The recipes for this week of plant based dinners are budget friendly, family friendly, easy and delicious!
Hello friends! It’s been a while since I’ve actually written a blog post here, but I’ve been working behind the scenes on something really exciting. I also share food on my Real Food for Real Families Instagram page if you’re looking for some new ideas!
Quarantine + plant based eating
I’ll be honest – quarantine threw our plant based eating into a little bit of a tailspin. As it was harder to get fresh produce – it was harder to get groceries in GENERAL – we adopted the mindset of “fed is best”. We tried to shop small local farmers and while they had produce options too, they were a little more limited. We did get some really good local meat and eggs though!
I was still majorly avoiding dairy for most of quarantine, because when I ate it, I would notice that my allergies and asthma would really flare up. But since my kids have birthdays in May, June, and July…along with kindergarten and preschool graduation…there’s just celebratory eating that happens to involve dairy.
It’s a hard balance! On one hand, I don’t want to pass along food phobia to my kids. I want them to see their mom eating fresh healthy foods, but also having ice cream. I want them to help me make a quinoa and chick pea salad but also eat birthday cake with them.
BUT while I try to portray balanced eating – my allergies have suffered a lot. Now that we’re finally in the “yellow” phase of quarantine – grocery deliveries are more available, and our favorite foods are more readily accessible. I’m realizing how much better I feel on a stricter plant based eating plan, and I’m working on tightening up my own eating habits a little more.
SO! That was a long long story to tell you that I’m going to be sharing more on this blog again. I want to continue to share our favorite family friendly healthy meals with you and I hope that you’re able to try some of them!
Vegan White Bean Soup
While I haven’t tried this exact recipe yet – I really have enjoyed all of ElaVegan’s recipes! And we’re saving this soup for a rainy June day so it feels more appropriate for the season.
Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl
This buddha bowl recipe is a favorite of ours! The kids like it “deconstructed” (and they have sliced cucumbers instead of kale) but my husband and I really like it just as the recipe lists it above. It’s delicious, simple, and filling!
Greek Pasta Salad
The kids love any dinner that involves noodles, but I try to do it no more than 2 times a week. This is a simple, summery and delicious recipe (we don’t do artichokes so we left that out but otherwise follow the exact recipe).
Farmer’s Market Pasta with walnut pesto
OK this is a FAVORITE! We love this recipe so so much and plan on making it so often this summer! It’s flexible and can use whatever veggies you have on hand, but we used exactly what Pinch of Yum suggested in their recipe. SO dang delicious – and the walnut pesto is just the perfect finishing touch.
Bean Tacos
This is a recipe that I’ll need to write out eventually, since we’ve made it our own the past through months! But it’s essentially pinto beans with sauteed onions & garlic, taco spices, and then in tortillas with cilantro lime rice and veggies.
That might be confusing … I’ll commit to sharing it here soon!
Roasted Veggie Dinner
We do this at least once a week lately – we roast whatever veggies we can find (this week it’s cauliflower & beets), and then pair it with some kind of grain (this week it’s cous cous) and roasted potatoes.
We use the leftover veggies & potatoes for breakfast! It’s delicious and so good for us too!
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