Meatless Monday - Teriyaki Eggplant with Wasabi Mash

This dinner is so easy it's almost criminal.

I like to brush teriyaki sauce onto eggplant slices and pop them in a reasonably hot oven until cooked.

Then I add wasabi to normal mashed potatoes... to taste.

It's nice served with a little combination of mixed steamed veg, sometimes with a little extra teriyaki on those too - a great mid-week meal.

I've loved seeing what everyone is linking up with each week - although I'm swimming in recipes and ideas, there's always something out there that I didn't think of, or had forgotten, and I get all inspired again. The blogosphere rules!

If you want to play along, here is the lowdown:

♥ The linky will be up at 9am every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday.

♥ Grab the Meatless Monday button and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.

♥ Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!

Halloween Candy Corn Bark + Meal Plan

Halloween is a little bit fun.

I love scary movies, gory costumes and any excuse to decorate the house. This year has been pretty quiet, given I'm so busy, but I'll never let a "holiday" go without making some kind of themed food. I've seen Christmas bark made before, with crushed peppermint and other goodies, so I thought why not Halloween too?

I'd had some candy corn I bought in the last order from USA Foods, but I don't really like it... shock horror, I know. Mixed with chocolate, though, it's much more fun!

And so easy. Melt some chocolate, spread it out on foil or waxed paper, dot your goodies over, refrigerate. Something different!

Halloween dinners usually are something entirely normal, but given a stupid name for the evening. The grosser the better! Brains, guts, eyeballs, blood, anything goes at this time of year :)

I'm pretty sure I'll be telling Veggie Dad his fried rice is actually maggots.

♥ veggie fried rice ♥

♥ meatless spaghetti and meatballs ♥

♥ homemade pizzas ♥

♥ veggie kabobs and baked potatoes ♥

♥ mushroom steaks with baked sweet potatoes, corn and green beans ♥

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♥ candy corn bark ♥

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♥ roasted eggplant and zucchini puree ♥

♥ grape and pear puree ♥

I Heart My Body.

After I had a baby, I felt the ugliest I've ever been.

Isn't that strange? And sort of sad? 

I'd done something so amazing, so miraculous, and yet I felt mangled and frazzled and dumpy. My husband would leave for work in the morning, kissing the pale, freckly face of a frizzy-haired, sleep-chasing, confused new mum.

I was always wearing wrinkled pajamas with only one button done up, in the interests of quieting a hungry baby quickly at all hours of the night. No cute shorts or sexy lingerie.

My hair, which usually needs at least some attention each day lest I look like the bus driver from South Park with birds and leaves sticking out of it, was wild and wooly and everywhere.

I mourned the loss of whatever was in my boobs that made them not look like deflated balloons.

I mourned the once-smooth and stretch-mark-free skin of my stomach.

Now, seven months later, I've found the ability to play up what's cute, and hide what's still sorting itself out, post-birth.

Nobody told me that all the muscles in my thighs and butt would lose all tone.

Nobody told me that stitches in your nether regions are freaky and stuff takes a while to get back to a new normal.

I know I'm still too skinny. I know that my stomach skin will never be the same, and it will sort of still look like a front bum for a while yet. I know that it's weird I have dark spots in my belly button from when my stomach got a tan in the last few months of pregnancy.

I know that my thighs are wobbly and I'm conscious of them squishing and squelching and looking lumpy when I sit down in shorts. And how just above my knee is a little loose halo of flab.

But I also know that I have the power to work on them and get them back to a reasonable amount of tone.

Same with my butt.

Same with my tuckshop lady arms.

I know, too, that I don't have to if I don't want to. Or I can do it when I'm ready. It's only been seven months.

I also know that my mirror looks dirty, but I assure you it's not. It's just old :)

I love my body for what it's done, what it's yet to do and what it does every day.

I love that it's mine and I can do what I like with it.

Today I'm linking up with Carly at We Heart Life for I Heart My Body 2011.

Tomorrow is the day to show your stuff and be proud of your body, in whatever package it comes in.

Take a photo of yourself - whatever you're comfortable with. Put it on your blog.

Share your story about your body image issues - but share what you love, too.

Go and link up tomorrow, Saturday October 29. Support all the other bodies putting their skin and their soul out there in blogland, to help remind us all that we're beautiful.

