(Posting a day later than usual because of yesterday’s holiday).
I’ve been having a good time searching for new vegetarian recipes. For now, my research has all been online, but I’ve got three all-purpose cookbooks on hold at the library, to see if I like them and feel they would be worth purchasing. One is How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. His original How to Cook Everything has been our most-used cookbook for many years, and we’re eager to see what the vegetarian version holds. Two other books we’re waiting on are from America’s Test Kitchen: The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook and Vegan for Everyone. I’d also like to find a vegetarian cookbook for the InstantPot, but our library doesn’t have the one I’d like to start with so I’m still looking. I’d love any suggestions you may have for vegetarian cookbooks!
Big changes are coming this week to our breakfasts and desserts. I am going to be giving up yogurt and instead will be having cereals with oat milk instead. I love shredded wheat so that’s what I’m starting with, but there are other good cereals out there are well. Cereal with oat milk has more calories than my usual yogurt breakfast, so I am going to have to be careful about everything else when I menu plan. And, we are giving up ice cream and cakes for dessert (sob!). We’ve decided to eat something healthier instead, and our first treat will be a dish traditionally eaten at breakfast: baked oatmeal! There are so many yummy, healthy versions out there so we can mix things up and still feel like we’re getting something special. We’re also going to try and have more fruit for dessert, easier now as summer fruits, both tropical and otherwise, become more available. It didn’t help that Costco didn’t have any melons last weekend, but we did get strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. Peaches will be appearing soon as well.
We managed to have three vegetarian meals this past week – the spicy black bean bake was both easy and tasty and I’m already looking forward to having it again (although I want to use pepper jack cheese instead of the cheddar next time and leave the red pepper flakes out of the beans). We could have eaten more vegetarian meals but our goal right now is to use up the meat in the freezer (without going crazy). Here’s what was eaten for dinner last week:
Sunday: Pork & apple stir fry; green beans
Monday: Spicy black bean bake; Fritos; wilted cucumber salad
Tuesday: Pasta with meat sauce; roasted zucchini
Wednesday: Burritos with rice, beans, chicken, and cabbage; honeydew melon
Thursday: Tofu & sweet potato curry; honeydew melon
Friday: Cheese board
Saturday: Italian sausage & roasted squash mini pizzas
We head into June this week, so according to our plan there will be three vegetarian meals on the menu this week: a cheese board, chicken-less nuggets, and roasted artichoke sandwiches. Our once-a-week cheeseboard and mini pizza dinners continue, but the chicken-less nuggets are something we found at Costco and want to try. The mini pizzas this week will be topped with leftover Italian sausage and probably roasted squash for a second week. We’ll have the teriyaki chicken with zaru soba.
- Grilled teriyaki chicken
- Pasta with marinara; Italian sausages
- Hamburgers
- Cheese board
- Mini pizzas
- Chicken-less nuggets
- Roasted artichoke sandwiches
Last week was a great week for walking. Sunday was our regular day off and on Monday we visited Waimea Canyon and got in over a mile of walking there, and could have done more except for the weather. Tuesday through Friday though we walked the golf course perimeter every day (3.6 miles) – great workouts – and Saturday we did our Costco and Walmart shopping trip, walking over two miles. That trip is also a good workout, for me anyway, because I’m also pushing a cart the entire time, and then we also have to carry all we bought up two flights of stairs to our apartment. We always finish our shopping trips feeling more tired than we do after walking up at the park!
We walked our shortest total distance this past month though, only 67.1 miles. We had seven days where we walked less than a mile, almost always because of the weather. In April we walked a total of 78.5 miles.
An additional “benefit” we’ve discovered of the perimeter walks around the golf course is that we almost always find golf balls, at least one a day but sometimes two or three. We walk in the out-of-bounds area and guess some golfers just don’t bother to look if they hit their ball out of bounds. We’ve got quite a collection of balls now, both white and colors, and should have a couple of bags of them to sell when we get ready to leave the island!
The Occasional Nomads 
This reminds me that I need to try oat milk coffee creamer. I normally use half and half, and if I can find something else that works, I would save quite a bit of fat in my diet. I’ve tried other creamers (soy, coconut, almond) and didn’t like the taste in my morning coffee. But oat milk might work. I don’t use any dairy to speak of except that.
Costco takes a lot of energy for me, too. For some reason, that trip and the nearby grocery store run are exhausting. And I definitely get my steps in on those days.
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I love oat milk – much creamier than the other varieties of plant-based milks, and I like the flavor as well. We have tried them all though with two kids who are severely lactose intolerant. Oat milk is their favorite as well.
Costco is flat-out exhausting. We always count our trips there (and Walmart) as a full day of exercise. I’m not sure we could survive here without them though – between those two stores we can pretty much find all we need and want.
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I love oat milk! It’s so much creamier and satisfying than dairy milk, or any other plant based ones. Our Costco has a two pack that’s good. They also have breaded “chicken” patties that our delicious! I can’t wait to try the black bean bake.
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I agree, Denise! We buy it by the case at Walmart and just refrigerate one carton at a time. We also just bought some chicken-less nuggets that we’ll try for dinner this week. Haven’t seen the breaded chicken-less patties but will keep my eyes opened.
The black bean bake was very good – we ate it for dinner with Fritos and used leftovers in burritos and for other lunches. Will have the recipe up soon! (Tomorrow is a recipe with meat though).
Is there a recipe for your chickpea salad?
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Some books for you to check out–any thing by Crescent Dragonwagon, Vegan on the cheap by Robin Robertson, and of course, Pinterest. Love your blog and have read it for several years. And I enjoyed your travels, too, especially since I can’t travel.
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Thank you for the cookbook suggestions. I do have a vegan page on Pinterest, but will do some more searching.
We miss traveling. We’ll start up slowly again next year, but are really looking forward to 2023 and hope the world has figured out this pandemic by then.
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