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

frugalmumof4

hi everyone,
We are on our third week of the diet plan made vegetarian!

These are the main meals we have had.

Chickpea Crumble, which i added more potatoes to and more stock, was lacking flavour i felt so will add soya sauce today, as its tea tonight!

Weezls vege burgers

Baked bean curry with rice, i added some carrots into this meal.

Chana Mutter Masala and rice

Sweetcorn fritters and home made chutney

Risi e bisi, I substitued quorn bacon for the normal bacon, the way i cooked it was delicious, cooked the peas before hand, fried the onion and bacon then stirred in all the other dry ingredients including the peas, then poured in the stock and simmered away for about 12 minutes until rice was soft. looked quite green from peas, but my favourite meal.

Pasta Alfredo- Followed recipe except used quorn bacon.

Thrifty cottage pie- Replaced mince with 200g asda meat free frozen mince, soaked in 100mls of water, added a stock cube for extra flavour, and then cut potatoes into cubes, par boiled them, tossed in oil and put over the top of the cottage pie base, baked in oven until nice and crispy.

Spanish omelette- this was my least favourite, as although i will eat eggs if hidden in something, i really dont enjoy the taste/texter of eggs. Everyone else ate it up with no complaints, I did add mixed herbs to the recipe, and i fry all my ingredients except eggs, then grease a rectangle oven dish and bake it all together in the oven.

Lasagne- Followed recipe but 200g of asda frozen meat free mince soaked in 100mls of water instead of mince. Also added vegetable stock cube into sauce. Made white sauce using soya milk.

Butter bean and vegetable curry

Gram Flour and spicy vegetable tart- This was delicious, we didnt use gram flour, i made up more pastry for base to serve 6 200g flour and 100g butter and some water. Used all the same amounts for filling and 2 tsp of patak curry paste. I did think you could make this vegan by using the same filling, minus the eggs, but instead make up a white sauce using soya milk and mix this into the vegetable and curry paste.

Cauliflower cheese.

lunches we have had the carrot soup, spicy peas and apple soup, sweetcorn soup, we have made tortilla wraps, as a change from bread,(i dont eat bread) the tortilla wrap recipe someone posted on another forum using 6oz flour 7 tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon of oil, works super.

If I have time I can have a look at the meaty recipes and see how you can change them.

Carrot has gone down well the eggless one, need to mix soya milk into the mixture, and apple cake they kids have loved.

We tried the oatmeal muffins someone posted also as a breakfast substitite, i used honey instead of sugar in our and added some sp raisins.

hope everyone has a lovely day

hornetgirl

OK, I'm just trying to get up the courage to make the bacon and onion pudding for dinner tonight.
Please could someone tell me just what steam in the slow cooker means. Do I just put in boiling water and then put the basin into that? Thanks x

Allegra

hornetgirl wrote: »

Please could someone tell me just what steam in the slow cooker means. Do I just put in boiling water and then put the basin into that? Thanks x

Yep I left mine in for far longer than the suggested time as I was in and out of the house, but I did have it on low - and it was fine. Lovely in fact :j

Onion tart for me tonight - and a quick glance at the planner suggests that once that is done, that will be the bulk of batch baking and the complex meals out of the way - just the regular bread making and any snacks as necessary to keep me busy. The rest of the month should be a doddle then

I popped on the scales this morning and am 4 lb lighter than I was at the start of the plan. I am not too bothered about it either way as I have the sort of frame that can accomodate quite large fluctuations in weight, but I do hope that it doesn't continue at the same rate, cos none of my clothes will fit by the end :rotfl: I have not felt hungry or deprived at any point so far though, so I guess that my body is comfortable with the change so far.

Claw_back_money

*steps out of lurkdom*
Hi all
I've been dipping in and out of this thread and the previous and I think you're doing a really fab thing, and think the finished product would have been incredibly helpful to me a couple of years ago (pre MSE). Having tried and tested nutritious menus with accompanying mealplans and shopping lists would have been wonderful.
We used an awful lot of convenience foods and I was really unconfident and unskilled in the kitchen . By browsing the OS board I started to get the hang of meal planning and got the confidence to try cooking. Compared to you guys we've got an incredibly long way to go though, currently the young'uns are mostly living at uni and so its just the two of us here and we spend more than £100 a month on food just for us + cats!
I'm veggie, OH isn't although he'll happily eat veggie over half the week. I just wondered if there is anyway we can help when you start thinking veggie - or is that being done by folks like Frugalmum as you go?

