I won't try to convert you here but I will say that I feel a bazillion times better eating vegan than I ever did eating paleo. The paleo diet was not right for me and my healthcare professionals are all very happy with my great lab work these days.
These are the meals I'm most enjoying right now...
Baked oatmeal- So simple, so filling. Pretty perfect, no?
Burrito bowls- cooked rice + riced cauliflower (cilantro lime is the family favorite style) and "refried" (no oil so basically just smashed) pinto or black beans with green chillies, romaine lettuce. Then I load up the table with optional add-ins and everybody can put whatever they want on top! Red onions, sauteed bell pepper & mushrooms, black olives, salsa/Pico de gallo, cashew "cheese" or nutritional yeast. I used to also have optional meat but none of my family wants to eat meat right now! A and my husband were my only big meat eaters though and both have gone vegetarian in the past so I guess not surprising.
Cannellini sauce rice bowl- Rice + riced cauliflower, garlic, onion, and whatever veggies sound good that day!
Hot cereal- I usually do a combination of quinoa and buckwheat and I usually add riced cauliflower, spaghetti squash, pureed pumpkin or pureed butternut squash + ground flax seed or hemp hearts. We mix in a little maple syrup and we top it with trail mix, fresh fruit, and nut butter.
Lentil loaf- like meatloaf, but not. I just make it up as I go now after trying the Oh She Glows cookbook recipe once. I serve it with salad, baked/mashed potatoes, and baked cinnamon peaches. A loves making lentil loaf sandwiches with the leftovers.
Pasta- There are six of us so I often do a package of quinoa-rice pasta and a package of lentil pasta. Whatever veggies we feel like- onions, zucchini, broccoli, spinach, kale. Tomato sauce, pesto, that cannellini sauce that feels similar to Alfredo sauce.
Pesto wraps- Spread pesto on a tortilla. (I was out of pesto so the above pictured was made with Plant Perks cashew "cheese" instead). Add veggies of choice... I tend to love spinach + red onion + avocado. I usually add walnuts or crispy chickpeas/mungbean sprouts too, for a yummy texture change.
Polenta sautee- I take a tube of polenta and chop it up into little chunks. I bake those at 350 for about 30 minutes. While those are baking, I chop and sautee veggies. For Italian: garlic, onion, mushroom, zucchini, spinach or kale. Mexican: garlic, onion, mushroom, green chilies, bell peppers. If I feel like I "need" sauce, I'll often do either pasta sauce or that cannellini sauce for Italian, salsa for Mexican.
Potato enchilada bake- huge hit! Enchiladas with mashed potatoes as the filling instead chicken & cheese or something. I mixed garlic, onion, mashed cauliflower, green chilies, and spinach into my mashed potatoes. The girls and I liked black olives in ours but the boys don't care for them. I just layer tortilla + Siete enchilada sauce + mashed potato mixture like a lasagna instead of rolling up a bunch of enchiladas. We all especially love this meal with beans and mango on the side.
Salad + baked potato or sweet potato- Salads are admittedly not as yummy to me as a meal now but I still like a simple side salad just fine and I always love baked potatoes and sweet potatoes. But! I don't really like my sweet potatoes savory. I just do nuts + hemp hearts or chia seeds + cinnamon if I go with a sweet potato.
Snack plates- We have snack plates for lunch every day. They're simple and versatile, and satisfy everyone's tastes so easily! All kinds of solo fruits and veggies of course but also apples with almond butter, carrots and cucumbers with hummus, ants on a log, strawberries with chocolate cashew dip, sweet potato slices baked 30 minutes at 350 and topped with almond butter and berries, crackers with cashew "cheese," smoothies, chia seed pudding topped with trail mix or granola, side salads, a cup of soup, baked oatmeal, leftovers!
Soup & toast- Tomato-y vegetable soup with gluten free sourdough is a current favorite but gosh, so many possibilities! Black bean, broccoli potato, butternut squash, caldo verde, cannellini "zuppa," lentil, minestrone, roasted red pepper, tomato, tortilla! And toast... Cornbread, crackers, paleo garlic rolls, sourdough!
And, of course, a few resources I love for veganism! I say start with the Forks Over Knives film and then move onto Fiber Fueled! But I also adore The Colorful Family Table // Eat Better, Live Better, Feel Better // Forks Over Knives book and website