We only get one body. We have to learn to love it.

Veggie Baby Food: corn, carrot and lentil curry

It's been fun experimenting for miss Veggie Baby. What will she eat? What will she turn her adorable button nose up at? How far can I go, and how much can I get away with?

With the original single-veg or fruit purees tested and received without incident, I've been mixing it up, creating new things and on the lookout for inspiration.

The first time I tried a little curry powder... just the teensiest taste... I was met with an unimpressed look. I wasn't sure whether it was the curry, or the texture of the lentils, as I'd left it less pureed than usual. I mixed it with a little mashed potato, and bam, we had a winner.

Dear child, I didn't eat curry until I was at least five. You rule.

This is the simplest curry ever, super-easy and takes just minutes to make. The sweetness of the fresh corn lends a good counterbalance to the "new" flavour of the curry. To be honest... I'd even eat it. In fact, it was hard not to when she originally refused to eat it, and if it wasn't for my dogged determination to try again, I would have!

Ingredients:
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 large carrot or 1 small, diced
1/2 cob fresh sweetcorn, kernels sliced off
1/2 cup red lentils
1/8 tsp curry powder, or whatever you're comfortable with.

Directions:
1. Add all ingredients to a saucepan and add water until it just covers the veggies.

2. Cook on medium-low heat until everything is soft enough to puree.


3. If your baby looks at you like you've lost your mind, mix it with a little leftover mash. They'll love you again.

♥♥♥


Meanwhile, if you're concerned about the food marketing techniques used to target your children (I'm sure I'll be defenceless against Veggie Baby's future pester power... have you seen that face?), then The  Parent's Jury is inviting you to have your say at the Fame and Shame Awards.

You get to vote on the companies that are doing it right, and the companies that have it so, so wrong.

Check them out on Facebook here and while you're there... you should so "like" me ;-) ♥

Spring Flower Hat - a free crochet pattern

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You. Cannot. Resist. This. Face.

Even if you have not crocheted before. You now want to.

I learned how to knit when I was very small, from my nanna. My mom tried to teach me, but she's left-handed and it was just not happening. Not only was I learning something new, but backwards too? Nuh-uh.

A few years later I made a very dodgy, dropped-stitch knitted coat hanger cover in Year 8 home ec. I couldn't knit to save myself.

At 21, a friend's mum refreshed my memory and all of a sudden I was living in Spotlight and crafting myself the Scarf Queen. Knit in straight lines? I'm your man.

Not long after, I realised crochet was way cuter, way easier and I could master something other than a straight line. I could make stuff! And you know how I learned?

The internet.

I'm fairly sure I googled "how to crochet" or something similar and was sent to about.com. There I saw pictures (YouTube hadn't been invented, argh!) and picked it up immediately. I'm not kidding, by the end of that day, I'd made about 25 granny squares and finished a blanket the next day. It is that easy.

If you can crochet basic stitches and follow a simple pattern, you can make this hat. Your kid will be the envy of other boring-hat wearers in any playground. You are woman/man,  hear you roar!

I've also made a different version of it, which is a bit sturdier with different wool and goodies, which I will post soon. This hat is good for either looking pretty or not wanting to be too hot, as it's very light and uses baby wool. You can extend the brim if you want more sun protection, and make the hat itself as short or as long as you want, depending on baby's head size.

Veggie Baby is 7 months old, and could probably do with it being a bit bigger and the brim wider. This pattern size may be more suited to someone a little younger.

If you're a beginner, this will explain the abbreviations, and this is helpful to explain what the stitches look like and how to do them.

You will need:

4.5mm hook 

1 ball 3ply baby wool

any kind of wool for flower

Pattern:

1. ch 4, join to form ring.

2. ch 1, 10 dc in ring, sl st to join.

3 and 4. ch 1, 1 dc in same stitch, 1 dc in each stitch around, sl st to join.

5. ch 1, 1 dc in same stitch, 2 dc in next stitch, and alternate around. 1 dc, then 2, etc. sl st to join.

6 - 16. ch 1, 1 dc in same stitch, then 1 dc in each stitch around, sl st to join. Continue this for as long as you need to make the hat the depth you want. I did 16 rows for this hat.

17 (brim). ch 1, 2dc in same stitch. 2dc in each stitch around, sl st to join.

