a week of meals
meal plan for the last week of feb. 2024
Welcome to mama eats, a weekly newsletter inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. This week’s post, a week of meals, is free to all readers. I try to provide as much free content as possible, however, this newsletter is a labor of love and I am a busy mama to three. If you have the means, and find value in what I share, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which also gives you access to the growing archive of posts older than a month.
Hello friends, how has your week been? Ours has been a combination of ups and downs as always. The lows of the week have definitely been the continuing grief, loss and trauma centering in the middle east, which is disheartening to say the least. I think about it often, especially the women and children who bear the brunt of the violence. The highlights of our week have been some beautiful nature outings- even though it has been quite grey and pouring rain we have had some lovely sunny breaks in between, and have taken full advantage to go outside. The ground is sodden and the creek is swollen, roaring with muddy water as it rushes angrily on its path. The grass is already quite high and the wild almonds in bloom everywhere, with rainbows periodically gracing us from showers interspersed with sun. It’s beautiful and although wet, our rain gear affords us plenty of time to play. A nice warm thermos of tea or hot chocolate and a baked good (usually our adventure muffins) keeps spirits high, and a nice warm bath afterwards for a muddy little James. Have you been able to get outside much this week?
Can you believe we are coming up on the last week of February? Soon it will be March, the first calendar month of spring. We have started to spring clean and refresh our spaces a bit in preparation and it has felt so fresh. I wrote a little about what I’m doing to transition to spring here, if you missed it.
I have been buying a bunch of tulips every week now that they’re available- it’s a little luxury that feels like a necessity this time of year. I don’t buy flowers any other time of year, really, as we have so many in the garden. My own (over a hundred!) garden tulips have emerged, cleaving the earth with their green blades but are a week or two away from bloom yet.
In book news, I am currently finishing the last bit of The Liberators by E.J. Koh, a story of loss, identity, borders, and the destruction of war. It is told through multiple perspectives and centered around 3 generations of a Korean family as they immigrate and move through life in America. There is so much depth for it being such a slim novel, and so intimate- examining these huge, grotesque events of war and geopolitical upheaval through the details of everyday life and how this goes on to affects a family line through generations. The acknowledgments end with this note, “My deepest hope is to understand that, even if we fail, we cannot fail so big as war. And as sure as the sun rises and the world rotates, we, as humans, have a chance to try again.” I have also been absolutely loving reading through the gorgeous cookbook Cool Beans, which features bean recipes from all around the world. I mentioned last week that my daughter and I had finished our read-alouds, and now we’ve moved on to two new ones- The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre. They’re both very good, I would highly recommend reading Jane Eyre if you haven’t, or a re-read if you, like me, haven’t read it in years- it’s as excellent as I remember.
This week in food, lots of beans; in the forms of stew, chili, tacos and salad. Sweet potatoes, oranges, cauliflower, and a parsley pesto, too. For treats, chocolate foaccacia and almond butter sea salt brownies. What are you cooking this week?
weekend prep: soak and cook white beans + black beans; prep and bake sourdough loaves- slice and freeze one, make lime crema (recipe below for paid subscribers).
Sunday: El Bulli white bean stew with parsley hazelnut pesto ; sauteed chard with pine nuts and raisins, and sourdough bread
Monday: crispy black bean tacos with navel orange + avocado salsa (this recipe but sub orange for persimmon) and simple cabbage slaw (shredded cabbage, lime juice, salt, cilantro, dab of mayo if wanting creamy, pinch sugar all massaged together)
Tuesday: roasted cauliflower, beet and farro salad + roasted sweet potatoes
Wednesday: black bean chili (p. 190 in my cookbook; will add a screenshot for you below), topped with corn chips, avocado, lime cashew cream (recipe at the very end of this post for paid subscribers) and pickled onions
Thursday: leftover chili served on top of leftover roasted sweet potatoes, with toppings
Friday: pizza night- one with red sauce and mozz, one with arugula pesto from the freezer and mozz + kale caesar
Saturday: whole wheat orecchiette and broccoli rabe, something like this + white beans with black olive vinaigrette
breakfasts: I’ve been really enjoying having a savory breakfast bowl at the moment- whatever beans I’ve got in the fridge, leftover sauteed or roasted vegetables, cooked millet or rice or other grain, sauerkraut…For our weekend breakfast, James and I cook everyone buckwheat waffles, we go off of this recipe.
bake: almond butter brownies with sea salt, I’ve been making this one for years and it’s so nice and has wholesome ingredients.
midweek treat: chocolate foccacia (link to recipe on Instagram) to share at our weekly forest school meetup. be forewarned, this is not actually sweet, it’s more like a pain au chocolat, which I love (and actually every child there really loved too even with the strong flavors of dark chocolate and olive oil), but you could absolutely add more sugar.
cocktail: rosemary palomas; something like this one
As always, thank you so much for being a part of this space, it feels so nice to have a longform and slow way to share with you all instead of the short form, fast paced platform of social media. I really enjoy writing and sharing with you. Leaving you with a poem which I’ve enjoyed this week, sent to me by a friend (thank you M). xx A
The Contract
The woman who gave me the rosebush
reminds me:
"Cut it back hard."
The stems resist.
Thorns and weedy twig-thickets
catch on jacket-sleeve, on gloves.
Core-wood splinters green under the shears.
Impossible to believe
that so little left will lead to fragrance.
Still, my hands move quickly,
adding their signature branch by branch,
agreeing to loss.
Jane Hirschfield