Portion Sizes !!!

exlibris

fannyadams wrote:

Why not 'plate up' the extras as a 'meal' and freeze for later?
I now save ALL leftovers and fridge for lunch next day or freeze for meal when I am having a bad day and don't want to do 'ingredients cooking'.

Dish up the freezer portions as you dish up the meal. By the time you are finished eating they are probably cool enough to freeze. Put them in the freezer immediately. Out of sight out of mind!

Sarahsaver

Use smaller plates.
You are definitely dishing up too much. We would only have one stuffing ball each, and one yorkshire pud. (Home made of course :rolleyes:) 4 chicken breasts would make 2 meals for 4 if it was a stew/casserole/curry, or anything with that many accompaniments.
I make soup from leftover veg after Sunday lunch, IF there's any leftover it goes straight into a saucepan and is therefore ready for tea;)
I often use my hand as a measure, e.g. handful of veg each, enough meat to fill your palm, enough dry weight rice or pasta to fill your hand.If my kids pester for a snack it is fruit, fruit, fruit. We have more scheduled snack times when at home in the day, at 10am ish, and another at about 3, or a snack when they get in from school, but we all sit around the table for that too just like a meal.

Good luck and you ARE in the right place.

Bit of psychology now : try not to cook things which were a favourite of the ex, in fact cook things he positively hated if that is possible! and have a mini kitchen makeover, even something little like moving the table or rearranging cupboards so it is truly YOUR domain again.

Lucie_2

Yesterday for 2 of us I used:
About a kilo of pork shoulder - leftovers for OH sandwiches today & tomorrow plus probably a portion to go in the freezer.
2 average sized potatoes - each cut into 3 & roasted
1 large parsnip - cut into 6 & roasted
2 carrots & half a swede - diced, boiled & mashed
1 small cauliflower (cost 35p, so pretty tiny!) with cheese sauce. 1 portion leftover.
2 readymade yorkshire puddings (hangs head in shame) - to clear out the freezer.
1 bramley apple made into sauce - leftovers to go in OH sarnies
1/3 pack sausage meat -made into 4 stuffing balls. We had one each & the rest will join the pork & apple sauce for his sarnies.
All that plus gravy was plenty for the 2 of us. I think we eat big portions! For 3 people I would probably have only done another potato (so 3 roasties) & made smaller stuffing balls out of the same amount of sausagemeat. There was more than enough veg for 3 people.

recovering_spendaholic

Thanks to all of you for your replies. I decided to see if I could make another meal out of yesterdays leftovers and I was surprised to find that I got another complete roast dinner out of it all for myself, 2 DD's and my Auntie who has arrived today from America to stay with us. I only needed to make a little more gravy and that was it!! Everyone enjoyed it and my Auntie thought I had gone to the trouble of making a roast for her arrival!! Result!!

Sarahsaver

Well done that's fantastic! Such a quick result:)

calleyw

recovering_spendaholic wrote:

Thanks to all of you for your replies. I decided to see if I could make another meal out of yesterdays leftovers and I was surprised to find that I got another complete roast dinner out of it all for myself, 2 DD's and my Auntie who has arrived today from America to stay with us. I only needed to make a little more gravy and that was it!! Everyone enjoyed it and my Auntie thought I had gone to the trouble of making a roast for her arrival!! Result!!

You are on your way now. It sounds silly but it is enpowering to know what you can do it.

Think normally that would have gone in the bin. So give yourself a pat on the back. And think of all the goodies you can make from left overs. Soup, omlettes the sky is the limit now.

All the best.


Yours


Calley

ageandjo

I have been trying to cut back on shopping bills and spread things a little further but it has dawned on me that my portion sizes are huge:eek: Now this is a way I can cut back massivly but I have always dished up a hugee plate of anything, i;e 2 sandwiches instead of 1 what are your portion sizes like? (gawd that sounds a bit crude:D )

wigginsmum

We tend to do a small portion of the meat/fish part (eg. as much as can be fitted into a cupped hand) and larger portions of pasta/rice/veg. DH has sandwiches with 4 slices; I have 2.

foreverskint

I would love to cut down on portion sizes for the others, but they just seem to eat so much. Mind you OH only really eats dinner on a week day, he maybe has a sandwich, I know it's not good for him, but I can't get him to change.


:rolleyes:

Kazonline

Hi Ageandjo - we're a family of huge appetites and portion sizes too. When we bought shop bread the boys would be dissapointed with anything less than 3 rounds of sarnies. Now we have a BM they only get 1 round, but because the bread is thicker (They'd never eat thick shop bread but love mine) and more nutritious it seems to keep them going for longer - and they're definately more satisfied (taste as well as hunger). Wheras they were forever asking for something to eat during the day I've found that on the HM bread snacking has dissapeared (for them, not me, lol).
Once they are back in school the HM loaf can go back to being used to eek out the meals a little further. As it's a nutritious loaf (lots of seeds and wholemeal) I don't feel guilty.
As for portion sizes - as I said earlier ours are big, and if I've batch cooked for the freezer I've got to freeze it before they see it! Take the other day - made two quiches and HUGE pot of potato salad.... They ate the whole quiche, all the potato salad, and were dissapointed that they couldn't eat the other quiche. That was on a day that they claimed they weren't very hungry.....
Good luck with your portion control!
Kaz x