a week of meals no. 53

meal plan for the last week of Oct. 2024

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Hello friends! How has your week been? Well, I hope. Ours was wonderful- this cooler weather is making me feel so cozy. We’ve been roasting lots of vegetables, eating more soups, and eating lots of pears, persimmons, and pomegranates. The mornings and evenings are crisp and the moon I finally feel settled in our rhythms and routines- the older children are where they need to be, and I just adore our James’ co-operative nursery school, it has been such a wonderful addition to our lives. I highly recommend looking into a co-operative nursery school if you are looking for early childhood education that is communal, warm, and intimate. I even got to catch up with a friend this week, sans children, to chat over our respective knitting projects. We still swam in the creek at our meetup this week even though the water is so cold now- it feels very refreshing to cold plunge and the sun is still strong enough to warm us when we get out.

our weekly creek meetup with friends is always so pleasurable.

A few small pleasures of the week- it’s the small things:

• roasted delicata squash! It cooks so quickly, no need to peel, and is absolutely delicious.

• a new cotton tablecloth in a taupe gingham, perfect for autumn, to swap out for my summertime blue gingham one.

• the joyful bright oranges of pumpkins, red kuri squash, persimmons, and marigolds.

• the innocent joy of young children, it is such a gift to witness the compassion, delight, and tenderness with which they navigate the world.

In reading news, I finished Pride and Prejudice on audio this week (I’m knitting a lot and thus listening to lots of audio while I do so). I read it as a teenager, but didn’t like it. I thought I’d give it another shot as an adult and no, I just don’t really enjoy Jane Austen! I find it quite fluffy, a lot of gossiping and social snobbery and trying to bag husbands. I love to watch it though! I ran into the same issue while reading Emma a few years back. Just not for me, I think- I’ll stick with the Brontë sisters. If you love Pride and Prejudice (as so many do! I know I’m a minority here), I’m so interested to hear your reasons in the comments? I started The Rachel Incident, which has been good so far, but I haven’t read much of it as it’s a physical copy and, as I mentioned, my knitting has been usurping my usual sitting-in-bed reading time in the evenings.

A few autumn-themed library books James and I have been loving this week:

Here are some very good things I ate this week.

cottage pie, roasted delicata, broccoli // kabocha and sage focaccia // black bean bowl with roasted sweet potato, cilantro cashew crema, avocado // chia oat porridge with red pear and hazelnuts and pom // cinnamon walnut swirled pumpkin bread with almodn butter // kale and farro salad with maple syrup candied walnuts, chickpeas, celery, dried cherries

The meal plan for this week: a ton of pumpkin: cookies, pie, pancakes (it is Halloween week, after all!), soups, tempeh and soyrizo (both chili and tacos!), and a very delicious aperol punch for our date night cocktail. Would love to know, as always, what you’re eating this week!

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the meal plan

Sunday: lentil soup with turnips and pounded walnuts (will add photo of recipe down below); roasted delicata squash on the side (cut in half lengthwise, scrape out seeds, cut crosswise into half moons, toss with oil, salt, and pepper, roast at 400f/200c until tender and caramelized, toss with a bit of finely chopped rosemary once out of oven but while still hot.

Monday: miso soup with cubes of silken tofu and kabocha added in; edamame and rice on the side

Tuesday: crispy potato and chorizo tacos; chips with persimmon pico de gallo

Wednesday: sheet pan tempeh & broccoli

Thursday: chorizo chili- I make chili every year on Halloween, with corn chips, cilantro, cashew cream, and both green onions and red onions to top.

Friday: pizza night, using Alice Water’s dough recipe from The Art of Simple Food, you can find the recipe online here + kale, candied walnut, dried tart cherry, pomegranate salad with vinaigrette (can find my usual vinaigrette recipe in this post)

Saturday: pesto pasta: I have some arugula pesto to use up in the freezer + bean salad: white beans, roasted delicata, green onions, pomegranate arils + an olive oil, apple cider vinegar, thyme, maple syrup vinaigrette.

weekend bake: pumpkin pie, I always make my first one of the year for Halloween. I make the puree for it like this: Halve a sugar pie pumpkin or red kuri squash (seed+skin on) and roast, cut sides down, on a baking sheet at 400 for about 45 min until extremely tender, then scoop out seeds, and scoop flesh away from skin. You can also peel, cube, and steam instead of roasting. Puree flesh very smooth, and save seeds for baking till crunchy with salt and pepper and oil. This puree to me is so much tastier than canned.

lunchbox cookie: pumpkin whoopie pies

weekend breakfast: pumpkin buckwheat pancakes

date night cocktail: Ratterwick Punch- aperol, gin, grapefruit, sparkling wine… lovely and reddish orange for Halloween feelings!

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Leaving you with this lovely poem for this lovely month. Have a wonderful week, all. xx A

Linda Pastan, Queen of a Rainy Country, W.W. Norton, 2008

The lentil soup recipe: from the book, Cooking with Italian Grandmothers. Click each photo to enlarge.