What We Ate Wednesday: Finishing Strong

September 14th, 2011 - filed under: The Food » Food Styles



So far in this series I’ve shown you our Monday-thru-Sunday breakfasting, as well as an entire week’s worth of lunches. Now, we’re wrapping up the trilogy with seven days of dinners. Dinner is always my biggest and my favorite meal, and this time of year I tend to eat high-raw throughout the day, with a more-likely-to-be-cooked finalé.

As well, for the past few weeks Damian and I have been trying out a new sort of weeknight schedule, which gives us a lot less time together (bummer), but gives each of us a lot more time to recharge our own batteries. It’s been working wonders and unsurprisingly, the time that we *do* get to spend together is just that more special.

Here’s what it looks like:




Monday: bro night

On Mondays Damian goes straight from work into play time (whatever he wants to do), which means Mr. Waits and I are partners-in-crime for a good long 13+ hour stretch. On these nights I tend to keep the meal prep simple, and the meals styled super fresh, just the way I like ‘em!



Very high-raw dinner. Raw juice pulp crackers with smashed avocado, red onion, heirloom tomatoes, and sea salt. Big beautiful salad with romaine, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers from my neighbor’s garden, red onion, fresh garlic, and cooked black beans, all tossed with ACV, nooch, and garlic-infused olive oil. Lots of black pepper on everything. This is sort of my perfect dinner, period.


Waits had some raw juice pulp crackers, a lot of mashed black beans, and some raw veggies tossed in garlic-infused olive oil.


Tuesday: ladies night out

Tuesdays I’ve been going out with a girlfriend, and on this particularly warm summer Tuesday, I met my friend Leslie for some outside dining at a neighborhood cart pod. Leslie did all the art for my book!

I’ve been stalking this one cart that features raw foods, ever since the chef/owner took the title at Vegan Iron Chef. Alas, this was my fifth attempt visiting Kitchen Dances during their posted hours, and for the fifth time they were closed. So sad!

But, that’s what’s so awesome about pods. There’s always something delicious next door . . .



Mediterranean food! I got a mezza platter with gluten-free falafel, hummus, baba ghanouj, and dolmas. He was very sweet to give me extra falafel instead of bread. Also, lots of rooster sauce of course! The meal wasn’t raw, but damn was it gooood.


Wednesday: family night

On Wednesday we have a home-cooked meal all together as a family. I usually make something sloppy and hot and comforting, ha!



I made FarMar potatoes and homegrown beets, oven-roasted with garlic. Plus baked garlic tofu, cooked sprouted quinoa, a badass avocado and balsamic salad, and fired FarMar corn on the cob. All served up with Food For Lovers Vegan Queso which I’d gotten as a gift from Vida Vegan Con. This vegan queso is delicious and the fact that it’s fat-free blows my mind!


Waits had a small plate of taters, beets, tofu, and quinoa, plus he ate quite a bit of our corn as well.

After dinner we put down a drop cloth and watercolored for the first time. ♥ ♥ ♥




Thursday: hack sesh

On Thursdays Damian stays late late late at the office, hanging out with his coworkers and eating food and brainstorming new ideas. So, another long day for me and the wee rabbit –> another simple healthy high-raw dinner.



Rice cakes (cooked) with smashed avocado, red onion, heirloom tomatoes, sea salt, and black pepper. Big beautiful salad with romaine, red onion, kalamata olives, fresh garlic, and chickpeas (cooked) tossed in kalamata olive oil, ACV, nutritional yeast, sea salt, and black pepper. I am seriously on a black pepper binge these days!


Waits had a handful of quinoa-veggie pasta tossed in garlic-infused olive oil, a bunch of mashed chickpeas, and a cucumber-kalamata-red onion salad. It’s crazy to me how much that boy digs on raw red onions!


Friday: solo sesh

Fridays I take to myself. This Friday, I went on a picnic in a rose garden.



I sat in the very center of the garden, completely surrounded by enormous, brilliantly bright, multi-colored rose blooms. Hummus. Rice cakes. Heirloom tomato. Avocado. Fancy olives. Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s new book. HEAVEN.


Saturday

Every Saturday morning we go to the Farmer’s Market, so Saturday dinners are always extra fantastic. This week Damian had requested a sushi platter, and I was happy to oblige:


We all ate pretty much the same thing, which was a pickled asparagus roll (Waits got an extra asparagus), a BBQ tofu roll (Waits just got BBQ tofu), seared Japanese eggplant nigiri, and a side of spicy kimchi. This meal had Damian raving.