18 - 19. ch 1, 1 dc in same stitch. 1 dc in each stitch around, sl st to join. I did this twice, but extend for a wider brim.

20. ch 1, sc in same stitch. sc in next, hdc, 2 dc, hdc, sc. *sc, hdc, 2dc, hdc, sc*. continue the pattern inside the ** all the way round so it is a little wavy end to your brim.

Flower:

I used this pattern. Very cute!

Please enjoy this rather blurry picture of the flower.

You can do what you like with your hat when you've made it, including sell it, but if you put it online, please link to this pattern.

I hope you like it :)

So can you crochet? Do you love it? Or are you more the Year 8 dropped-stitch knitter?

Meatless Monday - Mexican Pizza

For more info about my Meatless Mondays linkup, go here, or the Meatless Mondays tab at the top of the page. Link up with your own - I love seeing what people are eating!

This week is an easy dish that I like to grab when I'm starving. Mexican seems to work really well for fast food! I usually make a burrito or a quesadilla, but this dish was born from me getting thoroughly sick of both of them and wanting something a little different. You can absolutely use a proper pizza base, or make your own dough, but I just used a tortilla and ate it with a knife and fork, because it tends to go a bit soft. It can also be made for as many people as you want, I won't give measurements :)

Ingredients
1 tortilla per person
refried beans
salsa
sour cream
guacamole
fresh tomato
sliced green onion
coriander/cilantro
any hot sauce you wish - I used Tabasco and the sauce my chipotles came in.

Directions
1. Preheat oven or grill/broiler.

2. Spread refried beans on tortilla and top with salsa. You can also mix the two if you like. Sprinkle cheese over and bake/broil until cheese is golden and tortilla is crisp.

3. Top with sour cream, guacamole, tomato, onion and coriander/cilantro. Sprinkle over hot sauce.

Pretty easy, huh?

Usual spiel:

♥ The linky will be up at 9am every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday.

♥ Grab the Meatless Monday button and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.

♥ Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!

Check out last week's link for inspiration.

Meal Plan

Happy Sunday, y'all! Another meal plan for this week.

I had a look at a couple of cookbooks I have that I haven't looked at in a while for inspiration. Oh and if you scroll down and click on my Eat Your Books button, it will take you to a list of my cookbooks. Categorised online. Yeah I'm that much of a freak.

Anyway.

This week we're being real men and eating quiche. It's so creamy, cheesy and delectable I've no idea why people are so averse to it. I dare you to try mine.

♥ leek and cheese quiche with salad ♥

♥ ratatouille pasta bake ♥

♥ thai zucchini stir fry and rice ♥

♥ caramelised onion and pumpkin tart with oven fries and asparagus ♥

♥ teriyaki eggplant steaks with wasabi mash ♥

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♥ chocolate cream cheese brownies ♥

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♥ lentil, carrot and corn curry ♥

♥ orange and pear puree ♥

Excuse the excellent iPhone photo from my early blog days. Life sure was tough before my Canon arrived!

Meanwhile... is it true that men don't like quiche? Do YOU like quiche? What the hell is wrong with quiche?!

Healthy Mac and Cheese

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Yah-huh.

This tastes as good as it looks.

With about half the cheese and fat usually associated with macaroni and cheese.

And you know where it came from?

This guy:

Good old Dr Phil - the smart-talkin', no-drinkin', weight-watchin' TV lord. Once upon a time he wrote a book about losing weight. I read it even though I'm 5'10" and 59 kilos dripping wet because I'll read anything he writes. I'm a teensy bit of a fan.

But even if you're not, some of the recipes in his cookbook are actually good! Admittedly I did change this one a tad, because I just cannot do low-fat cheese. I think I'm allergic to it or something. I'm definitely allergic to food without flavour, I know that much.

This mac and cheese has a ton of flavour, with only one cup of cheese, low-fat milk and two cans of chopped artichokes... even though I only used one. Praise be to TV, it's a welcome addition to anyone's repertoire.

Once upon a time I made Paula Deen's macaroni and cheese. It's a heart attack on a plate and it still didn't taste as good as this. I sort of want to slap myself for saying such a thing, but it's true! I'll be making it again. And again, and again, etc.

