Meal of the Week #1

This is a feature for my blog that I am thinking of attempting for this coming year. I feel like most food blogs post recipes, and that is wonderful, as it is a huge resource even for me, for finding new things to make to eat. But, I think it is also interesting to see what a whole vegetarian meal looks like, in addition to recipes for individual dishes.

Anyway, here is how this meal came together. The above soup is the first thing I made upon returning from our trip to Mexico. I hadn't been to the market yet, so I just did what I sometimes do when I don't have much in the house, I threw together a soup using what I had on hand. We had the soup for lunch with some slices of toasted homemade bread that I found in the freezer. Then the leftovers of the soup became a side dish for the next night's meal, alongside baked barbecue tempeh, brown basmati rice and sauteed greens.

This isn't a recipe, but here is what was in the soup: vegetable broth, olive oil, spring onion (which was also the garnish), garlic, carrots, 1 small potato, 1 very small butternut squash, zipper peas (see below), green peas, datil pepper sauce (see below), dried epazote, a bay leaf or two, and salt and pepper. (If I remember correctly).

I recently bought these zipper peas and hot sauce at a small country store outside of St Augustine. Both are delicious!

Summary of the dinner:

• Protein: Tempeh, Brown Rice, Potato, 2 kinds of Peas
• Whole Grain: Brown Rice, Potato
• Vegetable/Fruit: Swiss Chard, Carrot, Onion, Squash, Potato, Peas
• Dairy: None
• Fats/Sugars: Olive Oil

My notes: you can see I was very hungry for a wider variety of proteins after returning from my trip where eggs, black beans and corn had been my only protein sources. I wished I had even more vegetables in the soup, as I was also desperate for vegetables. I made up for it in later meals that week.