The school year is about to begin, so, after a very long and yet somehow not refreshing at all hiatus, I am giving this whole “meal planning” thing another go.
One thing I am going to actively try to do – for however long it lasts, which may well be the time it takes to go to the grocery store – is to pack our meals with MORE vegetables. The combination of my general meal-planning malaise and our subsequent over-reliance on takeout this summer has resulted in a bad pattern of not enough veggies. We need MORE VEG, people. It seems easy enough to accomplish… yet putting this plan into action is surprisingly difficult??? Have I ever cooked a vegetable before? What vegetables are edible? It’s like I have no idea how any of this works.
Which is why I am prevailing upon you today for your favorite veggie-heavy sides. Yes, I know, I go weeks without posting and now I am ASKING FOR HELP. I am very needy. Please help me reintegrate vegetables into my life, Internet.
We avoid tomatoes and eggplant around these parts (although I will of course add tomatoes to salads and things, for the benefit of my child and husband), but otherwise I am open to ideas.
Here’s what I’m planning for this week. Wish me well, Internet friends.
Dinners for the Week of August 16-August 22
- Chicken Shawarma Salad Bowls: This is a new-to-me recipe, but my husband and I both like shawarma and the salad bowl aspect of the meal means I don’t have to think about a separate vegetable.
- Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup: I need a slow cooker meal and this is one of my favorites. Maybe I will whip up a little side salad to go with it? My side salad spirit is usually pre-crushed by my husband’s disdain for easy salads… but perhaps I don’t care?
- Tacos: It is the last week of summer and Carla has requested tacos, so I shall acquiesce.
- Mahi Mahi with Mango Salsa and Roasted Green Beans: I don’t know how I will prepare the fish yet – grill? bake? – but a mango salsa is easy to make and we somehow haven’t had green beans in literal months, so that will make a nice veggie accent.
- Follow Up: I put blackening seasoning on the fish and roasted it. It was cooked just fine, and I thought it was FINE, but my husband did not care for this that much.
- Charred Shrimp, Pesto, & Quinoa Bowls: This is something I have never made before but it sounds new and different and worth trying. I hope.
- Follow Up: This was okay. Obviously, the overriding flavor was pesto and that was… too much pesto for me. It’s main selling point was its novelty. Maybe once every year or two.
- Chicken or Salmon plus Zucchini or Brown Rice with Peas and Onions: I have chicken and salmon in the freezer. I will buy zucchini because it is one of my favorite veggies and because it will survive an extra week if we don’t get to it. We have plenty of peas in the freezer. These will be my backup, little-planning-required meals, for if I can avoid the siren song of takeout.
- Follow Up: I used leftover quinoa instead of brown rice, and it tastes so good with peas and onions. It’s such a simple side dish but I really enjoy it. And I roasted a pork tenderloin instead of chicken or salmon. The marinade was quite yummy.
We also have a new neighbor who is moving in this week. So Carla and I will make her some chocolate snickerdoodles (Carla’s choice) to welcome her to the neighborhood.
That’s it for this week, Internet. Please don’t forget to tell me your favorite veggie sides and/or let me know what you’re making for dinners this week.
For some reason your request has left me firmly in “Have I ever cooked a vegetable before??” territory as well, despite the fact that I like vegetables. My mind is a complete blank. One thing I’ve started doing recently though, as we eat more and more take out (Ugh. But also, thinking of and cooking dinner. UGH.) is just putting out a cruditite plate- baby carrots, cauliflower, cucumber with a scoop of hummus or a ranch dip. A little freshness is always welcomed and it’s a way to get *some* veggies in, even if it’s not a whole side dish.
Yesssss this is genius. (Glad I am not the only one who has forgotten how to vegetable.)
Yes, I do this too! It’s perfect!
Here in UK I am a huge fan of Yottam Ottolenghi recipes he has some amazing vegetable recipes and I think he has published in USA 🇺🇸 he is worth a look !
Thanks! I will check it out!
I’d try just adding more vegetables to what you’re already making. If a recipe is flexible, like a soup, double the veggies already in it. Cut the meat in the tacos and add some veggies. And add some veggies into breakfast, like greens in scrambled eggs or smoothies.
Tonight I’m making a white bean-pistachio spread to go on bread with sautéed kale on the side.
Tuesday’s dinner is a tomato and halloumi cheese tart on puff pastry
Wednesday’s is whole-wheat spaghetti with feta, spinach, and dill
And that’s it for the week because we’re leaving on Thursday to take Noah to college and not coming back for a few days.
Ahhhh! College drop off! I hope it goes great! That white bean spread sounds very tempting…
If you want to try it, here’s the recipe: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/05/02/beans-pistachio-puree-recipe/
It turned out well, though since North dislikes nuts, I probably wouldn’t have made it if they weren’t at camp.
Ooooh! That sounds so interesting! Thank you! The combination of the ingredients is so unusual to me that I can’t imagine how it tastes. But I am putting it on my list for sure!
Okay, here’s my easy way to eat more vegetables: buy the prewashed, pre-cut, more expensive than they ought to be bags of vegetables. Just knock those right into your grocery cart and then make them with dinner. Make it as easy as possible. Then you can branch out later.
I am 100% ready to throw money at this problem, thank you for reminding me.
I’m not so good at doing vegetables myself, generally, but I do have one favorite-healthy-thing-to-eat recipe, a no-tomato ‘salsa’ that can be eaten on its own with chips (Tostitos Scoops are the easiest) but also as a side. It is so crazy delicious! The recipe is on my blog, at https://knit-read-cats-hockey.blogspot.com/2017/01/finally-sharing-salsa-recipe.html. Let me know if you try it!