If you want to make it too, here is the original. No butter, wholemeal pasta, low-fat mozzarella. It'd probably be pretty good.

If, like me, you have to change stuff according to your own tastes, you can follow what I did. And suit it to yourself!

Bon appetit, baby!


Ingredients
Nonstick spray
2 cups low fat or fat free milk (I used soy)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup tasty cheese
1/5 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
8 canned artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
3 cups cooked pasta (I had no elbow pasta so had to use fusilli Jerry).

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Spray a baking dish with spray and set aside.

2. Heat butter and flour over a medium heat until melted. Stir 1 minute. Add 2 cups milk and stir constantly until thick and bubbling. You can turn the heat up if you're brave.

3. Stir in cheese and cook, stirring until melted.

4. Add onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, salt, nutmeg, pepper, artichoke hearts and macaroni. Cook until just heated through.

5. Pour into prepared baking dish and press down lightly. I topped mine with a little extra cheese and multigrain breadcrumbs. Bake until bubbling and lightly browned, about 20 mintues.

Do you believe me? Would YOU try it?

Veggie Mama's Meatless Mondays

Are you doing Meatless Mondays? Wanting to? Wanting to know more about it?

It's pretty simple - just one day a week, cut out meat. Some people simply make one meatless dinner a week, and that's fine too. I'll never shout from the rooftops and force you to convert, but I'm a huge fan of just cutting back, or making a different meal every now and then.

Sometimes you just make dinner and it's accidentally veggie. You haven't set out for it to be that way, but it just doesn't have any meat in it. And I bet it's delicious.

I ain't preaching, so if you want more information, the Australian site is here, and the worldwide site here.
I do recommend you read them, there's a lot of cool stuff and great explanations of the reasons behind it.

I've decided to start a linky - mostly for inspiration, but it's cool also to have somewhere to be accountable, if that helps. So link up if you've made a meatless dinner - whether for Meatless Monday, or just because, or even accidentally! It's a bit of fun, with excellent consequences :)

♥ The linky will be up at 9am every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday.

♥ Grab the Meatless Monday button and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.

♥ Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!

 Happy eating, folks! Can't wait to see what you all come up with. 

Meal Plan

I'm trying something different this week, by attempting a healthy mac and cheese. It is meant to be entirely fat-free but I just cannot do fat-free cheese. I'm not even going to try. However, I always use low-fat soy milk in everything, and this mac and cheese also has artichokes as part of its sauce. I'm definitely willing to try that! Will let you know how I go.

The veggie curry is actually Adam Liaw's Fish Head Curry that he told me is awesome vegetarianised. Can't hurt to experiment :)

This week I'm also adding whatever I'm making in the kitchen to have on hand for Veggie Baby.

♥ ravioli with veggie-tomato sauce and toasted sourdough ♥

♥ crispy fillets with apricot sauce, rice and broccoli ♥

♥ healthy mac and cheese, salad ♥

♥ veggie curry and rice ♥

♥ sundried tomato, spinach and feta strudel with roasted potatoes and peas ♥

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♥ glazed apple cinnamon scrolls ♥

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♥ pumpkin, broccoli and sweetcorn puree ♥

♥ apple and kiwi puree ♥

You can find the apple scroll recipe here and the strudel recipe here.

Enjoy!

Go Pink with Sundried Tomato and Cream Cheese-Stuffed Mushrooms

This recipe content is proudly sponsored by the Australian Mushroom Growers Association, who compensated me for creating the recipe and kindly supplied fresh produce to cook it with.

♥♥♥♥

Did you know that in Australia, 2680 women die from breast cancer each year?

And that it is the most common invasive cancer in women after non-melanoma skin cancer?

They're our boobs. And they can kill us.

This year, Australia's Mushroom Growers are throwing their support behind the fight against breast cancer with the Mushrooms Go Pink campaign.

You may have already seen mushrooms in your local supermarket dressed for the occasion in pretty pink packaging - their new outfit aims to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month, leading into the Cancer Council's Pink Ribbon Day on Monday, October 24.

If you want to show your support for the campaign, go along and buy some pink packaged mushrooms and then come home and make something scrumptious... like these stuffed mushrooms *ahem*. For every kilo of fresh mushrooms sold in the pink packages during October, a contribution will be made to the Cancer Council with the aim of raising $50,000.

