Store cupboard challenge

his_missus

Made a strange concoction last night to accompany our gammon steaks - found half a packet of arborio rice in the cupboard (no idea why/when I purchased it) so fried half a sad looking onion,some squidgy mushrooms and sliced pepper, added some chilli flakes (too much really) then added the rice and some veg stock. Cooked for about 25mins, adding extra water then threw in soome chopped pinapple and lemon juice (hoping it would counteract the overwhelming chilli flavour) Tasted ok and even had the leftovers for my lunch today.

Soworried

Please can I have help to turn my freezers in to a meal plan. I have all the usual store cupboard items as well. I can also buy any additions if needed. I am just lacking inspiration after listing it all and would be very grateful for any ideas.

Here we go. This is what I have in the freezer. It has shocked me writing it all down. I have a lot of chicken and gammon.

4pk Organic Lamb chops.
2x large smoked haddock.
3x sugar ring doughnuts.
2x scones.
12pk organic falafal.
4x home made ham and pea soup.
1.8kg smoked Gammon joint.
1.8kg non smoked Gammon joint.
8x bananas.
2pk Gressingham duck breasts.
1x Turkey carcass.
1x Salmon steak.
1kg of sausages.
2.5kg Pork loin joint.
1.5kg ready roasted chicken.
5x finger rolls.
6 flour rolls.
3x burger buns.
1x full Warburtons loaf.
2x 1.8kg chickens.
1x chilli home made portion.
7x turkey breasts.
1pk scallops.
1pk mackerel fillets.
1x 3kg beef joint.
15x crumpets.
1x duck fat for roast potatoes.
2x fish cakes.
1kg of parsnips.
2x portions of cheese biscuit mix, ready to slice and bake.
2x portions of mashed potato.
1x chicken carcass.
4x pork chops.
Home made icecream.
1kg of spinach.
1x cream.
1x home made chicken strock.
3x slices of bread.
2x home made cheese and carrot soup.
1x home made red wine sauce.
4x sausages.
1x home made Madras.
Indian platter.
1x Home made stuffing.
1kg chicken thighs.
12pk sausages.
1x mashed swede.
1x beef for stirfry.
1x portion of home made toad in the hole.
2x sweet potatoes mash.
2x waffles for breakfasts.
4x mexican chicken breasts.
4x pks of 12 filo prawns.
1kg of carrots.
1/2kg of brocolli.
5x yorkshire puddings, home made.#3/4 tub of soft cheese.
1 bag of chillis.
1x potion of homemade chicken pie.
1x portion of home made mince hot pot.
1x pk cheese and onion rolls.
1x cornish pasty.

Thankyou to anyone who has sat and read that list.

Soworried

It is for the 4 of us, 2 adults and 2 teens with hollow legs.
We are not fussy eaters and it would be for lunch and dinners. Breakfast is fine as I have a huge stash of cereals.
Sorry I should of added this information.

PhGage

2x large smoked haddock

For 4 of you, 2 with very large appetites, could you make 1 haddock into fish cakes (ultimate fish cakes).

Make the 2nd piece into a fish pie that is topped with mashed or sliced potato (fine without the prawns and serve more potato on the side or cheese scones) or pastry (plait as well as usual shortcrust for a flan)? (You may want to use your salmon steak in with the haddock in some of the pie recipes: similarly, your frozen spinach rather than broccoli works well in most recipes.)

You would probably need to use a lot more sauce and pasta than given in this recipe but Haddock Macaroni works well, particularly with garlic bread and grilled tomatoes/mushrooms or roasted cauliflower if you don't mind almost everything on your plate being white/light yellow. It would also be good with your frozen spinach.

If you have this in separate weeks, then it's either 1 very generous lunch if fishcakes/flan are used for that and 1 dinner or 2 good dinners.

Week 1
Saturday
Lunch: pea and ham soup with bread; offer scones or baked apples as well to teens.

Dinner: Fishcakes and vegetables; teens may need potato chips or chickpea fries as well.

Sunday
Lunch: falafel, pitta bread (could you make these?), vegetable salad for adults, or rice salad for teens.

Dinner: lamb chops in pastry with parsnips, carrots, onions and other roasted vegetables (use the duck fat?) or the mashed swede. (The lamb chops would be lovely by themselves but teens may need them stretched a little more as chops can sometimes be quite small.)

Week 2

Saturday
Lunch: Cheese and carrot soup (can't tell if this is 2 batches of enough for 4 people or individual portions); savoury scones or the cheese and onion rolls (particularly for the teens) and baked apple.

Dinner: Fish pie/plait or Haddock Macaroni with suitable vegetables.

Sunday
Lunch: as week 1; or could you turn your turkey carcass into a turkey, vegetable and rice soup which is served with bread and your frozen sugar doughnuts for those with hollow legs?

Dinner: Pork chops (BBC Good Food has lots of decent recipes) with your sweet potato mash, combined or served separately to mashed carrots, apple sauce and baked potato.

