a week of meals no. 83
meal plan for the first week of June 2025
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, whole food meals with a focus on plants. This newsletter is my labor of love—if you are not already, and are able to do so, please consider becoming a subscriber to support my work here, which takes time and effort. Doing so gives you access to all the archives and recipes (find the recipe index here), as well as cook-along videos which go along with most recipes. If a recurring payment is too much for you right now, but you’d still like to contribute, I’d be delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi. As always, thank you for being here, reading this newsletter, and sending me your thoughts.
Good morning friends, happy Saturday, and happy last day of May! Can you believe that tomorrow it will be June, and the beginning of summer? I cannot. This spring seems to have flown by.
How have you been? Here, it’s been a quite busy week, as we came back from camping late Monday afternoon. It felt like we hit the ground running, with work and school and kid activity driving. Oh, how I am looking forward to a mostly unscheduled summer, with the gentle flow of dependable rhythms instead of the hard corners of routines.
The garden is swelling more and more each day, with tiny green tomatoes, peaches, apricots, cherries, and plums holding the promise of juicy fruit next month, and a few first harvests: zucchini, green beans, raspberries, and basil. My warm weather routine is to wake up, have a glass of water, throw all the windows open to capture the coolness of the morning inside, and then plunge straight into the garden. I love simply putzing about, watering and pulling any errant weeds, noticing the tiny, miraculous growth that happens overnight—whether it is a tiny tomato just forming, a poppy bud cracking open to reveal the scarlet tissue inside, or the extravagant yellow of the zucchini flowers, crowded with drowsy bees drunk on pollen.
In reading news: I’ve finished Anne Berest’s The Postcard, which was incredibly beautiful and moving; the story of the rediscovering of heritage lost during one family’s experience of WWII and the Holocaust. Exquisite storytelling, I would highly recommend this one. Next, I picked up Hisham Matar’s novel, My Friends, on the recommendation of a friend whose reading taste is impeccable. I’m not very far in, but it’s beautiful so far—the writing is a treat to read. In my stack waiting is Scaffolding and James, both of which I’m very excited about reading. Let me know if you’ve been reading anything good lately!
Below, you’ll find the meal plan for the week. You’ll notice a definite shift in meals: this week, we begin to return to summer scheduling, which for us means burgers or sandwiches on Saturdays, and more salad-y dishes which align with our cravings during the hotter days. As we move further into summer, dinners typically become more relaxed—I don’t plan as much, as there’s more flexibility in our schedule. Instead, I begin to rely on a rotating cast of very simple, very seasonal dinners that require minimal cooking. It’s one of my favorite times of the year for eating- all the juicy produce that needs very little to become an incredibly tasty meal.
the meal plan
weekend prep work: clean out the fridge, go to the farmer’s market and grocery store to re-stock pantry and fridge. Soak and cook a double batch of chickpeas- soaking extra chickpeas to make hummus. Make bread dough to bake sourdough boules on Monday morning.
Sunday: rice paper rolls with sauteed grated tofu, napa cabbage, mushroom filling ; cucumber and little gem salad dressed with soy, lime juice, maple syrup dressing
Monday: mediterranean chickpea, cucumber, and tahini salad (a new favorite for everyone in our house, I could eat this over and over) alongside basmati rice
Tuesday: lentil-mushroom tacos with avocado crema
Wednesday: leftover lentil-mushroom taco meat atop bowls of rice, with cabbage and quick cherry tomato pico de gallo (cherry tomatoes, lime, onion, cilantro, jalapeño, salt)
Thursday: falafel bowls with hummus, whole wheat pita, lime cucumber/cabbage salad, sauteed garlicky zucchini (will make extra falafels and freeze for another meal next week)
Friday: pizza night; sourdough crust, topped with zucchini, mozzarella, pesto, cherry tomatoes + arugula salad
Saturday: burger night; these buns (I use olive oil instead of butter as per usual with everything lol, and flax egg) + beyond burgers, roasted mini peppers and onions, mayonnaise, arugula
weekend bake: tarte aux fraises
weekend breakfast: sourdough blueberry waffles
p.s.—leaving you with a poem for the week, as always. “and freckles come / Like flies to cream” x A
If you missed it:
I was just catching up on your garden and camping posts when this popped up!
I just cooked my first zucchini and dragon tongue beans from my plot as well (I am zone 10b, in LA)
We have one more week of school (I teach TK) and am really looking forward to looser meal plans very soon too!
Also, I have been reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and I am enjoying it but I hope to finish this weekend as I am ready for something new!
Have a great week :)