I've made stuffed mushrooms today, but I asked whoever was hanging out on Facebook recently what their favourite dishes were - so if you need some inspiration, you can try:

♥ stuffed with garlic and breadcrumbs ♥

♥ carbonara ♥

♥ fried like a burger with provolone and pesto ♥

♥ risotto ♥

♥ stuffed with basil pesto ♥

♥ mushroom gravy ♥

♥ sliced with capsicum in fajitas ♥

♥ stuffed with camembert ♥

♥ mushroom steaks ♥

♥ crumbed and served with aioli ♥

♥ plain old fried with butter ♥

And in addition to mushrooms being delicious, they also contain more than 20% of B vitamins, are a good source of vitamin B12 (excellent for vegans), the only non-animal food to contain vitamin D, low kj and are an excellent superfood. Given that the Cancer Council promotes a healthy diet in combating cancer, it makes perfect sense for that diet to contain such nutrient powerhouses.

Top them with sundried tomato cream cheese and you've hit the jackpot!

Sundried Tomato and Cream Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients
Mushrooms - either button size for canapes, or stuff big portobellas
125g sundried tomatoes
1 cup boiling water
1/2 tub cream cheese
1 tablespoon pine nuts
a pinch of salt
Stems of mushrooms
breadcrumbs
grated parmesan

Directions
1. Put the sundried tomatoes in a small bowl and cover with the boiling water for 15 minutes to rehydrate.

2. Pre-heat your oven to 200C

3. Mix drained sundried tomatoes, cream cheese, pine nuts and salt in a food processor.

4. Fill your de-stemmed mushrooms with about a tablespoon of the mixture.

5. Place on a plate and cover with breadcrumbs and grated parmesan.

6. Transfer to a tray and collect all the little bits of cheese that missed the mushrooms the first time and pop it on top. Spray very lightly with oil.

7. Bake in oven 20-25 minutes until hot and cooked through. You might want to put them under the grill to brown on top. You don't want them totally collapsed, though.

♥♥♥♥

If you'd like to see what other bloggers have come up with, check out Fig and Cherry, Limes and Lycopene, and Melanger. Or if you make something delicious, come back and tell me what you made... I love hearing about you getting busy in the kitchen!

For more nutrition information, go here.

So tell me - what's your favourite mushroom dish? 

Pink or Blue? The tricky path of gender stereotyping.

This post has appeared today over at Mum's Lounge Billboard, alongside other posts from terribly talented Australian bloggers. I encourage you to go check them out, maybe find a new reading love you may never have seen otherwise. Mum's Lounge is exactly what it says - a little corner of online mama goodness. I heart.

“Oh isn’t he cute?” says the lady next to me at the deli.


“He must be teething” says the grandma as we pass in the pasta aisle.

“Aw what a sweetie. How old is he?” asks the woman next in line at the checkout.

I get it a lot, the baby chat. They’re like magnets and people love to stop and talk about them, myself included.

The only thing wrong with this situation is that my baby is actually a little girl.

Sometimes the t-shirts in the boys section are just cuter. Sometimes she’s wearing hand-me-downs. Sometimes a blue outfit is handier on a rushed morning. And it’s interesting to see the reactions of strangers when their social cues are thus mixed.

I was intrigued to hear recently of the Canadian couple who are refusing to reveal the sex of their child, insisting it is not their place to impose stereotypical roles onto it. I like the idea of not boxing a child away into a pigeonhole, but to be honest, this just sounds like a lot of work! Having to double-think everything that comes out of your mouth before you say it sounds like it would be tedious and stressful. I’d be the first person to slip and say “he” needs a bath, or something is in “her” room.

My own experiences with the awkward silence that takes place when the well-meaning commenter struggles to figure out whether my child is a boy or a girl in the appropriate time frame has made me really think about how images help us make sense of our world. Pink and blue clothing seems to help differentiate otherwise very gender-neutral-looking babies, and socially, we are programmed to digest this information and categorise it as part of processing our environment.

Having said that, I don’t always want to buy things that are pink, sparkly and covered in butterflies just to make social interaction easier. It’s either a cupcake or a rocket ship, and sometimes I just want something not so stereotypical. While I appreciate small talk being much less awkward when the topics are clearly defined and easy to read, but life’s so much more than a random supermarket conversation.

