Sunday Meal Plan

It's Sunday again, and time for us to do our weekly meal planning, shopping, and prepping for the coming week. We love how we are feeding our family wonderful, whole foods. We found a great four week meal plan on the Whole Foods website that we used to start out, but now we have fun choosing our own meals and mixing in some of our own favorite recipes.

Last week was the first time we created our own meal plan. We focus on lunch and dinner and no so much on breakfast. I made a batch of banana waffles and froze them for the week, and Mr. M made some Quinoa Breakfast Muffins. Those and Oatmeal are our go-to's for breakfast.

Last weeks meal plan looked like this:

Day	Lunch	Dinner
M	Black Bean Soup w/ Cornbread muffins	Stuffed Peppers w/ chorizo Cornbread muffins
T	Stuffed pepper	Pasta w/ Tomato and Veggies
W	Black Bean Soup	White Bean Spinach Salad
R	Pasta w/ Tomato and Veggies	Veggie Burgers w/ baked fries
F	Black Bean Soup	Millet Loaf (FORKS/KNIVES)  with Tahini Mashed Potatoes and Mushroom Gravy
S	Veggie Burgers	Avocado and Kale Salad
S	Left Overs	*New Recipe Night*

Mr. M likes to try out new meals so we always save Sunday night for a new recipe. It works out well because it's the day do our shopping and can easily add things to our grocery trip for the meal. One of my favorite meal plan meals is Black Bean Soup. It is so easy to make and it makes a ton. It really is easy to keep it in the fridge for the week and spoon some out for lunch a few days a week.

Whole Foods' Black Bean Soup (see the original recipe here). 

Ingredients: 

• 1 pound dried black beans (about 2 1/2 cups), rinsed. (I'm not going to lie - We use two cans of black beans and call it a day). 
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped)1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground chipotle pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ripe avocado, chopped

Method: 

Soak the beans overnight or 6 to 8 hours prior to cooking. Drain and rinse. (If you use cans, skip this step - Yay!)

In a large pot, bring 1/2 cup water to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add onions, bell pepper and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in cumin and chipotle and cook 1 minute, stirring. Add drained beans and 10 cups water. Bring soup to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until beans are tender. (Again, if you use cans, your beans are already 'tender.' I tend to just let the soup simmer for a bit, maybe 15 minutes, and call it good.) Remove 4 cups soup and carefully purée in a blender. Return purée to pot and stir in cilantro, nutritional yeast and lime juice. Spoon into bowls for serving and garnish with avocado.

Nutritional Info: 

PER SERVING:120 calories (25 from fat), 2.5g total fat, 0g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 15mg sodium, 20g carbohydrate (7g dietary fiber, 2g sugar), 7g protein

We serve it up with a easy cornbread muffin (I buy the box mix... Shhh). We usually skip adding the avocado since it's a heat-and-serve dish for us, but when we have extra guacamole, I toss it in and it is delicious! 

Enjoy!