Checking it out now – thanks!
I love your meal suggestions – If I’m feeling stuck on what to cook I’ll go to your blog. I will be trying the shawarma and am also going to make the Shrimp, pesto & quinoa tomorrow! A small version as my husband is allergic to shrimp he’s is away golfing this week. We are now ‘flexitarians’ — went about 80-90% vegetarian to manage my husband’s cholesterol. I know your hubby is a doc;) but we chose to manage with diet, supplements and exercise instead of meds. It dropped dramatically in 6 months!!
One of my fave sources for vegetarian recipes is https://ohsheglows.com/ — Great recipes!! they are vegan (which I’m not) so we may add some dairy instead of the vegan option. Bad Manners (formerly Thug Kitchen) cookbooks are also amazing. Find a few recipes you like and serve as a side for a few nights beside your meat. A great & yummy way to boost veggie intake.
Thanks for the recommendations!!! And yay for cutting cholesterol! That is excellent!
No recipes from me but – my husband makes broccoli (I think he steams it, not sure) – I’m pretty sure olive oil and garlic are involved and he adds some Tony Cachere’s seasoning that gives it a little oomph. It’s delicious. Asparagus is another favorite. And, although, perhaps not the healthiest of vegetables, grilled corn on the cob is ALWAYS welcome. I also like the idea of side salads – whether he cares for them or not is moot here. He needs the veggies AND be a good example to Carla by eating it. The crudité plate is genius.
I looooooove corn on the cob. Really any corn. Our local grocery has been selling corn with cotija cheese, a lime, and “street corn” sauce and it is delicious.
I AM HERE FOR YOU! Like Steph, I basically quadruple veg for any dinner, but my fave thing to do is roast them. Just yesterday I made marinated roasted zucchini, mushroom, and peppers. We love stir fry around here, and nothing wrong with a good old side salad! Also, once a week I make pita pizzas and serve a huge platter of raw veggies, with dip, and it gets mowed down like nobody’s business. Tonight: pasta, with two roasted cauliflowers. Tomorrow, stir fry with tons of veg, pita pizzas Wed, wraps with veg (and chicken for the guys) on Thursday, Friday is Greek salad with pita and hummus (and chicken, again).
What do you marinate the roasted veggies in? And please to share this pasta with roasted cauliflower concoction – it sounds very intriguing!
My fave marinade is 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp honey, 3 cloves garlic, and salt and pepper (I don’t measure those, just, you know, to taste). That obviously makes a lot of marinade, but I’m feeding teens, so scale back as needed.
So every pasta night I just make whatever pasta (sundried tomato sauce or creamy garlic sauce) and then I roast 2 cauliflowers, cut into florets, and serve it alongside the pasta. I was always kind of hungry after pasta night but after consuming an entire cauliflower, I am sated. I usually just put sauce on the cauliflower as well as on my pasta, and it really adds bulk and yumminess. I like my cauliflower roasted almost to a crisp, but the guys like it just regular roasted, so I use two pans and adjust the time as necessary.
Yummmmm. Thanks!
The only thing I can bear to make at the moment are sautéed mushrooms and roasted broccoli. Over and over and over again… just those two things.
I definitely get into that space. Only here it is zucchini and broccoli on repeat.
I am gonna have to second the Yottam Ottolenghi suggestion. I am lucky enough to have eaten at one of his restaurants in London and yes, definitely fabulous recipes.
I particularly like his Plenty cookbook and recently picked up Jerusalem and have been drooling over it. They look a lot more complicated than they are and I find that they work pretty well even when I skip steps because I don’t like that ingredient and/or am too lazy.
I tend to chuck spinach in almost everything. Frozen spinach if it is gonna be cooked on the stove, fresh if can be salad-ed. I default to taco bowls over a bed of lettuce/spinach/arugula rather than shells. Sauteed bell peppers added to all tacos.
This is my hands-down favorite chicken shawarma bowl recipe – https://whatsgabycooking.com/chicken-shawarma-bowls/ We tend to make only two bowls at a time so we either 3rd or halve the bowl ingredients, but do the full amount of chicken and marinade and use the chicken for tacos or the like later on in the same week. Or freeze it and use it later for another roundof shawarma bowls.
I tend to double or triple the amount of veggies called for a recipe. So this Hello Fresh kale and tortellini recipe is made with the normal amount of pasta and twice the called for veggies. https://www.hellofresh.com/recipes/w31-r8-5b16fa99ae08b55d5e3718c2
Another favorite is this pasta bake, which I have made with all sorts of edits, but mostly by adding a ton more veggies. I think my favorite variation was chicken sausage, broccoli, kale, spinach, cheddar cheese. I call BS at her claim that it is only 5 minutes of prep though, and found that I had to cook it for 30 uncovered and then 30 covered, but your oven may vary. https://www.recipetineats.com/healthy-chicken-and-broccoli-pasta-bake/
Thanks for the suggestions! I will check out the recipes you linked to! And man I really need to suck it up and do the spinach thing. I just don’t really like spinach, especially when it isn’t fresh, but it seems like such an easy way to amp up the veggie quotient.
We have been making fried “rice” with cauliflower rice lately. Last night’s version had zucchini, carrots, spicy pepper from our garden, corn, peas, egg, and leftover pork carnitas. Super delicious.
That SOUNDS delicious! I typically avoid egg; is that, like, The Key ingredient that makes it “fried rice” or are there other seasonings involved?
You can definitely skip the egg. We usually add soy sauce and black pepper. But it is a truly forgiving dish. Green onions might be a nice addition.
Yum!