Do you tell people when they've mixed up your kid's sex? Or just let it slide to save them embarrassment? Are you annoyed at pink vs blue in kid's clothing stores?

Crumbed Eggplant with Chilli Tomato Jam and Bakers Delight Chia Bread

Ah chia. You and I meet again.

I've just spent the last 10 minutes searching YouTube for the clip I will forever think of every time I hear the word. Sadly it must be such a random part of the Wayne's World movie that nobody's put it up for my enjoyment! Anyway, Benjamin Kane is flicking through the TV channels, and after the clapping lamp ad, he flicks to this:



So I'm constantly singing in my head "clap on, clap off, the clapper! ch-ch-ch-chia!" And it will not go away.

'90s movie obsessions aside, the kind people over at Baker's Delight sent me some of their new chia bread to try recently, and once I stopped singing the song and explaining to the courier why he was delivering bread to me, I ripped a piece out and buttered it. Forget about the fact I actually had to cook with it

Bakers Delight has the BEST white sliced.

Anyway, I'm a huge fan of chia - as I mention in this post where I make banana chia muffins. Sadly, I'd have to sell Veggie Baby in order to fund one banana these days so I've had to use different ingredients in them.

With the suggestion that I might like to make an Australian recipe from the bread, I immediately had two ideas:

Little Aussie kid toast rusks! A smidgen of Vegemite, a sprinkle of cheese on the wholemeal chia bread, and into a low oven until they're hard. NOM. 

And the rest of the bread I left out overnight (covered) until it dried, then whizzed them in the food processor to make breadcrumbs. I then egged and crumbed eggplant slices and baked them at 180C for about 20-30 minutes until crispy on the outside and cooked through. then I smothered them in homemade chilli-tomato jam.

I normally add spices and things to my breadcrumbs, but I left these plain so as not to compete with the jam. To be honest, the breadcrumbs didn't really need it. I especially like the extra crunch from the chia seeds, that pop a little when you bite into them. Delicious and healthy... oh chia is there anything you can't do?

Thanks to Baker's Delight, I'm giving away three prize packs that include a packet of chia seeds, a $5 voucher to try their bread, and a medium-sized chia-branded singlet. Just leave a comment below and tell me what Aussie recipe would you have made? 

The giveaway is open to Australian residents only, and will end at 5pm on Tuesday October 18. Random.org will be used to choose three winners, who will be notified by email, so make sure I can contact you somehow!

And for those playing along at home:

b  Chilli-Tomato Jam    b

Ingredients
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1cm fresh ginger, grated
1 red chili, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Saute the onion, garlic and ginger over low-medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the chili and saute 1 minute.

3. Add tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and bring to the boil.

4. Reduce heat and let simmer about 20-30 minutes, long enough to get thick and jammy. Oh man, it's good!

You can read more about the history of the chia seed, the Kimberley region in which it is grown, and chia farming here.

Disclosure: I was given two loaves of bread to try and the giveaway stuff for you guyses. That's all, folks!

Veggie Meal Plan

Ever wanted to know what vegetarians usually eat? Seriously, some people ask "what do you eat, then?" once they find out I don't eat any meat.

From now on, I'm just gonna direct them to these!

I always have meal plans every week, whether I sit down and do them properly or scribble them on a sheet of paper somewhere. I like to choose a cookbook, magazine, website, iPhone app or whatever else, and choose up to five dinners I want to try. Sometimes I just get ideas, rather than five specific recipes. I also add whatever I know I've got in the fridge I want to use up. I choose five because sometimes Veggie Dad grabs something on the way home from football training, or we're not home on a weekend night or whatever. Five seems to work for us.

I also choose one sweet extra to make on a Sunday for Veggie Dad's lunchbox. It's always a bit of fun to have a homemade goodie in there than the usual muesli bar-chips-cheese and crackers combo.

Veggie Meal Plan

b Veggie potpie and colcannon  b

b Gnocchi and tomato cream sauce with parmesan and onion bread  b

b Schnitzel with baked sweet potato and coleslaw  b

b Veggie sausage, cheesy cauliflower and steamed veggies  b

b Burritos and salad  b

***

b Brioche buns   b

Do you meal plan? What are your favourite places to get ideas?