The Weekly Plan: Feb 14-Feb 21

Here we are again, another Sunday, another rundown of the food eaten in the past week and the plans of what to eat in the week ahead!

As a refresher, my planned meals this past week were veggie burgers, recipe by Bon Appetit, and Lindley Chicken. If you want to hear about Lindley Chicken check out last Thursday's post!

The burgers came out great!. I was a little nervous because, to be honest, they didn't have the best comments on the Bon Appetit website. I really thought they were amazing and my family did also. First, it was fun working with wheat berries. They were super easy to cook and provided a nice chewy base to the patty. Second, it was chock full of mushrooms - porcini, shiitake AND some of the reserved liquid used to rehydrate the porcini mushrooms!

A main comment I read about this recipe before making it was that the patty didn't hold together well. No, it doesn't hold together as well as a beef hamburger patty, but it also doesn't just crumble apart. A key is melting the cheese on top which gives it that extra adhesion. Another key is to remove as much of the extra liquid as possible before blending. Do this by letting the wheat berries fully cool after cooking spread out on a baking sheet. I also dried the canned garbanzo beans on a paper towel before blending to remove their extra liquid.

In the future, to reduce even more moisture I will try using dried garbanzo beans instead of canned. What I'll do is rehydrate them overnight in water, rinse, and then add them rehydrated, but not cooked, to the mixture! Does this sound crazy to you? Just wait for the falafel recipe coming later this week :)

Meal Plan for the Week:

So, what's planned for the week ahead? Monday night my friend Sam, who I haven't seen in almost ten years is coming to dinner! I am going to make us a middle eastern smorgasbord which is probably one of my favorite meals to cook. I'm going to make homemade falafel (not yet decided if I am going to fry or bake), quinoa tabbouli and homemade tzatziki sauce served with pita, hummus and veggie slices.

Additionally this week I have planned to make two recipes from one of my favorite blogs, Poppies and Papayas. The author is a registered dietician who writes about holistic nutrition and cooking whole food plant based recipes.  I've tried a couple of her recipes and they've been delicious, and she goes into the details of the nutrition of the recipes she writes which is really interested to read. This week I am going to make her Spiced Coconut Dal (which I've made before and YUM!) and her Spiced Quinoa Patties (I'm on a veggie burger kick, can you tell?).

What exciting recipes do you have planned for the week ahead?