March MoMe

Here is the Month of Meals for March. I'm sorry the links for the png below won't load! =/ They are active on the pdf version.

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from my friends that have used this and they often remark that I’m  organized to plan things for an entire month. I would like confess that although I use this as a framework for meals, I often venture out and try new things, and switch up meals regularly. The grocery lists help me to buy things and make healthy meals. So, Holly, use this as a tool for long-term planning, and feel free to deviate from it.

Personally, while I have used this it’s helped me see how much cheese I eat! While I certainly love cheese, I do think about it as a food to enjoy sparingly because of it’s high saturated fat content. With many cheeses I think less is more, and being in Europe, I love trying out new cheeses. Even the store brand feta cheese (a sheep’s milk cheese) is delicious and rich, and I need a lot less of it.

We started eating more quinoa and plattekeis (or fromage blanc, a creamy non-sour sour cream-like dairy product). Quinoa tastes perfect cooked up in some vegetable broth and served like you would rice. It’s very healthy and it complements meals, and is a great way to soak up sauces. Plattekeis tastes excellent with jam on pumpernickel bread and as a topping to pancakes along with cinnamon brown sugar pears.

I tried to combine the groceries for weeks 1 and 2, so groceries overlap nicely. The mushroom bourgignon is delicious and I’d recommend it served along with garlic bread, or quinoa. While serving it with pasta is fine, it dilutes the lovely sauce. Feel free to sub in different kinds of beans in recipes that call for them. At the end of the month, you might find that you are addicted to falafel (we ate it three times this month!).

In weeks 3 and 4, some groceries from the first part of the month will overlap. Many veggies get used up in other dishes throughout the week (e.g the beets, zucchini, chard). Trust me that you will love the cheese enchiladas recipe (holy heck the chili gravy sauce!). In Belgium, I used large wrap-flour tortillas, cut them in half, and didn’t fry them; I reduced the cheese by half. The onions are killer in the enchiladas.

Finally, since the season of spring is upon us artichokes and asparagus are making appearances at the markets. My favorite way to eat them is freshly steamed with butter. Just trim the spiny thorns off, cut the top off, rub everywhere with lemon and put it in a steamer basket for 15-20 minutes or until totally tender. Then pull the leaves off one by one.

If you end up using this, please let me know how you like it/hate it/want to see changes, or especially if you have recipe recs that you want to see on a future month. Eet smakelijk!