For this week’s edition of Plantbased Grocery Shopping with Me on a Budget, we only made enough food for five nights as we are traveling for Thanksgiving. Many of these meals made leftovers though so it could stretch into more days if you needed it to or feed more than two people. This haul cost $101.13 as we only got exactly enough for the specific recipes we were making! I’ll get into all the details below to provide you with insight, inspiration and motivation to create your own plantbased, not perfect simple meals.
LUNCH IDEAS //
Mac prepped veggies to have with sushi rice for three days he is on shift. Veggies included: zucchini, box choy, peppers, mushrooms. He bakes them with light olive oil and garlic. Tip: You can alternate sauces to put on the veggies to break up the flavors after a few days.
For my lunches I planned on alternating between Mango Salsa Boats with avocado and microgreens or having acai bowls on the days I came home during the week. We also had leftovers from all of our dinners to be taken for work lunch as well so you could do lasagna, soup, curry or early thanksgiving for lunches. Tip: If you add a side salad to your dinners you could stretch your meals even further.
DINNER IDEAS // (All of these will make leftovers)
Vegan Zucchini Lasagna by Minimalist Baker
(3 Zucchini, Hearts of Palm noodles, bag of spinach, Marinara sauce, Cashews instead of macadamia nuts, lemon)
Chickpea Curry over Sweet Potatoes, recipe by Food Faith Fitness
(Sweet Potatoes, 2 Can chickpeas, Coconut cream, 1 tomato, lime & cilantro)
Easy Lentil Soup by moi, recipe in my Instagram highlights @hautehealthy
served with sourdough bread
Thanksgiving Bowls
Make Stuffing mix over mashed yellow potatoes with mushroom gravy on top
For early in the day I am still having my Lean Green Smoothie around 10am and will have the apples and bananas as a snack in the afternoon if I need something before dinner. You can also use some of the sourdough to make avocado toast and the leftover fruit for additional smoothies/smoothie bowls and acai.
I hope you enjoyed this grocery series! As always, leave a comment below with any questions you may have and Happy Thanksgiving. xx, Elizabeth