  We had tomatoes, jalapenos, green onions, and cilantro as toppers.

Dutch-Oven and Skillet Casseroles
Aloo Gobi - We eat this on brown rice.  Bill really likes it and it works well as leftovers.

Jambalaya - I included this one because it is the recipe that my mom specifically mentioned.  I make my own Cajun spice mix and next time I will use a lot less because it was very, very spicy.  It was good though.  Kayleigh thought it would be better with some beans added in.

Veggie and Dumplings - My hands-down favorite of the week.  Delicious.  A word of warning - as with all recipes that include dumplings, make sure you use a large pot.  My husband picked the wrong one resulting in a big mess.  It still tasted good though!

Old Favorites and New Twists
Bean and Rice Casserole - Good and very easy. It would be really quick to pull together if you had leftover rice.  Kayleigh was very happy that it didn't include onions!

Taco Casserole - Bill wasn't home the night we had this. I really liked it but Kayleigh didn't.  It also warmed up well which surprised me because of the crushed tortilla chips.

Dessert Casseroles
Baked Coconut Rice Pudding - This is not sweet at all but we liked it.  I added mini chocolate chips to my portion because dessert isn't dessert without chocolate!

Sauces, Toppings, and Basics
We used the Nacho Cheesy Sauce on the Loaded Nacho Fries and Taco Casserole.  For the Bean and Rice Casserole, we used the Cheesy Sauce.  We figured out that Kayleigh doesn't care for smoked paprika so next time we'll cut back.

Some other recipes that we didn't have this week but have made in the past and really liked are:

Mujadara
Mediterranean Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Nacho Tots Casserole

I thought maybe I had some older pictures of these from last year when I stopped blogging but I couldn't find anything.

Overall, this is a good cookbook.  It seems a little heavy on nutritional yeast but we don't view that as a negative since we love it!  That's really the only "unusual" kind of ingredient and the recipes are easy to follow and don't take very long.  I've been really happy with how well everything warms up the next day.  That makes lunches so much easier.