Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Can anyone recommend/do you use a rotation of recipes/ingredients to make it easy to make meals, especially in bulk? It has been mentioned on the forum a few times but without details. I have tried mixing a bean, some frozen vegetables, tomatos, and some spices in a pot but hasn't done so well taste-wise. Many vegan recipes are very complicated and time-consuming.

For a vegetarian staple food, I take a minced-meat replacement (I buy it at the store), add vegetables, tomato sauce and spices, plus spaghetti. I make like 4-5 portions at once and freeze most of 'em for later.

Another one I do is tofu, lots of stir-fry vegetables, curry spices, plus rice. Again, make 4-5 portions and freeze all but one.

Shall we know how much time you can spend for cooking daily?

I suggest you use fresh vegetables instead of frozen. There is a little more preparation time, but a lot more taste. You can still freeze the finished product.

Are you including onion? Onion is tasty. Begin by frying the onion in 2 teaspoons of oil on a low heat until it is slightly transparent, then add the other veg (chopped) and a little water. Soak and cook the beans separately first (unless you are using canned).

Maybe try herbs instead of/as well as spices? It will take some experimenting to find what you like. I like basil and oregano. A little salt helps, if you weren't using any. But just a pinch.

My basic combination consists of one of the following:
- chick peas
- black/red/kidney/... beans
- peas
with one of the following:
- wholegrain pasta
- rice
with spices:
- curry
- pepper
- ...
and in most cases flaxseed
and fresh vegetables.
I always cook in bulk for 3 meals. I fill them up in boxes and eat them at work for lunch.
If it had to go fast, I use lentils.
Baically I follow "Dr. Greger's Dozen", which is vegan. I try to eat legumes, wholegrain, vegetables and flaxseed, and good oil in one meal every day.

Not a vegan, but we use alot of staples. I mentioned this in another thread but you can eat old fashioned oats uncooked by mixing them with any combination of olive oil, peanut butter, salt, jelly, apple sauce, raisins, fruit etc. It is easy, cheap, tasty, and I get a big energy boost from it.

The humble pinto bean can also be cooked in bulk, thrown in the fridge, and used for all sorts of stuff. I season them with garlic, paprika, oregano, and red onion. Toss a cup or two in a slow cooker, cover in twice the water and cook on high for 8 hours. I mix them with white rice, avocado, and premade salsa in a tortilla for lunch. For breakfast I fry them and a tortilla in oil and make tostadas topped with salsa and hot sauce.

Apples and bananas are cheap year round and you can slice them up to add as a side to any meal.

Chickpeas are awesome, I cook them in a crock pot, then I make a curry dish out of them, or hit them with some hot sauce, maple syrup, lemon juice, and wrap them in flatbread with lettuce.

Canned pumpkin isn't quite a staple, but I make a huge amount of pumpkin soup out of the big can of that and a can of coconut milk which keeps for a few days, and you can add different topping like sesame, or pumpkin seeds to keep it interesting. You can find the recipe for this one at "The vegan stoner"

You can also boil and mash sweet and regular potatoes, stick them in the fridge, and use them as a base for soups, or fry them on a griddle to make pancakes, I top these with applesauce.

Pasta is another option with endless possibilities. Cook it, pop it in the fridge, add sauce of choice or oil and spices later.

If you want simple, but tasty vegan meals I suggest checking out a site called "The vegan stoner" I use their recipes all the time when we do our meatless days.

My routine is to keep many staples stocked (as described at https://wiki.earlyretirementextreme.com ... _and_sales), and make a meal plan and shopping run every 2 weeks. Each 2-week plan includes (2) breakfast batch recipes that cover 5 weekdays each, (2) lunch batch recipes that cover 5 weekdays each, and (6) dinner recipes that cover 2 days each. The remaining meals (weekend breakfasts, lunches, and one weekend dinner) get covered in an ad-hoc manner (holidays, family events, improvisation, eating out, etc.).

In this cycle, I usually spend an hour or two on the weekend making two big batch recipes which cover 2/3 of the meals for the next week. These are mostly one-pot recipes that come together in a stewpot or slow-cooker. A big time (and dishes) saver!

Keep a "recipe file" with your own custom version of recipes. I scale them up/down to correspond to my batch sizes (10 servings for lunch/breakfast, 4 servings for dinner), adjust the ingredients to match our dietary restrictions, and what is cheap and convenient to buy locally, and round off measurements to convenient increments (e.g. whole cans of tomatoes, round off spices to 1 tsp each). Over time it streamlines things to have recipes that are tailored to your own specific circumstances.

Here are some ideas for batch recipes that are vegan (or could be easily made so):

Breakfast:
Oatmeal; try adding peanut butter, raisins, dates, cinnamon, maple syrup, or nut milk
Coconut Lentils (https://www.budgetbytes.com/coconut-lentils/)
Ful Mudammas (https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/201 ... ecipe.html)
Khichdi (https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/moong ... di-recipe/)
Congee / jook (https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/co ... -porridge/)
Shake with soy milk, frozen berries, optionally protein powder
Avocado toast; try drizzling olive oil, sesame oil, lemon juice, or hot sauce
Meuslix and a banana

Lunch:
Split pea soup; for a creamier version substitute a can of coconut milk for 2 cups water (https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/sp ... c824391f60)
Mujadara; I like to add cashews, pistachios, and/or golden raisins (https://www.themediterraneandish.com/mu ... py-onions/)
Chana masala (https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/chana ... h-coconut/)
Koshari (https://www.daringgourmet.com/koshari-n ... -of-egypt/)
Thai-style green or yellow curry from authentic storebought paste (https://www.connoisseurusveg.com/thai-g ... d-veggies/)
Feijoada with soy chorizo instead of meat (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/13920 ... bean-stew/)
Turkish "bride" soup (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21981 ... ride-soup/)
Burrito filled with refried pinto beans, rice, tomatoes, cilantro, and grilled hot peppers
Baked beans sub sandwich

I like to make in bulk which obviously saves cooking.

Also, you can determine the nutritional content of recipes with websites like fitday.com cronometer.com
They create bar charts and show you were you may not be getting vitamins/minerals.
The things I had to plan for specially were B12, Vitamin D and Omega 3.

Rice and beans, bean burritos, african peanut stew, and jambalaya (there are veg recipes for jambalaya) should freeze well. Most soups are also easy to make in large amounts and freeze well.

Some of the recipes in the vegan section at https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/re ... ian/vegan/ might work. I like that the recipes there are intended to be low cost.