Nine Days Meatless Meal Ideas

I'm running late this week - I forgot to post my 9 days menu!
Hopefully, it's better late than never (??)...

My family doesn't love it when I forget to cook for days at a time, so there's something of a mutiny going on in my house. 

(NO MORE SANDWICHES! - the picket signs are being made as I write this. oops)

In my defense, I have a lot of projects going on right now, and my family IS capable of prepping their own meals. Just because they don't want to do it doesn't mean I always have to do it, does it? I hear their complaints that it's hot and they don't want to cook, but guess what? I can say the same thing!

And I will:

It's hot and I don't want to cook. There, I said it.

In any case, we still need to eat, so aside from the aforementioned sandwiches, here are some of my go-to foods for the 9 days (and actually, any weekday):

Pasta night

Sloppy Sams and sweet corn

Black Bean Burgers with all the fixin's

Black Bean Chili (recipe coming soon - I forgot to post it) - one of our favorite meals right now! (served with whatever makes people happy)

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and a salad

Tuna Patties with baked potatoes

Stir Fried Veggies with tofu (and rice)

Chick Pea Fritters and a salad

Breakfast for Supper

Pareve Quiche and fresh rolls and salad

Black Bean Salad and Corn Bread 

What are your favorite meatless meals? I'd love to hear from you!

Meatless Meal ideas (Summer friendly)

Summer friendly means NO THICK SOUPS, although in general I think they make the perfect meal. It's just too hot for them right now!

So here are some ideas to help us get through these hot summer days - and the Nine Days too!

Pasta night

Sloppy Sams and sweet corn

Black Bean Burgers with all the fixin's

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and a salad

Tuna Patties with baked potatoes

Stir Fried Veggies with cashews or tofu (and rice)

Chick Pea Fritters and a salad

Breakfast for Supper

Pareve Quiche and fresh rolls and salad

Black Bean Salad and Corn Bread 

What are your favorite meatless meals for the summer?

"Nine Days" Pantry Challenge Menu

It's that time of year again - the Nine Days are here and it's hot out. It's actually quite fitting to have a week in the summer to focus on lighter eating. It seems to be quite practical, when you think about it, even though that wasn't the origin of this custom. I believe in keeping 9 days food very simple, not any fancier than a regular weekday's meals would be.

In my house, it's not really going to be a "lighter eating" week, since we eat vegetarian during the week year-round, but I plan to do a "lighter spending" week! Starting very soon, we will not be able to avoid spending money as we approach our son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah. There's just no way around it, even though I decided to self-cater the Thursday night event. Self catering is a lot of work, but it allows me to control the cost of the event, while serving foods that would be out of our price range if we did a catered event, as well as the ingredients used. With all the different foods we need to be careful about (at least labeled!!), this seemed to make the most sense...

But I digress. This week we'll be pantry challenging...

Here's the planned menu:

Sunday
Lunch: Sandwiches, cut vegetables with chumus
Supper: Spaghetti, Steamed Kishuim, Watermelon

Monday
Lunch: Lentil patties, rice cooked in vegetable broth, carrot sticks
Supper: Baked Potatoes/Baked Sweet Potatoes, non-dairy crustless vegetable "quiche" (using random veggies from the freezer)

Tuesday
Lunch: leftovers from Sunday and Monday
Supper: Sloppy Sams on Fresh Rolls, Corn, tomatoes & cucumbers

Wednesday
Lunch: leftover Sloppy sams and corn
Supper: Scrambled eggs, Pancakes, melon

Thursday
Lunch: Sandwiches, any vegetables that need to be used up
Supper: Pasta with sauce and cheese or polenta, salad, ??

Shabbat - this is a really tentative plan
Fresh Challot
Food from the freezer, plus fruit soup and a fresh black bean cholent
Seudah Shlishit will be tuna salad/egg salad, rolls, veggies, and  lots of fruit and lemonade or something like that...

Menu Plan

Help! I need a cooking and cleaning fairy or a packing fairy to show up at my place.

I'm so overwhelmed and kind of not getting enough done because of that.

As far as meals go, I figured that I cannot ignore two very important meals this week - BEFORE the fast, and AFTER the fast.

So here's the plan:

Before the fast:

Minestrone Soup

Fish (I have some fish fillets in the freezer, not sure how I'll prepare them, but maybe with grapes - since I kept getting advice to eat grapes for an easy fast!)

Spinach and Cheese Pie (I discovered a bag of spinach in the freezer I had forgotten about) or spinach and wheat berries casserole, I haven't decided.

Lettuce, cucumber, and mango salad

Of course, we'll have the required Egg and Bread too...


After the fast:

Fruit salad

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Minestrone Soup, and other leftovers from our pre-fast meal

We usually nibble our way through our after-the-fast meal, no one, except for our 14 yr old, wants to eat a whole lot at once.

What are you serving? 

Meal Plan for the week

I'm a bit late, but better late than never!

What are you eating during the Nine Days? Since we eat vegetarian food during the week, really the Nine Days are no different than any week. And you all know by now that I don't do fancy food. We're pretty practical around here, so here goes:

Sunday: cottage cheese pancakes, vegetable soup with chick peas, pasta with gevinah levanah (and garlic and oregano), cucumbers


Monday: Rice, Black bean meatballs with sweet and sour sauce, carrot muffins, make your own salad.


Tuesday: Toasted Cheese sandwiches on homemade whole wheat bread, make your own salad, red lentil soup

Wednesday: Baked ziti, steamed kishuim, melon

Thursday: Leftovers from all week

Let me know what you're making! I'd love to hear from you!