Hello!
Welcome to my first free meal plan. This meal plan covers what meals I make for my family of 4. My sons are 1 and 8 years old so you may have to adjust your plan if your family is larger or older. I have not gone into depth about what I feed my toddler here. I will go more into depth about plant based toddlers at a later time.
This meal plan features recipes from my own site (fourthfloorhomestead.com) and some from Isa Chandra’s book Isa Does It. It is a fantastic book. You can buy it here. I found links to all the recipes but they are often from 3rd party sites.
Follow this link for the meal plan as an editable word document.
Breakfast Options
I make a smoothie for everyone, every week day.
I usually include 2 bananas, an apple and 1 cup soy milk, then 1-2 cups of frozen berries and sometimes a few handfuls of spinach. The fruit that I include changes based on what is on sale that week but bananas and apples are cheap so they are usually included. I add enough water to blend it well. I want about 4 cups of smoothie to split between us.
About once a week we will have a chunky monkey smoothie. Blend 3 bananas, ~¼ cup peanut butter, vegan chocolate syrup, 2-3 cups of soy milk and protein powder is optional.
Strawberry banana smoothies are also a good change up. It’s just 3 bananas, 2 cups of frozen strawberries and some soymilk. It’s a simple smoothie but it’s really good.
In addition to the smoothie, we each have one of the following…
1. Oatmeal with soy milk.
We fancy it up by following one of these recipes for chocolate peanut butter oatmeal or apple pecan oatmeal. If we are strapped for time we may just add a little maple syrup or brown sugar with soymilk.
2. Cereal: Usually whole grain cheerios for the kids with soy milk, oatmeal crisp or oat squares for the grown ups.
3. Whole grain toast with vegan margarine (we use Becel currently) s/t with molasses (for the iron content).
Lunches Options for Each of Us
For lunch my 8 year old has:
1. spaghetti, burritos, chickpea burger or a mini pizza
2. an apple sauce or fruit bar
3. A MadeGood granola bar or crackers.
4. Water to drink.
His burritos consist of a TVP taco filling, daiya cheese and vegetarian baked beans which we buy canned. He loves those baked beans.
My husband usually has “ham” sandwiches (Yves brand I think), left overs or chickpea salad sandwiches. Sometimes he goes out for lunch.
What I eat for lunch: Honestly, I eat a lot of toast or english muffin type things. When I am eating well I try to have:
Spinach salad with pralines, sunflower seeds, black beans and french dressing.
Sandwiches: tofu salad, vegan “ham” or “cheese” on whole grain bread, chickpea salad sandwiches or peanut butter if I am lazy.
Dinner
1. Mushroom stroganoff. This recipe is sooo good. I don’t soak cashews for anyone though. I boil them for a few minutes and blend. Turned out great.
2. Borscht. My son loves beets so this is an easy win. I might take the time to make the cream, but it is also good without.
3. Okra Gumbo. We used black beans instead of kidney beans as kidney beans hurt my tummy. This was a surprisingly filling dinner. The baby really liked it so I ended up freezing a bunch of baby sized portions. This was a big recipe. We were able to freeze some for a second dinner. 2 meals for the work of 1 always makes me happy.
4. Bhindi Masala. An okra curry which we had with brown basmati rice. This was the only dinner that my 8 year old won't like as it is curry. I think he had a chick pea burger that night.
5. Fried rice with tempeh. I skipped the soy balls in this recipe because I can no longer find them in the store :(
6. Chickpea burgers served on whole grain buns with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mustard. My 8 year old loves these burgers. The left over burgers become his lunches during the week.
7. Quesadillas In this case I did not use fake lunch meat as the recipe calls for. I added some black beans, a more whole foods protein source, and some snap peas for more crunch. I mashed an avocado with some lime juice and added it to the quesadillas after they were cooked. This was a worthy addition.