Cheers
Cbm

hornetgirl

Another quick question about the bacon and onion pudding. Are the quantities in the other place the correct ones? I only ask as there is a bit of a debate on there about it. I'll need to halve for the two of us, but don't want to be halving something that's already small iyswim.
Sorry for all the questions on this one, but I've never made anything like this before, so am a bit nervous!

FrankieM

I also have a quick question about the Bacon & Onion Pudding.

Can I use a plastic basin/bowl to steam it in or will it melt?

Thanks

weezl74

hornetgirl wrote: »

Another quick question about the bacon and onion pudding. Are the quantities in the other place the correct ones? I only ask as there is a bit of a debate on there about it. I'll need to halve for the two of us, but don't want to be halving something that's already small iyswim.
Sorry for all the questions on this one, but I've never made anything like this before, so am a bit nervous!

hiya Hg, I found those quantities worked, and like lesley I added approximately the same water as oil. I then stretched and pressed the dough around the sides of the bowl leaving a third to stretch into a disc for the top. This way you don't need to roll it, it just needs to be stretchy, squidgy and handleable, does that make sense?

Claw_back_money wrote: »

*steps out of lurkdom*
Hi all
I've been dipping in and out of this thread and the previous and I think you're doing a really fab thing, and think the finished product would have been incredibly helpful to me a couple of years ago (pre MSE). Having tried and tested nutritious menus with accompanying mealplans and shopping lists would have been wonderful.
We used an awful lot of convenience foods and I was really unconfident and unskilled in the kitchen . By browsing the OS board I started to get the hang of meal planning and got the confidence to try cooking. Compared to you guys we've got an incredibly long way to go though, currently the young'uns are mostly living at uni and so its just the two of us here and we spend more than £100 a month on food just for us + cats!
I'm veggie, OH isn't although he'll happily eat veggie over half the week. I just wondered if there is anyway we can help when you start thinking veggie - or is that being done by folks like Frugalmum as you go?

Cheers
Cbm

Hello! I would love testers and suggestions for the vegetarian planner, thanks ever so much Do stay and dip in when you like

FrankieM wrote: »

I also have a quick question about the Bacon & Onion Pudding.

Can I use a plastic basin/bowl to steam it in or will it melt?

Thanks

Sorry to be a bit vague but it depends what type of plastic! I'd doubt if it was something that food came in (like a christmas pudding tub) that it would melt, cos they're designed to go in a microwave which is hotter than steaming! Being steamed, it's never going to go above 100 degrees celcius, so a way to test would be: put your plastic bowl on a metal tea tray/roasting dish. Boil your kettle, and pour boiling water into the plastic bowl. Check for signs of it melting/going out of shape. If none, then safe for steaming. Other ideas: how big is your slow cooker? Do you have anything metal/ceramic that might work instead?

weezl74

allegra 4lb lost :eek:

eeep, you're right we must keep an eye on that!

you are taller and more active than shirley average, I know, but that's a lot of weight loss

you must've had 14000 cals fewer than you needed!

(*goes back to hunt for that lardy thickshake recipe*)

FrankieM

weezl It's plastic bowl that microwave safe so I'm guessing it'll be ok. Thanks.

Ok, today so far I've portioned out Mr Frankie's soup from last night.

Still to do: PM bread, carrot cake, pea &apple soup, boodles biscuits, bacon & onion pudding, risi e bisi

That should cover snacks for the week, we don't seem to be going through very many.
It also should give me soup for lunches if needed and I have the risi e bisi for the main meal later this week or it can be used for lunches as I didn't make it last week.

weezl74

FrankieM wrote: »

weezl It's plastic bowl that microwave safe so I'm guessing it'll be ok. Thanks.

Ok, today so far I've portioned out Mr Frankie's soup from last night.

Still to do: PM bread, carrot cake, pea &apple soup, boodles biscuits, bacon & onion pudding, risi e bisi

That should cover snacks for the week, we don't seem to be going through very many.
It also should give me soup for lunches if needed and I have the risi e bisi for the main meal later this week or it can be used for lunches as I didn't make it last week.

sounds like a full day frankie, hope not as tiring as last week did you mash the soup in the end? Does DH like the soup, or do I need to rename it?;) probably a good sign that the snacks are lasting, I guess that means they're not famished?

General question to all: How are motivation levels, health and enjoyment going now it's day 7?