Weekly Menu plus Recipe for Black Bean Meatballs

It's been pretty crazy around here lately, and my family has been eating a lot of sandwiches and pasta dinners. It'll do in a pinch, but I was getting pretty sick of this survival strategy, even if it does the trick.

So this week, I was determined to serve "real food", and I decided to try out that old method I'd abandoned a while ago - the "prep a bunch of basics on Sunday so I have things to work with during the week" strategy.

This week, I made a huge pot of rice, a pot of chick peas, a pot of black beans, and a large pot of split pea soup to start the week. These pots were all cooking while I was getting other work done.

Then, the challenge is to make simple meals using the food I prepped!

 So far, we've had rice with chick peas and roasted veggies one night, and rice with black bean meatballs and tomato sauce, with corn on the side, another night, and both those suppers began with split pea soup.

I'll be making tomato-rice soup (using the rice, roasted veggies, and tomato sauce that is left from those other meals) for breaking the fast Tuesday night (I'm sure the family will want other food to go along with that, so we'll probably make scrambled eggs and some spelt rolls also. And fruit for starters...).

Wednesday night we'll have to use up whatever is left of the chick peas (chick pea fritters maybe?), and serve that with whatever else is around, say, the corn that is left, a salad, some baked potatoes...

And then, I can cut myself some slack and make pasta for Thursday night, right?

I definitely find it much easier to plan my meals when I've got a few basics ready to go! Do you ever do this?

I figured I'll share the recipes for those vegan meatballs - hope you like it!


Black Bean "Meatballs" (Vegan) Recipe

2 cups cooked black beans, drained
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
3 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
Flour to bind (optional)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in food processor bowl, and pulse till you have a relatively smooth paste.

Line a baking pan with baking paper, and form the mixture into balls and place on pan. Spray with a fine mist oil sprayer.

Bake for 25 min at 200C (about 425F)



Serve hot, with your favorite sauce!

Black Bean Salad

This is one of my new favorite salads. I love dishes that are simple, easy, dairy-free, and wheat free, soy-free, and nut-free so that we all can enjoy them together.

The inspiration for this dish was a salad I had years ago when we lived in Texas, and I decided to finally figure out my own dressing for it - for truly the dressing is what completes this salad!

For the salad:

2 cups black beans, already cooked and drained
2 cups frozen corn kernels, lightly steamed or roasted and cooled
2-4 red peppers, diced (you can use a mix of red/green peppers, too if you like)
4 tomatoes, cut into cubes
(the original dish had raw onions in it, but raw onions are a major source of food poisoning, so they scare me, and my picky family won't eat it anyway)
(You can totally adjust this and use more or less of something as you like - go ahead and make this "your own"! - it's great with acocado, or lettuce, or quinoa, or all, or whatever inspires you!)


For the dressing:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
juice of 1 orange or clementine (I had a clementine in the house)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
Chili pepper flakes (to taste)
Smoked paprika (to taste, I used about 2 tsp)
salt (to taste)
ground black pepper (to taste)

Place all the vegetables in a pretty salad bowl. Mix the dressing together in a jar, bowl, or container. Mix really well. Pour dressing over vegetables and gently toss it all together. Serve cold. 

This salad can actually be a meal in and of itself, or is a great accompaniment to anything at all.
Let me know if you give it a try!

Tomato Soup with Black Beans and Rice

Today's soup was a variation on tomato soup with rice. It tasted great, and is loaded with nutritious ingredients, so I figured I'd share! You can vary this soup yourself, it is so forgiving.

1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
3-5 large leaves of cabbage, chopped
Heat 1 T. olive oil in a large soup pot, add the above ingredients, and cook, stirring, till limp and fragrant, but not carmelized.

Add
1 c. brown rice
Stir well

Add:
2 chopped tomatoes
Stir well

Add
water or soup stock (about 8-10 cups)
250 g. (approx) tomato paste
1 c. black beans, cooked and drained
salt, pepper, basil, other herbs to taste

Bring soup to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer till the rice is fully cooked (at least 40 min for brown rice)
Serve hot.

Yum! Yes really there are black beans in there, they are just settling to the bottom of the bowl, so hard to see

Enjoy!

















This post was shared with My Legume Love Affair #43 in January 2012. (Find out more about this here)