Meal-Planning is the Pits!

Like, olive pits? No. Peach pits? Still no. Like stinky, hairy, sweaty, arm pits.

Let me start out by saying that I have never really done meal planning before. Definately not to this extent. My goal with meal planning is to figure out exactly what we will need with groceries, therefore it shall be easier to stick to the budget.

Breakfast is easy, it is almost always one of the following:
Oatmeal
Apples and Bananas with Peanut Butter
Cereal with Nut Milk

Lunch will likely be left overs, fresh veggies, salad, fresh fruits.

Dinner is much more complicated. Most will be accompanied by salad or fresh veggies. I will start our meal planning for Monday, with the following recipes out of the book Vegan Planet.

Potato Salad
Tuscan White Bean Soup
Pad Thai
Macaroni Salad
Lemon Risotto
Fusilli with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Pine Nuts & Asparagus
Shepherd's Pie (husbands recipe)

Meals are challenging in this household. The vegan part is easy. The cooking part is easy. Our oldest son will not eat most things that are brown, despises the thought of beans, runs away screaming from tomato, does not like more than 2-3 visible items in a dish, is texture sensitive and spice sensitive. Sometimes my husband will put a blindfold on him to get him to eat a meal that intimidates him from so many ingredients. One day his favorite thing in the world could be blueberries. It might be all he will eat. The next day he might decide that the peel on a blueberry doesn't feel good and won't touch them, but loves carrots dipped in hummus. That might be a good thing for a few days in a row, but will decide he likes celery better and orange is no good. Also, he will not eat baked potatoes if they have peel on them, but will (sometimes) eat baked potato fries with peel. He will NOT eat shepherds pie, so we save the ingredients for him seperately (mashed potatoes with a side of corn). He loves coconut water from a can, but not from the coconut (it has floating bits of fibre).

I haven't worked out snacks yet. I know that we have some dried fruit/raisins, popcorn and coconut vanilla "yogurt." Market day is Saturday so I will be updating my blog with our list of produce finds and the costs. I have a feeling this budgeting/meal planning is going to be a long (worthwhile) journey.