Preparing Meals in Advance: Snack and Lunch Edition. Links to the foods that I made this past week

Back when I was commuting to school and gone from my house for 5-7 hours, 5 days a week, preparing my meals in advance always worked in my favor. Now that I am a stay-at-home parent, preparing meals in advance, although a little chaotic on the day(s) of preparation is wonderful for the next 3-6 days when food is just a few minutes away from being done and most important eaten.

This past week, I was heavily inspired by the Angela's OhSheGlows blog and made many of her recipes.  They all turned out so well as usual!

I made the following meals/snacks from the OhSheGlows blog:

PB banana bars

7 vegetable cheez soup

Chia bread

I did not take any picture of the food I made, so definitely click on the links to check out her amazing recipes!!

I also made this meal which were inspired from both Susan V's Fatfreevegan blog and Gina's Choosing Raw blog:

Chickpea salad (like a chicken/tuna salad) which I wrapped in raw collard leaves (this is the tutorial on how to use raw collard leaves as wraps.

Finally I made 3 salads in a jar which I was inspired by Kathy's Health Happy Life vegan food blog. My salads were very simple: orgainc romaine lettuce, purple cabbage shredded, edamama, homemade miso orange tahini dressing, and quinoa.

This week coming up I will make recipes from the blogs: Peas and Thank You and Heathy Happy Life and My Vegan Cookbook.

I hope that this blog post has introduced you to some of my favorite vegan food blogs and will also inspire you make some delicious vegan food!

Two Oat Bar Recipes

This past Sunday I invited one of my former neighbors over to do a little baking. She is very interested in making vegan foods and I love making vegan foods so we decided that we would make a strawberry oat bar from Angela Lidden's ohsheglows vegan food blog and a blueberry oat bar from Susan K's fatfreevegan food blog. I regularly make recipes or am inspired by recipes created by these amazing chefs. They may not think themselves chefs but I am pretty the fact that they earn a living creating recipes and cooking food qualifies them as chefs.

My neighbor friend made the strawberry bars and I the blueberry. Although each recipe was similar (oats, fruit, sugar) the difference really made each bars appropriate for a meal or dessert. For example the blueberry bar used applesauce instead of oil, maple syrup and oatmeal; while the strawberry bar used earth balance, chia seed "egg", brown sugar, and wheat flour. These differences truly made the strawberry bar the decadent and almost dessert bar. In comparison the blueberry bar was more suited for breakfast because the sugar content was lower as was the fat content. Depending on your lifestyle it may behoove you to have a higher fat breakfast especially if you are a very active individual.

blueberry oat bar

blueberry oat bar

strawberry oat bar