Welcome to mamaeats, a twice-weekly newsletter (Tues. & Sat.) inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. I’m a mother of three, avid reader, gardener, and home cook who focuses on nourishing, plant based, whole food meals. Subscribe below for weekly meal plans, reading and garden talk, and simple living inspiration.
Happy Saturday, friends, and welcome to the weekend. I hope your first bit of July has been enjoyable. I think I say this with every new month, but truly I cannot believe we are already here in July, and consequently at the midway of the year 2026!
I took a moment of reflection this morning to touch in with how this year has been feeling, versus the intentions I set back in September with my autumn refresh. I think I’ve made good on many of them, especially keeping on track with my diet for maintaining autoimmune remission and movement.
One of my biggest goals this year was to build more muscle as I near 40, for general health and in particular, bone density. My approach to health is to anticipate and maintain health as best I can through mostly consistent habits, rather than hope for the best and fix problems as they crop up later on. I’m sharing not to say that I have it all together (I never do) but rather to encourage—I’ve always been the least athletic/sports interested/coordinated person I know, but this is for health and feeling good!
I’ve stuck to my goal of weight training several times a week while still incorporating in yoga and Pilates for mobility and feeling good in my body. I think weights and yoga/Pilates go hand in hand, complementing each other so well. If you’re thinking of working on fitness this year, it’s a combination I would really recommend! I’m not fancy with it, I have a small collection of weights and rotate through simple exercises at home, and do pilates/yoga via Youtube. It’s what suits my lifestyle right now and enables me to be consistent.
I finished my knitting project this week, a gift for a friend’s birthday that I will share photos of next week when it’s been gifted. It was a fun knit and I’ve already started thinking of the next project I want to work on—a skirt that I bought the yarn for three years (!! yes, you read that right) ago and never made. I love My Favorite Things knitwear patterns because they are so clear and the designs are lovely and interesting.
In reading news this week, we are still continuing the Moomin obsession over here. I started reading these to James last summer as he was about to turn 4, and we’ve read and re-read over the first four books in Tove Jansson’s delightful series many times since. James never tires of hearing them over and over. The stories are deliciously weird and whimsical, the characters endearing, and the prose a joy to read, even as an adult.
For my own reading, I finished Maggie O’Farrell’s Land this week and have mixed feelings about it that I’m still digesting. I chose a collection of short stories—Leonardo Sciascia’s The Wine-Dark Sea— for my follow-up as a palate cleanser, which I enjoy doing after long or intense reads. It was quite interesting, a mixed bag of short stories the author considered his best, all set in his native Sicily, written with both fondness and scorn, highlighting the intensity of the culture there. Several of the stories were turned into tv or film adaptations, which made me curious to seek those out and also to read more by the author.
The food this week includes some very good things that I’m very much looking forward to, especially vietnamese rice noodle bowls and a spate of plum flavored things: a refreshing plum ginger cocktail for Saturday date night, roasted plums to top our pancakes, and a favorite simple plum sherbet to cool off with. I hope your week is delicious, too. It’s an excellent time of year for food!
To conclude, here are a few very good things which I cooked, and ate this week:
notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.
I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food.
Breakfasts: everyone is on their own, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.
Weekend prep work: Clean out the fridge, go to the farmer’s market and grocery store to re-stock pantry and fridge. Bake our weekly 2 loaves of sourdough bread.
Sunday: spaghetti with jammy cherry tomato sauce; white bean salad with tomatoes, cucumber, basil, red onion
prep before bed: press and marinate tofu
Monday: bún chay, vietnamese rice noodle bowls, with lemongrass tofu
prep before bed: press tofu and make focaccia dough, letting ferment in fridge overnight
Tuesday: tomato nectarine salad, grilled tofu/veg skewers with pesto drizzled atop once done, pan blistered padron peppers, focaccia (recipe in this newsletter)
prep before bed: make cashew cream
Wednesday: zucchini and poblano enchiladas with tomatillo salsa, cashew cream, avocado, extra black beans on the side
prep before bed: make peperonata, which is most delicious after a rest
Thursday: penne tossed with peperonata and giant white beans; grilled eggplant marinated in a puddle of olive oil, thin sliced garlic, salt, and basil
prep before bed: make pizza dough, make batch of pizza sauce
Friday: a complete repeat from last Friday because it was so perfect: pizza night topped with the leftover zucchini from Thurs. dinner, cashew mozza, basil, zucchini flowers & sliced tomato salad (a few very good, very ripe tomatoes topped with a sprinkling of minced shallot, drizzle of v good olive oil, flaky salt) and a glass of very cold Lambrusco. Heaven!
Saturday: bbq “pulled pork” sandwiches with slaw and homemade buns (this recipe, I use olive oil and flax egg)
Date night cocktail: plum ginger sour
Weekend sweet: Plum sherbet, recipe below, served in cute little glasses with crumbled amaretti atop
Weekend breakfast: sorghum pancakes with roasted plums
Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.
x A.
p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, as always. This one, by Allison Mei-Li, is so sweet, especially as we are on the cusp of kindergarten over here with our youngest. “and the only possible / answer is: yes.”
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.