I was finding it more challenging than usual to make my weekly menu plan this week since a) I’m once again having the thoughts that cycle through every so often about going grain free or at least gluten free; and b) I’m out of eggs until I go shopping again, and since they are a staple food I generally use a lot of, I have to mentally make a conscious shift for meal planning when they’re not available. I could use egg replacer for the baked goods, but instead decided to do some searching for new concepts and ways to use the grains I have in the pantry, and this week’s menu will be basically gluten free (except for the bread this morning).
Shabbos – dinner – challah, chicken soup, chicken, roast sweet potatoes, glazed beets, Israeli salad, upside down coconut brownie pudding; lunch – beef stew, kishke, chicken, salad
Sunday – breakfast – homemade bread, cottage cheese; lunch – organic blue corn chips with bean dip, whitefish salad; dinner – green bean salad, sweet potato pudding, beef stew
Monday – b – lemon almond pancakes; l – black bean and quinoa patties; d – kasha nut loaf, techina sauce
Tuesday – b- yogurt with grainless granola (equal amounts of shredded coconut, sliced almonds, raisins, and a second kind of nut or seed); l – lentil onion pancakes; d – baked beans with hot dogs
Wednesday – b – sweet potato rounds with almond sauce; l – leftovers from Monday and Tuesday; d – split pea soup with barley and vegetables
Thursday – b- quinoa oatmeal squares; l – split pea soup; d – lentil pecan burgers
Friday – b – polenta with sour cream
The meals are all supplemented with fruits (breakfast) and vegetables (lunch), which I generally decide on before the meal. The yogurt is in the dehydrator right now. I have a huge amount of sliced almonds soaking on the counter – I like to prepare a nice amount at a time so I can prepare them at the beginning of the week and have them ready when I need them. I’ll put them in the dehydrator before I go to bed so they’ll be ready in the morning. I’ll start the beans for the week soaking – lentils, black beans, and either navy or red beans – this ensures that they are sprouted by the time I want to use them. Sprouting not only makes them significantly more digestible, but also makes the nutritional value shoot way up. Beans are so easy to use when I take the time to plan ahead, and getting all the prep work done in the very beginning of the week means I don’t haveto spend time or thought on it later on.
If any of you have thoughts/experience on how to soak nut flours/meal without making it dairy, I’d love to hear them! I soak nuts in a salt water solution, then rinse them before drying them, but that wouldn’t work with ground nuts. Since I can buy already ground nut meal much more inexpensively than the nuts themselves, the suggestion to prepare them in my usual way and then grind them isn’t going to be so helpful. 🙂
Avivah
As usual I want some of your recipes and as usual I feel bad asking for them. I hate to give you extra work. So, only if you are able, I’d like the black bean quinoa patties, the lentil onion patties, quinoa oatmeal squares. Thanks in advance!
I really don’t mind sharing them at all, so don’t feel bad asking! In order not to flood the blog with a bunch of recipes at a time, what I’ll do is post them after I make them, so I can share what my experience has been with them.
For lentil onion patties, look in NT – it’s one of the variations listed on one of the lentil recipes (it’s the last page of the section it’s in – can’t look it up this minute).
thanks, Avivah!