Weekly Menu plus Recipe for Black Bean Meatballs

It's been pretty crazy around here lately, and my family has been eating a lot of sandwiches and pasta dinners. It'll do in a pinch, but I was getting pretty sick of this survival strategy, even if it does the trick.

So this week, I was determined to serve "real food", and I decided to try out that old method I'd abandoned a while ago - the "prep a bunch of basics on Sunday so I have things to work with during the week" strategy.

This week, I made a huge pot of rice, a pot of chick peas, a pot of black beans, and a large pot of split pea soup to start the week. These pots were all cooking while I was getting other work done.

Then, the challenge is to make simple meals using the food I prepped!

 So far, we've had rice with chick peas and roasted veggies one night, and rice with black bean meatballs and tomato sauce, with corn on the side, another night, and both those suppers began with split pea soup.

I'll be making tomato-rice soup (using the rice, roasted veggies, and tomato sauce that is left from those other meals) for breaking the fast Tuesday night (I'm sure the family will want other food to go along with that, so we'll probably make scrambled eggs and some spelt rolls also. And fruit for starters...).

Wednesday night we'll have to use up whatever is left of the chick peas (chick pea fritters maybe?), and serve that with whatever else is around, say, the corn that is left, a salad, some baked potatoes...

And then, I can cut myself some slack and make pasta for Thursday night, right?

I definitely find it much easier to plan my meals when I've got a few basics ready to go! Do you ever do this?

I figured I'll share the recipes for those vegan meatballs - hope you like it!


Black Bean "Meatballs" (Vegan) Recipe

2 cups cooked black beans, drained
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
3 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
Flour to bind (optional)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in food processor bowl, and pulse till you have a relatively smooth paste.

Line a baking pan with baking paper, and form the mixture into balls and place on pan. Spray with a fine mist oil sprayer.

Bake for 25 min at 200C (about 425F)



Serve hot, with your favorite sauce!