The Suburban Herbivore

This month I’m working on using up some odds and ends, making weeknight meals a little easier, and trying very hard to get some food into my 20-month-old, who just doesn’t want to take the time to eat. I recently picked up three bunches of organic bananas at Harris Teeter for about $2, so I’m definitely making some banana bread as well.

• Carrot and Sweet Potato Puree (from The Sneaky Chef)
• Skillet Baked Beans (from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook)
• Black Bean Enchiladas mix
• Sweet Potato Pancakes (recipe coming soon)
• Spinach and Lentil Pasta (from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook)
• Banana Bread x 2 (from Baking Illustrated)
• pizza dough
• chop up as many onions as I can stand
• prep 2 bags black beans in the slow cooker
• prep 2 bags chickpeas in the slow cooker
• prep 2 bags navy beans in the slow cooker

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Crystallized Ginger

Overall, things went great! Or at least I think they did… I guess I won’t know for sure until I successfully use up what I’ve just frozen.

I did have one massive flop: the yummy-sounding Oatmeal Banana Raisin waffles. The batter seemed normal enough, and the first waffle was tasty (we’d planned to eat them for breakfast and freeze the leftovers). The second waffle split in half when I opened the waffle maker, but it was fairly easy to pull both halves out. The third waffle, however, stuck and burned to the waffle maker, necessitating an abrupt end to deliciousness as I picked out burned waffle bits for twenty minutes. Maybe the waffle maker was too hot or next time I could try some cooking spray.

To console myself, I made a recipe for Chocolate Chip Banana Bread that I’d been wanting to try. It came out perfectly, but, ah, did not make it to the freezer.

Everything else went as planned, with the small deviation of finishing up several things on Sunday instead of Saturday. It took a lot longer to cook the black beans in the slow cooker than it should have because of how I accidentally turned it off at one point. So I finished that up on Sunday, along with the pizza dough. I also made an extra batch of marinated tofu for Sunday’s supper, and cooked up a batch of white beans that I hadn’t planned on.

Here’s what I’ve got:

one batch of Carrot-Raisin Muffins
one loaf of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (very similar recipe on Orangette – I used the one from her book, though)
enough filling for two batches of Black Bean Enchiladas (recipe coming soon)
dough for three pizzas
sauce made for Vegetable Lasagna
onions and beans ready for Pasta with Beans and Greens (recipe coming soon)
4 extra onions chopped (and later double-bagged because the freezer and refrigerator stank of onions)
one batch of tofu marinating (and one batch eaten!)

Carrot-Raisin Muffins

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Crystallized Ginger

Tofu in Italian Marinade

Freezer, before the day of cooking.

I’d been planning for nearly  a week to spend a good part of this weekend filling our freezer with prepped food, like chopped onions, and a few complete meals. This evening, as I cleaned up the kitchen, I took a real look inside the freezer, and what do you know, it’s already pretty full. So I may scale back a little from what I was thinking about doing, which was probably too ambitious anyway.

Prep Work
chopped onions, around 6, or until I get tired of chopping onions
make black beans in crockpot
grate 4 carrots
slice and drain 1 pound tofu

Cooking / Mixing
black bean filling
make lasagna sauce
mix Italian marinade and bag with tofu
3 batches pizza dough
mix batter and make waffles
mix batter for muffins

Meals Available from Freezer
2 pans of Black Bean Enchiladas
Vegetable Lasagna
3 pizzas
Italian baked tofu
Oatmeal Banana Raisin Waffles (12)
Carrot-Raisin Muffins (12)

Since I already have waffles in the freezer, I might skip the Oatmeal Banana Raisin Waffles, though they sure sound tasty. That particular recipe and the one for Carrot-Raisin Muffins come from Vegan with a Vengeance. I’m going to try substituting almond milk for soy milk, since I have it on hand.

I haven’t had much experience in freezing tofu, so trying it in marinade will definitely be an experiment.