What I eat in a week + Recipes

In today's post I'll tell you what I eat in a week as I thought it would be interesting to some and could help you with finding new lunch/ dinner ideas. I'll include the easy and quick recipes of what I ate and will make a separate blog post for the other ones. I forgot to take pictures on Monday so I started the week on Tuesday.

DAY 1: Tuesday

For breakfast I most often have cereal, either regular or with chocolate pieces in it, with some coconut milk. I genuinely love coconut milk and I add it in as many things as possible because I like how fresh it tastes. Whenever I'm not drinking coconut milk I use oat milk.

For lunch I had some soup and a sandwich with both Brie cheese and Fagotin cheese from Maredsous. The soup consisted of pumpkin, carrot, tomato, union, leek, peas, celeriac and potato. I usually make my own soup, in my soup maker from Philips, but I had to leave it behind in Italy. I still had this pack of soup from Knorr left so I just used this for once. It did lack some flavour so I added a bit of salt and pepper to make it tastier. As a vegetarian I eat a lot of cheese whenever I'm eating bread as I haven't found the perfect substitute yet to put on it.

For dinner we made a tris of pasta. We bought pre-made ravioli made from chickpeas filled with mushrooms. We boiled it and put it in some oil and added parsley. For the second pasta we made a delicious tomato sauce with penne (Recipe below). I found this recipe on the Instagram of the Michelin Guide and it's a recipe from Gordon Ramsay, it's truly delicious. The third pasta is one of my dad's specials. We mix some Philadelphia cheese (garlic) with a tiny bit of cream (low fat %) and a tiny bit of milk and then add some mushrooms and broccoli. An easy and delicious recipe. We made it with tagliatelle this time but I actually prefer it with penne.

Marinara sauce
Ingredients: 
- 2 cans of 28 oz canned tomatoes (peeled)
- 2 table spoons of tomato paste
- 1 large yellow onion 
- 6 garlic cloves
- 6 basil leaves
- 1 cup of red wine
- 1/8 cup of olive oil
- pepper and salt 

How to make it:
- Put a stockpot over a medium heat and add oil. 
- Add julienned onions and season with salt and pepper.
- Sweat onions until soft and translucent for about 10 to 12 min.
- Add thinly sliced garlic and let is sweat for 3 min while making sure to not burn the garlic
- Add torn basil leaves and let it wilt for 2 min.
- Add the tomato paste and cook for 3 to 5 min.
- Turn the heat up to medium high, deglaze the pit with red win. 
- Reduce by half, approximately 3 to 5 min.
- Return heat to medium low and add the canned tomatoes.
- Cook on medium low heat for 90 min.
- Remove the sauce from the heat and blend it until it is smooth. 
- Season the sauce again with pepper and salt

-Gordon Ramsey-

After dinner I also couldn't resist making myself a bowl of stracciatella ice cream. Ice cream is for sure one of my guilty pleasures, I often catch myself having 1 every night. I either eat a magnum mini or make myself a bowl of vanilla ice cream, which has been my fave the last few days. Apparently, a lot of people like vanilla ice cream these days because they were all gone when I went grocery shopping, that's why I went for stracciatella. Whenever I have a very heavy meal for dinner (high in calories), I try to avoid eating ice cream. Though, I tend to always say to myself and others "Just eat what makes you happy, you only live once and if you're happy with your body, what do the extra calories matter?"

DAY 2: Wednesday

On Tuesday I again had cereal for breakfast with coconut milk but this time I added a hard boiled egg to eat on the side, as I was going to do a workout that day. Hard boiled eggs are good for your body as they are low in calories and rich in vitamin B and many other good nutrients such as; choline, lutein, calcium, zinc and zeaxanthin.

For lunch I had a Caprese salad. I normally don't like to eat salads, especially during winter or fall, but in summertime it can be a fresh meal that's healthy too and you can add whatever you want, which makes it the perfect dish. I added the following ingredients to my bowl:

- Mixed salad
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumber
- Avocado 
- Mozzarella
- Boiled egg
- Green pesto 

For dinner we had fries from the chip shop and I ate some vegetarian fish sticks with it. My family eats fries every Wednesday, though I am not used to this because I usually live in Antwerp during the week. I also have a very sensitive stomach that doesn't always accept fries, because of their greasiness. And that's exactly what happened on Wednesday, my stomach didn't accept me eating fries and got all messed up. To be fair, I also don't like fries that much, to eat it every week, so I decided for myself that I'll only have them every once in a while.

