Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

System

Or:

BREAKFAST:
~ savoury bannocks (SR flour, defrosted spinach, salt, 30g oil -- hold back a spoonful of flour for evening meal)

LUNCH:
~ cooked potatoes, cut into cubes and fried in 67g oil with garlic powder; roughly chop peanuts and stir in; salt as required; sprinkle with grana padano when serving
~ bread from allowance

EVENING MEAL:
~ rice
~ liver meatballs (made by blitzing liver with cooked green and red lentils and cooked chickpeas, a spoonful of SR flour, garlic powder and salt, then moulding into meatballs and cooking for 25 minutes on greaseproof paper in the oven)
~ sweet and sour tomato sauce (tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, raisins, vinegar and salt -- cooked, then blitzed to a smooth sauce, adding water if required for quantity/consistency)
~ remainder of bread from allowance

SNACK:
~ the mysterious carrot pudding

Sian_the_Green

Avocet for Prime Minister!

(okay, maybe a little far but good job on the planning!)

System

Or maybe:

BREAKFAST:
~ chickpea griddle cakes, made by spreading cooked chickpeas onto a dough made from SR flour with salt and water, then folding dough in half, re-rolling, cutting scone-shaped things and cooking on a griddle

LUNCH:
~ baked potatoes
~ mock bolognese sauce (tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, red lentils, green lentils, salt, water to reach desired quantity/consistency)
~ a pinch of grana padano on top (6g won't go far!)
~ half-batch of garlic croutons, served on the side to add textural variation (cut the day's bread allowance into fingers, brush with 87g oil, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder, dry out in a slow oven -- should keep well in airtight tin, so make the night before because you need the oven to be at a much higher temperature for the potatoes)

EVENING MEAL:
~ pilaf made by sauteing shredded liver in 10g oil, adding chilli powder, spinach, raisins, peanuts and salt, and stirring into cooked rice (best to partially freeze the liver to make it easy to carve very thin slices, which can then be shredded finely)

SNACK 1~
~ remaining garlic croutons

SNACK 2:
~ carrot pudding again (sorry, but if you don't know what something is, it's a bit hard to include it in a menu plan, so I've just left it on its own)

System

Last one, cos I have to go to work:

BREAKFAST:
~ raisin drop scones (made with SR flour and water, using 5g oil to grease the pan)

LUNCH:
~ wildly different croque monsieur -- make pate by cooking together the liver, red lentils, tomato puree and salt, and spread very thinly on half the day's allowance of bread; sprinkle on the grana padano, and then spread on a loose chickpea puree mixed with salt and garlic; top with the remaining bread, then fry the sandwiches in 92g oil, sharing the oil out equally between the sandwiches
~ potato soup (keeping some back for later)

EVENING MEAL:
~ pasta
~ sauce made with tinned tomato, chiili, spinach, green lentils, ladleful of leftover potato soup with splash of vinegar, salt and garlic
~ grana padano and chopped peanuts sprinkled on top

SNACK 1:
~ leftover potato soup

SNACK 2:
~ carrot pudding

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

Wow, really? That is an excellent price. We eat a lot of chickpeas, and at that price it's worth a drive to Asda to stock up.

Re: the day's menu plan and recipes. Do you really want to include some of absolutely everything in the day's menu plan? Wouldn't it be better to stagger the ingredients (one day red lentils, the next chickpeas, the next liver)? Partly for the sake of palatability and variety, but also from the point of view of making the most of your ingredients. It doesn't seem sensible to include 6g of grana padano (less than 1/4 ounce) in anything -- nobody will taste their 1.5g share. It would be better from the menu-planning point of view to save it up and have (say) 50g between you once a week. Then it could be a feature in its own right and people would appreciate it more. That's what I do with expensive ingredients, anyway -- make the most of them as the centrepiece of a meal, even if in restricted quantities, rather than frittering them away in unnoticeable trickles so that nobody feels the benefit. Just a thought. Feel free to ignore it! :-)

sorry avocet the chick peas were a typo

In answer to the 'does it have to be each day in tiny quantities, rather than saving upp the nice igredients for a proper recipe?' here's my thinking: (lots of which you'll know already, but just spelling it out so everyone's on board!)

1) as we've departed from Mr 5 a day and met all the RDAs intead, the planner will be even more susceptable to health critique. So whatever we do we have to make sure it's spot on. We already had comeback with the 5 a day thing, even though we are meeting it, so I'm sure this would happen with the amount of visitors the site is getting.

2) Every food is included because it is packing a huge punch nutritionally.

3)Although we could argue that it's only the water soluble vitamins (C and all the B group) which must be eaten in sufficiency every day (of the vitamins) we don't know how true this is for the minerals and trace elements.

4) Even if we only put a tiny bit of the powerhouse ingredients for C and the B groups on the plate each day, this would still sadly mean the ingredients you spoke about: liver, grana padano etc...

The only ingredients I felt were in trace quantities of the vits and minerals sufficiently to make them swappable one with another were the pasta, rice and white flour (brown must be used daily hence the bread!) so I took a gamble and allowed us choice there.

Having said that, if your fabby piece of software allows you to put together an RDA meeting day by unbalancing the liver or the grana padano, then please do go for it, as long as what's left over still makes a usable day IYSWIM?

System

weezl74 wrote: »

Having said that, if your fabby piece of software allows you to put together an RDA meeting day by unbalancing the liver or the grana padano, then please do go for it, as long as what's left over still makes a usable day IYSWIM?

I wouldn't dream of treading on your toes! It's your plan, and you must do as you like! :-)

Frankly, the thinner the liver is spread, the more palatable the dish is likely to be. We tried pig's liver a few months ago and it was very, very strong and very, very hard to disguise -- I dread to think what ox liver might be like :-)

Sad about the chickpeas, but thank you for saving me the trip this afternoon.

Off to the office now...

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

I wouldn't dream of treading on your toes! It's your plan, and you must do as you like! :-)

Frankly, the thinner the liver is spread, the more palatable the dish is likely to be. We tried pig's liver a few months ago and it was very, very strong and very, very hard to disguise -- I dread to think what ox liver might be like :-)

Sad about the chickpeas, but thank you for saving me the trip this afternoon.

Off to the office now...

I realised I didn't put smilies in my last post ao sorry if it came across as terse, not my intention, just had hands full of Kessie

domesticgoddess789

On a recent trip to Tesco I realised our usual cheapy peanut butter appeared to have disappeared from the shelves . The next brand up is £1.16 a jar!! And so I am going to try making some homemade stuff instead using salted peanuts :-) Very Weezl of me hehe .

I know I am forever asking questions about how long things will keep for in the fridge but does anyone have any ideas? Also would you wash the salt off or leave it on?:A

artybear

Morning all

I must say the thread has gone very technical at the mo and I dont think my brain is good at understanding. Just explaining why I have not got involved as much-didnt want you to think people were growing bored with the project Weezl.

Avocet-you are very good at making planners! I just looked at the list and saw...well just a list of food.

Allegra-I really hope you can come to the meet, I want to hear your accent now lol!!!

Aless-Hope you have had more sleep recently

and generally hi to everyone elsexxxxxxxxxxxxx

aless02

pinkhayley - you don't need to refrigerate peanut butter. It should keep for quite a long time - I've never had any go rancid! (of course we eat it up very quickly chez Aless). I don't wash the salt off, as it needs some for flavor balance. BUT if you want it to be more like shop bought, I'd add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of sugar to taste .