Vegan Meal Plans for week 03-04 (late-January)

Get ready to cook some really good food!

Enough with the Holiday nonsense! My rolling pin is parked for the next 11 1/2 months. Time for some more casual fare and weeknight meals.

And, yes, homemade sushi and pizza can be weeknight meals. Trust me, it’s really not that hard (when you have prepped ahead). (Note that neither is included in the “mini” plan.)

I am sure you will agree this is a perfect meal plan for the cold winter days. Lots of comfort food, but also filled with plenty of vitamins to keep your body and soul happy. If you have been on the meal plan for a little while, you’ll probably have a lot of the ingredients in your pantry already, and your grocery bill should stay modest thanks to the use of humble ingredients like good old sweet potatoes and kale. That’s great if you are trying to recover from a costly holiday season.

NOTES

• There are only two “wild” cooking tasks in this meal plan: rolling sushi (easy!) and roasting garlic. As noted in the prep steps, one would love to do roasted garlic without oil… but the results, in my experience, are truly sub-par – and you may be using non-family-friendly language as you try to pop the roasted garlic cloves out of their papery skins. If you are 100% oil-free and ready for an adventure, go ahead and try (just cut the tops and roast for 45 min without wrapping). If you are OK with a smidgen of oil once in a while, this is the time to indulge and pour a few drops of oil on each clove. (In a pinch, just forget about the whole thing and use non-roasted garlic instead.)
• Does pizza count as a wild cooking task? With my cold-fermentation approach, I think not. But if you are brand-new to the meal plans, and not accustomed to doing a prep session every weekend, you can give yourself a break: buy a couple balls of frozen dough and commit to making your own next time it comes up on the meal plan. I won’t report you to the Unprocessed Police, promise.
• Pro tip: you can make the slow cooker dishes on the weekend. With rest in the fridge, they’ll be even more flavorful – and that’s no more work than if you did it on the weekday.