PhGage

The 2 duck breasts could be stuffed, and feed 2 people generously while 2 others have the chicken pie/Cornish pasty or mince hot pot (or it might be that the teens are out so there's no competition for the duck ). This would be a good Week 3 Saturday dinner.

If the duck had to feed 4 people, I might switch it to a Sunday dinner and I'd stuff it as per the recipe (but use onions and chives in the stuffing rather than watercress) and serve it with a sausage and haricot bean casserole (you might be able to substitute in the red wine sauce from your stores if this wouldn't be a waste of it).

You'd probably have lots of leftovers from the sausage and bean casserole which would make a good midweek meal, particularly if served with cornbread.

Soworried

Phgage, that is fantastic.x

I would never have thought of wrapping the lamb chops in pastry. Your right they are small.

The soup is just enough for 2 people, not two batches.

Chickpea fries are going the menu for tonight now. They sound lovely. :j

PhGage

Soworried wrote: »

Chickpea fries are going the menu for tonight now. They sound lovely. :j

They are scrumptious. If you can let the batter stand for a few hours or overnight, it makes it easier to cut. It's a good contrast between crisp outside and fluffy inside (may vary with how thick you cut your fries). I have a milk bread tin (looks like a roly poly tin) and I set my batter in the 2 halves of that which made it easy to cut into what looks like steak cut potatoes.

What to do with the gammon joints might depend on what the gammon is: Delicious Meat Guide: bacon. Delicious has a good selection of recipes but if you've got a barbecue, you might want to look at BBQ Gammon, braised peas and lettuce. Again, the gammon works very well if served cold with HM baked beans or Boston Baked Beans (you made need to save some fat from your sausages for the latter as your gammon might not give you enough for this and you don't put the already cooked meat in until the end. If you don't want to put the oven on for the beans, this recipe works well in a slow cooker but you'll need to reduce the fluid and it won't cook down to such a dark brown sticky mass).

I'd like to pretend that these recipes mean that you would feed your family multiple times from each of these gammon joints but if they're anything like mine, you'll be doing well to get 2 dinners out of each one (one hot, one with gammon served cold or added in near the end of cooking time for Boston Beans or added when the beans are reheated if they've been standing overnight to increase flavour).

If there is a small quantity of leftover meat, it works well if shredded into a rice salad with vegetables and beans.

Or, shred the pork, add to leftover beans and serve inside Butterfly Brain's tortillas and salads for a very generous lunch or easy to pull together dinner. If necessary for dinner, you could stretch or extend the fillings for the tortillas by heating up the individual portion of chilli and 1 or 2 of the mexican chicken breasts (depending on how hungry people are). Serve it with guacamole and/or salsa.

If your gammon is boiling gammon then that will always be good if served with pease pudding. However, as you list HM pea and ham soup, you probably have lots of recipes for that.

PhGage

There are lots of ways to prepare the pork loin joint, depending on which type it is: Meat Cuts Guide.

The Pig Site has some good recipe ideas for pork loin and other cuts.

I can't tell how many portions the loin might yield as I don't know if it's bone in or bone out. However, Jamie Oliver's recipe for Stuffed Pork Loin is very good and the Kevin Dundon recipe for Guinness and honey glazed pork loin is an excellent set-piece Sunday lunch if you have guests (you might need to serve extra sausages if you have a lot of guests but they go well with a gravy made from the extra glaze).

Jamie Oliver's recipe goes well with extra roasted vegetables, stewed tomatoes and socca/farinata. Kevin Dundon's recipe is made to be served with the colcannon that he suggests It will go further if you serve braised carrots as well.

The pork loin might just serve 1 Sunday dinner if you have guests but with luck it should give you enough leftovers to have another midweek dinner.

PhGage

Mamta's butter chicken is very good if made with chicken thighs (if you remove the skin from the thighs, freeze and put them with the carcass you already have so they can go in with any stock when you make it).

The recipe doesn't tell you to add some of the spices mentioned in the ingredients list (cumin and cardamom, iirc) but I add them after frying the onion but before adding the tomatoes.

This recipe improves for standing overnight and freezes very well. You could serve some of the chicken thighs/turkey breasts with a vegetable dish like mixed vegetable madras (maybe use your madras sauce as the base for this as it's only a side dish?), rice and dhal and save the rest of the butter chicken/turkey for freezing. If the teenagers are hungry, maybe some of the items from the Indian Platter would make good accompaniments or some homemade chapatis/roti or double bread roti (good use for your leftover bread). For a dinner the next week, you could dig this out of the freezer and serve a similar selection.

Soworried

That Guiness and honey pork loin looks fantastic. I will have to try that.

I am hoping to have enough left over to do something else with. The socca looks lovely and very quick as well. You are making me hungry just looking at the pictures.
Thankyou so much for your help. x :T