a week of meals n. 139

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.

Hello lovely friends, happy weekend! It’s another lovely Saturday in July. This will be a bit of a quick newsletter, as I’m leaving town today for a mini vacation with my 17 year old. I haven’t been to Oregon since I was a teenager myself, so I’m excited to visit again and enjoy some good food and nature.

How has your week been? Ours has been very loose, I feel that as the summer has gone by more and more of our routines have softened…as they should, but I’m also excited for things to tighten back up again towards the middle of August. School starts for us the third week of August, and thus I’ll be revisiting my master planning documents to update for next year before it begins. I find keeping a bit of a tight ship during the school year helps immensely with overwhelm, even though my natural tendency is to not plan a thing. Planning enables me to achieve things that are very important to me, but would otherwise seem impossible, like cooking from scratch, spending quality time with friends and family, and taking time to take care of my own body and mind.

Although, I’m putting that out of my mind for now, and letting July be July, and August be August. As Ali Smith writes in her book Summer,

Look at me walking down a road in summer thinking about the transience of

summer.

Even while I’m right at the heart of it I just can’t get to the heart of it.

I had the good fortune of being at the ocean twice this week, which was such a treat. A friend and I split the difference on our birthdays, which are less than 2 weeks apart, and took a birthday outing to the beach. A good lunch, plenty of snacks (obligatory bag of Hippeas, cantaloupe, grape tomatoes from the garden), a thermos of hot coffee after the last dip in the cold ocean, and then the long drive home, with a detour for Frankie & Jo’s ice cream (their strawberry milk flavor is to die for). The weather was sparkly and clear, the water perfectly cold to contrast the hot sun, and the company of course was top notch. Definitely recommend taking a day at the sea with a friend before summer is over.

My friend M. and I are reading the same book, Lies and Sorcery, and we both are completely obsessed. I’m in the last 175 pages (out of about 800) and it’s tragic to think of it ending. What an excellent writer Elsa Morante was! The Tuesday newsletter this week will share my reading plans for August, plus my film watchlist and some other ideas of things to do in the month ahead to make the everyday special.

In food this week, we have the return of my annual tomato tart, which is the perfect late July dinner in my opinion, plus a BBQ plate, buffalo pizza, Saturday crêpes and my favorite birthday cake. Also, still obsessed with a vermouth soda, specifically with Cocchi dry vermouth. Try it!

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: on vacation

Monday: on vacation

Tuesday: tomato tart, cannellini bean salad, roasted Jimmy Nardello peppers

prep before bed: press and marinate tofu

Wednesday: BBQ tofu, potato salad with capers and dill, sweet corn; dessert grilled peaches with a scoop of vanilla ice cream

prep before bed: make sauce for soba noodles, press tofu

Thursday: cold soba noodles with cucumber and tofu

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night (buffalo cauliflower, something like this one)

Saturday: chickpea salad sandwiches on toasted rye with thick slabs of heirloom tomatoes and potato chips + cornichons on the side

Date night cocktail: vermouth soda: equal parts Cocchi dry vermouth and soda water with a few dashes orange bitters, and a pick with three Castelvetrano olives on it. A low ABV, very refreshing cocktail I’ve been enjoying lately.

Sweet: birthday cake (Amy Chaplin’s chocolate hazelnut cake with black cherry filling)

Weekend breakfast: oat flour crêpes with fresh berries and whipped tofu “ricotta”, something like this but will add some sugar and vanilla to it.

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. “I love you. I want us both to eat well.”

Christopher Citro

Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled with Shrieks

I’m doing a balancing act with a stack of fresh fruit

in my basket. I love you. I want us both to eat well.

We’re not allowed to buy blackberries anymore

because they’re mean to their workers and you

read left-wing news sites. Till when? I asked and you

said nothing. So that’s one healthy food off the list.

I’m still buying pineapples and you’re still eating them.

I guess you’ve never seen the websites about those.

Nobody in this supermarket knows that I am a puma.

This morning our cat rolled on the floor showing me

her belly which I leaned down and rubbed.

Beneath a backyard pine tree the neighbor’s cat

was eating one of our cat’s moles—at least the moles

we rent from the landlord for her. It’s so complicated

staying alive sometimes. The voices of the collection

agencies on the answering machine sound menacing.

They’re paid to sound that way and they’re not paid

much more than the people they’re menacing,

which can get you thinking if you’re the sort of

person who likes to think about that sort of thing.

Other people subscribe to adventure cycling

magazines and read about men who rode across

Turkey in the late 1800s before anything was

happening in the world. Before cantaloupes

probably existed. When you could get an honest

wage for an honest day’s blackberries. When we

loved like fierce mountain storms, with the blood

of eagles in our hearts, exchanging grocery lists

that just said you you you you all the way down.

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