Vegetarian Meal Plan: Week 1

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or a registered nutrition specialist. This is is not a plan diagnosed by either of the aforementioned professions, nor any related. This is simply a personal journal detailing my choices of meals for a week of vegetarian eating in hopes that it will inspire aspiring and current vegetarians looking for meal ideas. Have fun!

Meal planning is practically a hobby for me. I put time, thought, and love into each week's meal choices. I want it to be healthy but delicious with things that are familliar (and sometimes new) and easy to prepare. Since I've recently made the switch to vegetarianism, I've been spending even more time on each week ensuring that my new meal plans, sans meat, are still enjoyable. I think I've come up with some pretty great plans, so I'd like to share them here.

As you will notice, there aren't enough dinners to cover a full week, so here are a few notes to help you understand how my meals work:

• I have school in the evenings some nights, so I do not cook every night and like to have leftovers.
• I do not usually cook on the weekends because I'll go out to eat one night and eat leftovers the other
• I have the same meals for breakfast and lunch on the weekdays to save prep time, money, and to keep my shopping list short
• I tend to have nondiabetic hypoglycemia on ocassion, so I keep my meals small and spaced out, but you can bunch the midday snacks into your meals if you prefer.

Now, without further ado, here is my meal plan for this week:

Weekday Breakfasts: Mint-chocolate smoothie (banana, spinach, kale, mint leaves, unsweetened cocoa powder, honey, soy milk)

Weekday Midmorning Fruit: Orange

Weekday Lunches: Cucumber sandwiches and a cup of tea (white bread, cream cheese, fresh dill, cucumber, pepper)

Weekday Afternoon Veggie: Romaine leaves with ranch dressing

Weekday Emergency Snack: Pepitas and dried cranberries

Dinner 1: Slow cooker root vegetable stew and dinner bread

Dinner 2: Stir fry veggies with rice

Dinner 3: Leftovers

Dinner 4: Cheddar mac & cheese with broccoli

That's all for this week. I may not post every week's meal plans, especially if I don't think they were delicious or creative enought to make the cut. Thanks for reading!