A Vegan Shopping List

Thank you to everyone who send in recipes! It's Tuesday, which means I'm officially Vegan tomorrow for seven days. Going into my last week, I think I've finally found the will power to not care about the lack of meat. I've solved my protein problem with more beans and trail mix in my diet, and found some great recipes with eggplant.

One of my main goals for this month was to cook with more fresh produce, and so I'm really looking forward to this last week. No more relying on the Nacho recipe of my youth for a quick dinner. (Although I'm pretty sure I'm finishing off my mozzarella tonight with one last batch!) Because I'm not really in a cooking mood right now, recipe planning is tough, but I gave it a go below.

Shopping List for the week:
-Avocado--for lunchtime, with garlic salt on toast.
-Bananas--for breakfast
-Kale--Because the Crispy Kale recipe just looks so tasty!

Recipes to Make This Week:

From Christina:

• Dips: Hummus/ salsa/guacamole/bean dip served with pita/tortilla chips. For the bean dip: Mix variety of beans (kidney, black, pinto) with minced garlic and onions, and add spices like chili powder, paprika, whatever)
• Crispy kale Roast stemmed kale with your choice of oil--I love toasted sesame--and a little salt and garlic, or whatever you like. It gets crispy and amazing. Also great if you roast with coconut flakes and tofu cubes and then add to brown rice for an amazing meal.
• Tostadas: bake corn tortillas for about 6-8 minutes in oven until getting crispy and then top with mushed beans, salsa, avocado, tomatoes, onions, whatever, and then top with shredded cabbage and carrots
• Snack: The combination of banana chips with almonds is amazing. Awesome snack.
• Sweet potato fries=cut into fry size, lightly cover in olive oil and then lightly cover in garlic and cayenne pepper (or chili powder if you're a wus) and then bake at 400 for like 45 minutes, turning over every so often. And then broil for the last 5 minutes or so if you like them kinda burnt and crispy. Mmm!
• And lastly, salsa makes everything awesome. Pineapple chipotle salsa, mango lime salsa, spicy salsas, etc.
• Christina also sent me a few more recipes via Word Documents, including a delicious-sounding African Sweet Potato Soup. I'm going to make that in the future, for sure. 

Chickpea Bajane—VEGAN from Libby
A quinoa recipe! Yet another ingredient (and protein!) I want to try

Lentil Loaf—VEGAN
from Summer
This one looks tasty..

Crispy Tofu
from Quin P.
This was a great summary of how to stir-fry tofu

Vegitable Tian
from Carrie
Carrie sent me this, via another food blog, Anne Strawberry

Mediterranean Garbanzo Salad—VEGAN
from Heather