a week of meals no. 68
meal plan for the third week of Feb. 2025
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Hello lovely friends, welcome to another Saturday morning and the beginning of the weekend. This week felt so long! Did it for you, too? I think for me it was a combination of the weather (mostly wind and rain), an increased number of activities due to the beginning of spring sports season, the stressful nature of the news, and the kids being outside less due to the weather. Plus all the Valentine’s leadup (we made 44 homemade Valentine’s in our household). I’m very much looking forward to Sunday, which is my rest day: a day where I try my best to not schedule a single thing besides staying at home, cooking, reading, recuperating, and getting ready for the week ahead. Every other day has a rapidity to it that’s not really in my control, but Sunday is! Even though I’m complaining a bit here, there were, in fact, lots of good things this week. Spring blooms, rainy walks, endless reading together, cozy nights watching a show with stovetop popcorn to munch, very good lunch salads, seed sorting, and a really lovely long hike just with Vincent (my 12 year old).
This week, I’ve been reading Nightbitch, a novel by Rachel Yoder about the relentless mundanity of early motherhood, stay at home mothers, and….how they shapeshift into dogs at night. Ha. It’s honestly very weird and a little gross, sort of reminds me of Otessa Moshfegh, who I’m not that into. It had been on my TBR for a while, but a mom in our nursery school mums chat brought it up, so I finally picked it up at the library. I’m about halfway through so far—it has really excellent parts, and then parts where it falls flat/feels a bit cringey. I can’t put it down yet, though, and that’s saying something! I’m also still finishing up the Natalia Ginzburg essays, just a few left to go.
For dinners this week, we’ve got several soups, a kale pesto pasta, roasted cauliflower tacos with a fresh citrus salsa, chickpeas, pizza, waffles and blood orange cake! What good things. Now’s the time when we well and truly subsist on all manners of citrus, frozen berries, and long storage apples for our fruits. I love citrus, so I can’t complain, but truthfully I am also dreaming of strawberries and rhubarb although they are quite a ways off yet. Soon enough!
the meal plan
weekend prep work: clean out the fridge, go to the farmer’s market and grocery store to re-stock pantry essentials and vegetables, cut up cauliflower in advance of roasting on Monday night, bake 2 loaves of oat porridge sourdough, soak and cook black beans and chickpeas. Bake a batch of orange vanilla granola with the kids for easy kid breakfasts/snacks during the week.
Sunday: kale, squash, and white bean soup to use up our last stored winter squash from the garden- something like David Tanis’ recipe + toasted sourdough
Monday: roasted cauliflower (cauliflower or romanesco florets- cut up on the weekend for less work tonight, olive oil, cumin, coriander seed, smoked paprika, garlic powder, roasted at 400f till tender and caramelized) and black bean tacos with red cabbage slaw and navel orange avocado salsa (like the persimmon salsa but sub orange)
Tuesday: instant pot taco soup with the leftover black beans, salsa we made this summer and froze, toasted pumpkin seeds, avocado, leftover corn tortillas crisped in a pan with a little oil and salt to top it all
Wednesday: pasta e ceci (recipe photo in this post or p 171 of my cookbook), plus a little gem lettuce, blood orange, avocado salad with shallot vinaigrette
Thursday: chickpea and chard saute with yogurt and mint + whole wheat pitas
Friday: potato + rosemary pizza + kale and romaine caesar with crispy chickpeas
Saturday: farfalle with kale pesto (based on Diana Henry’s recipe); french grated carrot salad (p 246 of my cookbook or find a screenshot in this post)
weekend bake: blood orange upside down cake, going off this recipe
weekend breakfast: spelt overnight yeasted waffles for the kids; I have still been enjoying savory breakfasts- I have a sauteed dark leafy green which I cook with olive oil, salt, chile flakes, and onion or leek + whatever other already prepared veg I have in the fridge (leftover roasted cauliflower, sweet potato, steamed broccoli, roasted peppers, carrot salad, marinated beets, sauekraut or kimchi…) + beans of any type, + sometimes tofu or tempeh scramble, fermented chile sauce, etc.
Hope you get a chance to cook yourself something nice this week, get uninterrupted sleep, and get outside. Leaving you, as always, with a little poetry. This one for the shortest month which always feels the longest. xx A
If you missed it:
Thanks for these. The soups look yummy, I’ll give them a try. Here in Canberra we are experiencing the first of the cooler Autumn mornings. I’m enjoying seeing your daffs, always my favourite sign of spring!