Sunday

We usually get takeout on Sunday, and this Sunday was an especially lazy evening laying around and watching movies and eating. Have you seen Forkes Over Knives yet? It’s just been released on Netflix Instant – you should watch it!


Thai takeout. Drunken noodles with veggies. Panang curried tofu. Om Nom Nom.




And that’s how we do dinner ’round these parts!
What about you guys – do you have a revolving routine, or do your evenings always play out pretty much the same?

  • Rachel

    Every now and then I don’t read your blog as much as I’d like to, but then I pop on over and am thrilled to read your posts! Keep it up girl! :-D

  • Rachel

    Every now and then I don’t read your blog as much as I’d like to, but then I pop on over and am thrilled to read your posts! Keep it up girl! :-D

  • Kory Rigler

    Delish, as always. And gawd I miss avocado… *sigh*

    Anyway, love the dinner ideas, we’ll need em now that hubby’s on board!

  • Lizzie Ross

    I always love reading your menus. They are great inspiration and motivation to continue my own healthy eating habits, and I often get new creative ideas from your posts! Do you make your own rice cakes or buy them? If you make them, do you mind sharing your recipe? If you buy them, what brand do you like? Thanks!

  • Jane P.

    Your meals look so fresh and healthy. Waits is such a lucky little one, being raised on such great foods! I love looking at your inspirational meals.

  • Clair Johnson

    Just added Forks Over Knives to the top of our queue a couple of days ago…I’m so excited…

  • http://www.mynaturallyfrugalfamily.blogspot.com Rachel

    Say–This is a fantastic week of food. I love all of your fresh, raw, veggie options. Plus, and I know it is all about raising your children this way, I love that Waits eats all those wonderful assortments of foods.

  • http://windycityvegan.wordpress.com Monika {windycityvegan}

    I think my family’s long overdue for a sushi night – your wiaw posts always remind me to throw something new or forgotten back into the mix!

    We definitely have a routine – I want to change things up, but Nina just went up from 3 to 5 days a week of playschool – and we have one car, which means the success of *my* day hinges on getting everyone tucked in the night before and off to a timely start every. single. day. So. Right now I’m playing it safe and sticking to very predictable weekday morning and evening schedules. It’s excruciatingly boring, but helps keep us all on track!

  • http://windycityvegan.wordpress.com Monika {windycityvegan}

    Also, LOVE seeing Waits watercoloring for the first time! Nina is finally to the point that she gets out her drop cloth, smock, and materials all by herself. Mario has so many materials left over from architecture/design school . . . hopefully we won’t wake up to find a new mural on the wall!

  • http://www.workingouteatingin.com Anastasia

    Oh man.. everything looks amazing! I love seeing how you modify what you’re eating for Waits’ meal and how well he eats! I’m just used to my family feeding babies junk food and diet coke (!) which is crazy to me. Also, those tomatoes in the first photo look like flowers which it totally neat!

  • http://www.healthífulbalance.blogspot.com Shannon

    So much awesome food! :)

  • http://simplybeme.com Jenny @ Simply Be…me

    First of all, I am hungry now. Second of all, I love that you have found a schedule that works for you and the fam! Third of all, our two-year-old LOVES olives and could seriously eat a whole bottle if we let him. It’s so amazing the food young kids will eat :)

  • veronika

    awesome ideas, as usual! i like the variety!
    i have found that not all tofus bake equally well. here in seattle we have a local producer that makes absolutely perfect loaves. they are very firm, yet not grainy and very cohesive and almost chewy. when i come to buy them at the market in the morning they are usually still warm. really amazing stuff.

    saw FoK with a few friends when it was playing at the theater here. i found it really interesting, we all came out of the theater excited and positive, but i think it’s a bit of preaching to the choir. we are all into the “vegetable-strong”/vegan/whole etc thing, but i’m not sure if it would reach the wider audience. i found the shots of salads a little cheesy (kind of a funny adjective to use here, i guess) at times.

    also, my friend came out of the movie shocked at how casein caused liver cancer. i think they didn’t do a particularly good job explaining that aphlatoxin did that, and casein was a sensitizer, not the agent. anyways, it’s a huge topic to cover, and this was a good movie nonetheless.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=541544921 Kittee Bee Berns

    omg! gluten-free falafel over on belmont????? let’s gooOOOOo!

