Ramblings of a Tiny Mama

Seriously, the weeks go by so fast! I rarely can find the time to blog and it frustrates me. I want to do it…I really do! But with three kids and a change in our diets I just can’t keep up. We recently watched Forks over Knives and… well… it inspired us to move towards a whole foods, plant-based diet as much as possible. We will still eat meat occasionally but not dairy and we will sometimes eat eggs. Other than that, you will notice our menus being more plant-based. I’m also going to start making things from scratch more often and try to cut out the processed foods. We’ll see how well that goes. 😉 Here are the recipes for this week!

Greek Wraps (minus the cheese) and Sweet Potato Fries, pineapple

Black Bean tacos with avocado, lettuce, salsa and vegan sour cream! Can you believe such a thing exists? I hope it’s good! Served with a salad and homemade ranch dressing made with coconut milk. It may sound weird… but it tastes good! I don’t notice a coconut taste at all. (I use the original coconut milk beverage from the carton.) Glad my bff thought this one up!

Crockpot Spaghetti sauce over veggie pasta, some sort of steamed veggie and some kind of homemade bread. 🙂

Balsamic Green Bean Salad to take to a cookout. (minus cheese)

Lazy Granola with shredded coconut , sliced almonds and flax

smoothies with fruit, honey and coconut milk

It’s going to be a yummy week!

What’s your favorite meatless meal?

Linked to Orgkunkie

Well, still no baby. His official due date is this coming Wednesday… but I’m not feeling too optimistic. So I planned 5 dinners for this week just in case, leaving the weekend open for leftovers or random eats. Here’s the list!

Monday: Southwest Chicken Salads with Baked Potatoes (trying this homemade Ranch dressing)

Tuesday: Fruity Chicken Pasta Salad with Breadsticks

Wednesday: Crockpot Sweet and Sour Chicken with Rice & Stir Fry Veggies (still haven’t gotten around to this!)

Thursday: Pizza Casserole with Salad

Friday: Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup (still haven’t gotten around to this one either!)

I’ll be making some Strawberry Bread and some Yogurt Covered Blueberries as well. We didn’t get around to the Shepherd’s Pie from last week but I still have the ingredients. If I’m having a burst of energy one morning I may whip it up and stick it in the freezer, possibly this Southwest Chicken Pot Pie as well.

What’s on your menu this week?

Short and sweet today! Here’s our menu:

Monday: Honey Lime Chicken, rice and broccoli

Tuesday: Southwest Chicken Chili Mac

Wednesday: Chicken tenderloins, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies

Thursday: Deceptively Delicious Lasagna, green beans and bread (I promise you we don’t eat lasagna once a week. We just keep skipping over it!)

Friday: Chicken pot pie, salad, rolls

Saturday: Dinner at my parents’ house

Sunday: Leftovers or something simple

What’s on your menu this week?

Post linked to I’m an Organizing Junkie

These cookies are delightful. I absolutely love making these cookies, and I love eating them even more. These cookies saved me during my nursing times when I had to cut dairy out of my diet and I’m sure they will save me again in a few more months as baby boy is born. I’m just going to go ahead and assume he, too, will have a dairy intolerance. But, maybe he’ll surprise me. 😉

These cookies are a breeze to make and are very adaptable, unless you don’t like peanut butter. If you don’t like peanut butter then I don’t know what to tell you, something is wrong. 😉 Unless, you are allergic to it. Then it’s ok if you don’t like peanut butter, we can still be friends. 🙂

Ok, I hear you. Enough of the chitchat. Here’s the recipe!

Disclaimer: I don’t know where I found this recipe. I’ve tried searching for it, but to no avail.I do know that I doubled the original recipe.  If you think this is your cookie recipe, let me know!

Vegan Choc-oat-chip PB Cookies

• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup plus 4 tb. flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 4 tb. oil
• 1/4 or 1/2 cup brown sugar (i’ve made both and both tasted great)
• 4 tb. white sugar
• 4 tb. unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• chocolate chips ( I prefer milk chocolate)
• chopped nuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Mix together oats, flour, baking soda and salt.
3. Stir oil and sugars together. Stir in peanut butter, applesauce and vanilla.
4. Add flour mixture and combine.
5. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips in desired amount.
6. Bake 12-14 minutes.

*I have also used chunky peanut butter in place of the peanut butter/nuts and it worked perfectly fine.

*I use a 2 tsp. cookie scoop and this recipe makes about 26 or so small cookies.

This past weekend I got together with my friend Stephanie to tackle some freezer cooking! It had been about two months since our last adventure so we were both excited to have our freezers stocked with some yummy dinners to get us through the holiday months. We chose 12 recipes and doubled them, resulting in 24 meals plus a surprise extra meal! It’s always fun when that happens! Here’s the list of what we made!

Cheesy Chicken, Broccoli, Rice Casserole (we had this last night and it was super yummy!)
Chicken Broccoli Enchiladas (we nixed the Anaheim pepper)
Citrus Chicken Strips
Ultimate Beef Stroganoff (crockpot)
Holiday Brunch Casserole
Calzones (we ended up using pillsbury pizza crust for these, they taste good, but they don’t look like the picture!)
Crockpot Orange Chicken
Layered Taco Casserole (we adapted this to be baked in 8×8 pans and we had extra ingredients that resulted in a surpise taco dip meal!)
Taco Dip
Spinach, Chicken & Wild Rice Soup
Cheeseburger Soup
Souiza Cornbread Bake (we made ours with ground beef)

And there you have it! A big chunk of my menu planning for the next month 🙂 So here’s this week’s menu plan!

Monday: Citrus chicken strips, rice and salad

Tuesday: Spinach, chicken and rice soup, drop biscuits

Wednesday: Heading to my mom’s, probably just sandwiches

Thursday: Thanksgiving # 1, contributing Twice Baked Potato Casserole

Friday: Thanksgiving # 2, contributing Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie!!!!

Saturday & Sunday: breakfasts = orange sweet rolls, holiday brunch casserole
                              dinners = leftovers if we have them, crockpot orange chicken or souiza cornbread bake.

What’s on your menu this week? Besides turkey, that is. 🙂

Linked to I’m an Organizing Junkie.