DAY 3: Thursday

On Thursday I switched up my breakfast because my dad went to the bakery to get some fresh sandwiches. I made myself a fried egg, that I baked on both sides and ate it with some avocado and cherry tomatoes. I love to make eggs in the morning, it doesn't matter which kind; scrambled, fried, omelet, etc. I like the taste of them and as also mentioned before they are really good for you, especially when you're going to do a workout that day.

For lunch we warmed up the leftover pasta from Tuesday because we made way too much. The leftovers weren't enough to eat again for dinner that's why we decided to eat them for lunch.

For dinner my dad and I tried out a new recipe. We made vegan Moussaka with eggplant, and lentils as a substitute for meat. I got this recipe from EVA, a Belgian non-profit organization that tries to do as much as possible for the consumption and production of plant-based food. It is a pretty extensive recipe, so I'll write a separate post about it soon. I was really nervous to try it out as it was 100% vegan and I never made something like that before. We all liked it very much, it is a very tasty and light dish and the portion was big enough to even eat from it again another day that week.

I did treat myself with a bowl of ice cream again, as the Moussaka wasn't too heavy of a meal and I wanted to reward myself for making this delicious dish.

DAY 4: Friday

Friday was a pretty boring day when it comes to food. I didn't eat anything new that I didn't eat that week. For breakfast I had my cereal with coconut milk, for lunch I had the same salad as I had on Wednesday and for dinner we ate the Moussaka leftovers from the day before.

DAY 5: Saturday

On Saturday I again had my cereal with coconut milk. For lunch we had a kind of tapas situation going on. We toasted some bread and had a selection of dips and cheeses. We had a cheese dip, falafel hummus, pumpkin hummus, dried tomato hummus, eggplant dip and a dip from paprika. My dad also made scrambled eggs with mushrooms and broccoli, which I ate with the toasted bread. Our offer of cheeses was pretty small, we only had camembert and brie.

As a "snack" I made myself a smoothie, in this smoothie I added the following things:

- 1 Banana
- A hand full of frozen berries 
- Greek yoghurt (natural or with fruit flavour)
- A tiny bit of coconut milk 
- A teaspoon of honey (can also be left out)

For dinner I made a vegetarian curry and baked some chicken on the side for my non-vegetarian family. To make this curry I first cooked a bunch of vegetables, this time I went for; zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, broccoli and green beans. Then I added 2 packs of Knorr Curry Sauce and 1 pack of coconut milk (250 ml). At the end I added 2 packs of Basmati Rice and mixed everything together. You can use whichever veggies you like to make this curry and just add them too the mix. You can also make the curry sauce with only coconut milk and curry powder, but my family is a big fan of the Knorr curry, so we use it all the time.

DAY 6: Sunday

On Sunday I made myself a fried egg again that I baked on both sides. Unfortunately we ran out of avocado and tomatoes so I just added a slice of cheese to give it a bit more flavour.

For lunch I had a sandwich with some pesto and cherry tomatoes on top (that we bought after breakfast). I wanted to add some mozzarella too, but we forgot to buy some so this is what I ended up with. And as a snack I made the same smoothie as I did on Saturday.

For dinner my dad made 'Tomate-crevette" for the rest of my family and I made myself some Sacchettini filled with black truffle in a butter-sage sauce.

DAY 7: Monday

Monday I made myself a sandwich with some Serrano ham and I had half a banana after I finished the sandwich. I guess, this is the part where I have to admit I still eat some meat, though Serrano ham is the only type of meat is still have. I don't know what it is about it that I can't resist it, but every once in a while I just crave some ham, so I just let myself have a bit, and then I'm good again for a few weeks.

For lunch I just had a basic sandwich with 2 types of cheese; Brie and Camembert.

For dinner we ordered food from De Zwaan, one of our favourite restaurants in Hasselt. My family ordered "Videe" which is a typical Belgian dish that consists of tiny meatballs, chicken and mushrooms and a creamy sauce, they ate it with some fries. I ordered cheese croquettes with mashed potatoes and ate it with some steamed vegetables that I prepared myself. We also ordered food for my grandparents and delivered it to them. My grandma chose asparagus with white wine sauce and salmon and my granddad ordered meatballs in tomato sauce with mashed potatoes. It was really good and we loved to eat some Belgian classics again, as we usually don't eat them at home.

That was it for my "What I eat in a week" post. I hope you guys liked it and maybe found some new dinner ideas. I know the meals weren't always that interesting, but I tried to stick with what I eat on a daily basis and to not do crazy stuff just for the sake of this post. As you can see, I still struggle with finding the right thing to eat with my sandwiches. If you're a vegetarian and reading this, please share your sandwich/ lunch ideas with me in the comments. I'm also very curious about your favourite meals, I would love to read them in the comments or in a private message (vegetarian or not).

A bientôt!

Bisous