  • http://mindrunningwild.wordpress.com/ mindrunningwild

    I love the looks of that falafel. I’m always in the mood for that stuff.
    One of the things I love about your blog is that you always feature Waits. It is precious to read about your loving relationship- he’s so cute :)

  • Evebeasco

    Can you post your pulp crackers recipe please??!!!! :)

  • Marina@epicureanaspirations

    Inspirational for a recent vegan convert. Thank you!

  • http://wayfaringchocolate.com Hannah

    First time to your blog, and I absolutely love how committed your family is to balancing your individual senses of selves with your life as a whole, a family. Inspiring :)

  • http://buttonss.wordpress.com/ Cherie

    Oh wow, this post has definitely bought on cravings for falafel and sushi!!

  • Jen

    We’ve been in a new routine for summer, well, since our CSA started…we go to the farmer’s market on saturday mornings and get our share plus tons of other great stuff and hit whole foods or the supermarket on the way home for dry goods, etc. Then we make a list of all our ingredients and play mix’n'match until we’ve come up with a full week’s menu. We’ve learned that we need to include one day for “leftovers” and one day for “out.” Next we arrange the meals according to our work/life schedules and decide who’s responsible for cooking each night (this also lets us decide who gets to exercise on which evenings and who gets to…ahem…work on their thesis….We usually do not stick to the plan 100% but during the busy week it’s nice to have a road map. I think as we get into winter we’ll probably shift back into our former routine which was to look up new recipes, then buy the required ingredients…we haven’t really been using cookbooks all summer so that will be a nice change of pace!

  • http://profiles.google.com/becallbaugh Rebecca Allbaugh

    I love the idea of making crackers from leftover pulp. Can I do this with the remains from making veggie stock? I’d love a tutorial on making those.

  • jill

    As always, it all looks lovely…what I can never figure out, though, is why I need to eat a ton more of food than the blogs of people who eat similar diets to me? Okay, so part of it is just that I like the pleasure of eating, so maybe that’s the reason sometimes, but I’m actually quite thin, and the only exercise I get these days is walking and chasing around my 2 little kids…but I get hungry! Breakfast, for example, is a big smoothie (maybe 3 c) with veggies, 1.5 c. fruit, flax, chia…and then I need a snack an hour later (like, a lot of nuts, plus veggies, plus dip…) I know it’s not malabsorption due to Celiac disease, for example (I already know I have it and stay way far away from gluten)…I feel very healthy, just darn hungry every hour or so!

    While I LOVE to eat, my grocery budget would like it if I could be satiated with a salad until the next meal time arrives. Did you used to require a ton more food?

    And I second the request for what to do with leftover veggie pulp.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=692392402 Joselle Palacios

    You’re not alone, Jill. I’m the same way. I get hungry about every 2 hours, can usually make it to three. If I’m at four, I’m very shaky and nauseous. A smoothie is a nice snack for me but it doesn’t tide me over as a full breakfast. I don’t understand how people have just three meals a day. Even eating every 4 hours, I’d reckon my lunch would be at 11 and then dinner would be at 3 PM!

    One thing about me though is, after dinner, I’m done. I can usually make it to bedtime without the shakes but not during the day. I must eat frequently. Oh, and I get full quickly. So I get full quickly and hungry quickly. I’ve been like this ever since I did Weight Watchers 6 years ago. And I wasn’t vegan then. Prior to WW, my eating was disordered. So, maybe that has something to do with it. I feel hunger very acutely now and I’m vegan and eat, not perfectly, but pretty decently and always trying to improve. I think I’m just built hungrier! :)

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Hi Lizzie, I’ve been buying the rice cakes. I’d love to try to make them! But for now, the Lundberg Family Farms brand is really great!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Ooh let me know what you think!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    I’m glad we went, but . . . the company was much better than the falafel. =)

    Sooooo did you get the Vita???

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    I’m still tweaking it, but look for it next month during MoFo!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Thanks, it’s so important!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Hmm, I’d never considered a veggie stock cracker. What an interesting idea! I’m going to play with that . . .

    Look for the pulp cracker recipe coming next month!

  • http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

    Hi Jill, this is such a great question! I replied to it in another post, here – http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2011/09/what-i-wednesdays-just-another-end-of-summer-standard/