🖊 WRITE 🖊

I managed to prepare a different dish for each weekday (as part of my satiation sequence multi-course meal) for four weeks straight.

Key ingredients, main course:

Potatoes, broccoli, cheese

Potatoes, carrots, onion, slavink

Potatoes, bacon bits, onion

Potatoes, meatball, spinach, gravy

Potatoes, smoked sausage, kale, green peas

All inspired by traditional dishes from the country I live in, like boerenkool stamppot, hutspot, and the classic AVG’tje (potatoes, vegetables, and meat).

If on a given day I want to eat something completely different, that’s totally fine too — at least I’ll still have a portion ready to fall back on if needed. My critical side has been more active these past weeks — especially today, on the actual cooking day, while I’m PMSing and recovering from a day that was more socially intense than what I’ve been used to in recent years.

I see more clearly where I could upgrade:

• Recently, I learned that I can store meals in glass containers, and I want to explore which financial options work for me. I still need to figure out whether they’ll fit into my tiny freezer — and how I can manage five different meals, divided into four portions each, so I can easily take out one per day.

• I’d also like to learn how to make my own meatballs, so I can choose the ingredients for both the meat and the gravy myself. I recently learned you can even mix cheese into the meat — I might try that.

• I’m also trying to cook my potatoes slightly less — mostly for presentation, so they stay more yellow than orange. I think the yellow color contrasts more with the vegetables or even the meat, making the dish more visually appealing — more like eyecandy.

But the real evaluation happens when I’m actually eating. And the thing is: when I eat something more often, there’s a chance that my motivation to make tweaks will significantly increase as a result.