I’m going to swap around what I’d usually have on a Friday morning for what we like on Saturday or Sunday mornings in case you need to run to the store on your way home to pick up an ingredient or two.

I confess that, on weekends one or both of us will sleep late, we’ll eat a late breakfast and then an early dinner - thus only eating two meals on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe you should call me The Lazy Vegan but seriously, one must have priorities. On the mornings where I wake up early and hubby is the one sleeping in, I usually do something bad like drink a cup of coffee as my weekend treat and that kills my appetite until about 10:30, when hubby starts to stir.

Breakfast: Vegan pancakes - there are a LOT of recipes for these on the web and in every vegan cookbook out there. Some are great. Some are awful. Seriously give-them-to-the-dog awful. I’ve tried a lot of recipes and was happy with one until somebody came up with the perfect lazy Saturday morning version. I could kiss her for this: they’re the “easy weekend pancakes” from www.veganyumyum.com. OMG. Literally, put all the ingredients in a blender, mix, and pour. No messy bowls. Just the blender to clean. *squeals*

I will say that I double the recipe. My husband can put these away in a hurry, and we usually have 2 left to give to the dogs, who really love pancakes for some reason (maybe because a lot of the rotten recipes became their breakfast). Link: http://veganyumyum.com/2008/02/easy-weekend-pancakes/

Dinner: I recently tried this recipe from another great food blog. I can’t remember if Alison is vegan or not - I don’t remember ever having to come up with a substitute for an egg and I’ve not found a meat in her blog anywhere.  When I made this particular dish, my neighbor had to ask me what on earth I had made for dinner last night, because it had smelled SO GOOD. And it was very, very good.

Wine Braised Lentils are meant to be served with mashed potatoes - and Alison includes a recipe for some potatoes that sound fabulous but require something I’ve not found in my tiny store and will just have to grow for myself sometime: parsley root. If you find it, will you send me some?

Link to recipe:

http://www.alisonslunch.com/index.php/site/comments/wine_braised_lentils_with_parsley_root_potato_puree/

I forgot to mention that the minestrone soup recipe makes a LOT of soup - I’ll be freezing half of it but it makes so much we could still take that half and eat it for lunch and dinner the next two nights.

Breakfast: blueberry muffins - this is super easy to change out to a vegan recipe. You can replace eggs with a banana (the conversion is a half a banana per egg), use soymilk to replace milk and the vegan “butter.” The result is banana-blueberry muffins but totally yummy.

Lunch: spinach salad with fresh sprouts and shredded carrot: if you’ve never grown sprouts, you should totally try it. These are high in so many nutrients and are so good for you - plus they are SUPER EASY to grow. All you need is a Mason jar and some cheesecloth under the band (no lid). I used a tablespoon of alfalfa seeds - soak them overnight in about an inch of water in the jar. In the morning, dump out the water and set the jar on it’s side in a dark place (I use my kitchen cabinet), with the seeds spread out as much as possible along the side of the jar. You’ll want to rinse them off a few times every day for the next three to four days. Once the sprouts are the size you like, set the jar (on it’s side still) in a sunnier place to green them up. You can refridgerate them from there and they’ll keep for a few days.

Dinner: I’m calling it leftover night. Tomorrow night I’ll make vegan chili and cornbread - since it will be pretty cold on Friday!

Today I felt a little lazy. Maybe it was all the rain but I didn’t do a whole lot of cooking today.

Breakfast: Fruit Smoothie: 2 bananas, handful of blueberries, one apple, 8 ice cubes, soymilk to right consistency, toss all in blender until smooth.

Lunch: leftover Tomato Rice and Eggplant mixture

Dinner: Asti-style Minestrone (from Pasta & More, Time-Life Books)

1.5 cups red kidney beans; 1/2 small savoy cabbage; 2 medium potatoes, 2 carrots, diced; 2 celery stalks, sliced; 1 cup rice; 1 clove garlic, minced; 2 tbs parsley, minced; salt & pepper to taste; 4 tbs grated parmesan “cheese” (otional)

Put the beans in a large pot, and cover with cold watr to about 2 inches above the top of the beans. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes. Cut the cabbage in 1/4in thick strips, discarding the core. Add the cabbage, potatoes, carrots and celery to the pot, stir, and cook for 30 minutes more. If needed, add a little more water, though the soup should be quite thick. Add the rice and after 15 minutes, add the garlic, parsley. Taste for salt and pepper. Turn off heat and let minestrone stand for a few minutes while the rice finishes cooking. Serve with the “cheese” separately, if using.

