On Vegan Eating

I've gotten a lot of questions since my resolution post about my goal of eating 5 vegan meals a week. I am by no means a vegan... not even a vegetarian! Eating 5 vegan meals a week is just a way for me to help myself eat more fruits and vegetables; something I am REALLY bad at. I watched this documentary once that I can't remember the name of that really drove home the point to me that its incredibly important to eat raw, organic, whole, natural foods. Since then, and a lot of research later, I've really tried to incorporate more of that into mine and my family's diet.
SO, here are some of my staple vegan meals:
Green smoothies or just regular fruit smoothies- made with juice instead of my regular yogurt
Salads with vinaigrette and nuts instead of creamy dressings
Veggie wraps- one of my favorites! I sautee sweet onion, red or green peppers, beans and mushrooms in sesame seed oil... delish!
Soups- the possibilities are endless!
If you think about it, there are LOTS of foods that can be made vegan, so I've tried to do that; nut butter toast, apples with nut butter, veggies on rice, veggies on noodles, fruit bowls, etc.

In our family we try to have a meatless dinner every Monday, which has helped us find yummy alternitaves to our usual meaty dishes. Its been a fun adventure!
Just to be clear, my reasoning behind eating a more plant-based diet is not founded by my belief system or any 'save-the-animals' motives. I simply want to eat healthier and save money doing it!

What about you? Have you ever eaten Vegan? What are your thoughts or reservations?

On Family Meal Planning

Our family is on a budget. Surprised? Well, you shouldn't be. Knight is a full-time student, so we have to carefully plan out our expenditures every month. I'm sure we are like a lot of you out there... right? RIGHT???
Meal planning is one way we are able to anticipate and manage our food budget. I HATE- okay, hate is a strong word, but I really, really, really dislike- deciding what we want for dinner, starting to make it, and finding out we are missing one crucial ingredient. Does this ever happen to you? Well, it gets my panties all in a wad, so I try to avoid it as much as I can. I have done this method of meal planning for about a year now, and it seems to suit our needs quite well.
Now, this is a simple method, and some may even call it 'old-school', but like I said it works for our family.

Excuse the chicken scratch... I'm the only one who usually sees this!

At the beginning of each month I sit down with my handy-dandy notebook and my calendar and make a list that looks like this. Here is a breakdown of what my monthly meal plan consists of:
1. First, I break down the month into weeks. Easy enough...
2. The next thing I do is write in the corresponding week anything we might have planned that would affect the meal plan.  See where I listed my birthday and Thanksgiving break?
3. Then I will list the meals we are having each week for our big Sunday night dinner and our Meatless Monday dinner. Those are annotated with the boxed 'S' and 'MM's.
4. I then write in parentheses next to each meal how many nights it will feed our family. Usually our Sunday meals will last two or three nights, but some are meant for just one night. I don't like cooking every night, so I like making bigger portions to have for leftover nights. We also like having breakfast for dinner about once a week- its really cheap, and my kids love breakfast foods. So those are listed as well.
5. Lastly, I'll fill in the weeks with however many more meals we'll need.

Voila! There is my monthly meal plan. 
But the plan can't stop there, right?  RIGHT!
The next page of my notebook is our grocery list. At the beginning of each month, we also do our 'big shop'. This will be the shopping trip where we'll go to Sam's Club for our big things and our local grocery store for all the stuff we don't get at Sam's. I leave room in our budget for one small weekly shopping trip that usually includes things like bananas, milk, and eggs. But this monthly shopping trip will cover all the items we need for our meal plan.

Its usually a shopping trip we do together as a family on a Saturday, but sometimes I'll go when Princess is in Joy School so I just have Studley with me. MUCH easier to shop with one kid in tow than two!

What about you? How do you do your family meal planning?