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 again lovely readers, it’s good to be back in your inbox on this beautiful Saturday morning. I’m writing to you from Friday night, because Saturday morning we are leaving on a camping trip near the ocean to escape the August heat. It’s been almost unbearable this past week in our little valley and we have been staying inside much more than I enjoy. This little escape will be our last before the summer’s end, and I am very much looking forward to it and to being fully outside for a string of days.
We hope to pick up the first apples of the year, our beloved Gravensteins, on the way home (I have grand plans to make an apple and blackberry crumble.) The return of the first apples, and the naked ladies ;) (bulb flowers without leaves, Amaryllis belladonna) which adorn the roadsides in August are gentle reminders of summer’s colours fading into autumn, although it will stay quite hot and still feel summery here until October.
How has your week been? Are you enjoying August so far? If so, what have your pleasures been so far, I wonder?
My small pleasures of the week have been seeing friends and following my August itinerary: I’ve read Chess Story, changed my phone background, and chosen a micro art study: Modigliani. It’s always so enjoyable to add these little fresh bits of intentional beauty and culture to my month, like little gems you come across during the days and weeks that add sparkle and newness to your usual routines. I’m hoping to pick up East of Eden this week and start reading it during holiday.
Speaking of routines, school starts for us in barely more than two weeks, can you believe it? I can’t. The summer has passed both extradorinarily slowly and also has felt like a blur, with August’s arrival barely believable. Two things can be true, and isn’t it interesting how time can feel this way, can hold this duality? I always marvel about this feeling of simultaneous expansiveness and brevity.
I did a interview with Lauren Kretzer this week, speaking on routines, my thoughts on “balance”, and not taking yourself too seriously. I hope you will enjoy popping over and reading it as much as I enjoyed setting my thoughts down.
The meal plan this week is a bit brief, as we are camping. I won’t bore you with our meals here, which are basically the same as usual when camping: minestrone made at home, brought for the first night, hot dogs, and tacos. Chickpea salad sandwiches for lunch, black bean brownies… If you want to read more about how we camp, and get our camping recipes, I wrote two newsletters on it which I’ll link below.)
When we are back from camping, though, I’ve planned some very fun and flavorful meals. An Ottolenghi tomato salad with dukkah that looks incredible, a favorite zucchini pasta, roasted stuffed peppers, and a decadent but relatively wholesome breakfast of crêpes stuffed with choc-hazelnut mousse, plus a crumble and refreshing basil spritz for that most important vitamin P, pleasure! Enjoy, and I hope you find something here to try out in your own week.
I’ll leave you also with three very good dinner’s from last week’s meal plan:
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 except for weekends, 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.
Sunday: en vacances—camping
Monday: en vacances—camping
Tuesday: en vancances—camping
prep before bed: press and marinate tofu, make up dukkah mix
Wednesday: Ottolenghi’s Tomato and cucumber salad with tahini and spicy dukkah oil with rice and mediterranean tofu cubes roasted in the air fryer, something like this
prep before bed: make ricotta
Thursday: fancy beans on toast: roasted pepper halves stuffed with cherry tomatoes, olives, butter beans and herbs squashed onto a thick, well toasted piece of sourdough spread thickly with ricotta (I’m partial to Nisha Vora’s tofu ricotta, but I like to add cashew cream into the recipe for creaminess and oomph). Eat with knife and fork and a simple green salad. Perfection!
prep before bed: make pizza dough
Friday: pizza night + caprese salad with cashew mozza
prep before bed: make the mousse for the crêpes
Saturday: zucchini butter linguine + tomato salad with leftover ricotta
Date night cocktail: basil and Lillet spritz
Sweet: Nigel Slater’s apple and blackberry marzipan crumble
Weekend breakfast: oat flour crêpes filled with chocolate hazelnut mousse
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 Mary Oliver. “all day my body / accepts what it is.”
august at the market
·
August 13, 2024
what's good to eat, in season, a playlist for cooking, a recipe for gazpacho
August itinerary
·
Jul 28
reading/film list, making a day trip feel like vacation, summer charm, microstudies, cake, plus more pleasures and ideas to embellish the month with culture and delight
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.