Dinner at my house is often an experiment. Usually one thing or another is a leftover item that didn’t get eaten the first time around, such as last night’s baked eggplant. Or, I’m just experimenting. I like to play around with recipes from my French or Italian cookbooks - the results never look as fabulous as the photos in the book — however I never said I was a gourmet chef. I just play around in the kitchen and sometimes dinner is great, and sometimes even the dogs won’t eat it (that hasn’t happened in years, though)

Breakfast: Banana bread (recipe below) and green tea sweetened with Stevia

Lunch: Leftover pasta w/tomatoes & garlic on top, and some of the roasted veggies

Dinner: Rice with sundried tomatoes, onions and the leftover eggplant from last night (recipe below) with creamed spinach

Vegan Banana Bread (makes one loaf)

I really have no idea where I stumbed on this recipe. I know I changed it a little bit (I change everything) but this is one soft, sweet, moist bread.

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup “butter”

3 overripe bananas, mashed thoroughly

2 cups flour (I usually create a mix of ground flaxseed, soft white and hard red wheat)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup soymilk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

Toss all in mixer, stir for several minutes, then spread into a greased breadpan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour. Remove from pan immediately and let cool on wire rack.

Rice with Sundried Tomatoes, Onions and Balsamic Eggplant (leftover)

I used brown rice but I am sure Arborio would have been a much better choice. However, risotto is a lot of work with all the stirring, and I was feeling lazy tonight.

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 red onion, chopped

2 tbs olive oil

1 cup rice

1/3 cup sundried tomatoes

splash of red wine

2 cups veggie stock

Sautee onions in saucepan with olive oil. Meanwhile, chop the garlic and sundried tomatoes in a food processor. I made my own sundried tomatoes this summer, they’re a little tough so I had to add a little olive oil to them for a few minutes to make them soft enough to chop. Once the onion was soft, I added the garlic and tomatoes and the rice, stirred it to coat with the oil for about 2 minutes. Add broth, cover, and let simmer for one hour. After the rice was nearly finished I added the eggplant leftovers. With the balsamic vinegar in the eggplant, I didn’t feel the need to add any salt.

Creamed Spinach:

1 pound baby spinach, rinsed

3 cloves garlic, minced

pat of vegan “butter”

4 oz mozarella “cheese”

1/4 cup soymilk

Sautee spinach in the butter over medium heat until fully wilted (about 3 minutes). Puree in a food processor or blender, return to saucepan with all other ingredients over low heat - stir until all is evenly warm and creamy.

When I first went vegan, I swear I thought I was going to starve to death. I’d thought I was all set to start, thanks to a vegan cookbook and a handful of recipes to try. I’d bought cashews and peanuts to have on hand for the munchies, a fridge full of veggies and tofu, and went for it.

Most of the recipes were terrible. I’d say a number of things on the list of ingredients in some of the recipes I’d never heard of. A lot of recipes asked for weird things like seitian and tofu - which is completely bland and tasteless until you learn how to freeze it, squeeze it, and marinate it.

Seriously, I lost lots of weight in the first few weeks - but mostly because I was STARVING.

If anyone wants to try switching to vegan, I thought I’d make their life easier. For the next 30 days I’ll post what I cooked/ate for each meal, and the recipes for them. It will also hold me accountable to eating 3 meals a day - many times I tend to skip breakfast or lunch, which isn’t exactly good for you.

Monday Jan 5:

Breakfast - bowl of oatmeal

Lunch - simple spinach salad - baby spinach, raisins and a little shredded carrot

Dinner - roasted veggies and pasta with roasted garlic and eggplant

Oven roasted veggies are super easy, and super yummy. I make a large pan of them because I’ll eat them for days. Basically, chop up potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, onions and carrots - and any other veggie you might have on hand that would be good this way - put them in a glass baking dish, toss them all with a little olive oil and maybe some herbs of your choice (I used basil this time, rosemary is a favorite) and bake at 400 for an hour.

I loved the roasted garlic and the diced tomatoes over the pasta, that was absolutely great. The eggplant recipe was a bit of an experiment. Personally, I’d keep the recipe on the eggplant side but cut back on the balsamic vinegar, maybe water it down, and serve it with some sauteed spinach or some other yummy green. Recipe for that is here:

http://southernfood.about.com/od/eggplantrecipes/r/bl00810k.htm

You can substitute rice cheese (or soy cheese, though i have found the rice stuff melts better) for the parmesan, and veggie boullion works well to replace beef or chicken broth/boullion. If using boullion instead of veggie broth: don’t add salt until you’ve tasted the dish! Many times I’ve found the salt in the boullion is plenty fo the dish.

Enjoy!