Saturday Night Dinners?

daisiegg

I totally understand somehow feeling like Saturday dinners should be 'special' and different from weekday meals. Growing up I remember Saturday night dinners very fondly - either my dad would be making a big vat of his famous bolognaise on a Saturday afternoon and then freezing lots and making a lasagne with some for the Saturday night, or when I was really young my mum used to do fancy curry night for her and my dad (making naans, starters etc all from scratch) and us kids would be fed grilled chicken breasts, pasta and peas and sweetcorn, and sent up to bed early Still as far as I know in my parents' house Saturday night tends to be either curry or lasagne.

In my house it is often curry, sometimes steak, sometimes hm pizza. Yum!

jools27_2

I normally work every 2nd weekend, so on my weekend off we always used to have pizza, or curry or similar, homemade takeaway if you like to call it that! Am not back at work yet, but DS works every 2nd Sat , Sun the other week, and DD has settled back into her routine of being out or at BF's so I haven't been doing much on Saturdays, need to settle myself into a routine, which will be hard until I get back to work, OH and I always had a slob in front of the tv thing going on for Saturdays so need to get organised into some me time on Saturdays I think! My new treat day seems to be every 2nd Sunday, when DD and her boyfriend are here, so we have whatever I cook for dinner but have a pudding for a change!

ragz_2

Tonight we had what hubby calls a mix and mash up meal. I defrosted three foil dishes of different things I had frozen as leftovers and we had them with rice and garlic bread. Ended up with chili, curry and a pork casserole. Something for everyone and hubby loves dinners like that! If you defrost early enough you can reheat in the microwave if frozen in plastic and minimise washing up.

hamish222

Sat night is usually burgers, hm pizza, steak sandwiches, fajitas, steak, or donner lamb kebab (from takeway book)

sweetilemon

We usually have one of a few things:

Fresh pizza from ASDA/Sainsburys counter
Ready meal curry
Fresh burger & oven chips
Tesco/m&s meal deal
Steak, roast pots, peppercorn sauce,onion rings & yorkshire puds (aunt bessies!)
Morrisons fresh chicken (loads of different pre-prepare chicken) with ready made veg & potatoes

Downsizing__for_sanity

Hi,

We often have HM pizza and garlic bread and a cheap DVD on a Friday/Saturday night. It's a good excuse to use up everything in the back of the fridge and people can choose their favourite toppings. My little ones HAVE to make faces out of pineapple and ham etc! We also often have popcorn (either microwave or old-style) and it's so easy and cheap. We also did a pyjama and pizza party for a birthday recently and it was less than £50 for all the food and drink for 20 x 5-6 year olds and their parents!

Try mortgagefreeinfree's fridge dough recipe (I haven't had time yet but it seems a great idea) for easy dough whenever you want it.

camNolliesMUMMY

We have fakeaways....

HM pizzas, I make the dough up in my bm so less hassle.
HM nandos very easy to make yourself
HM paprika chicken HM chips
HM curries from you can make Indian food book paid about 80pfor it on amazon. our fav is a chicken/lamb bhuna.
HM Chinese chicken curry and chicken chow mein with egg fried rice from the takeaway secrets book
HM med doner kebab made the night before when using the oven for something else, recipe more takeaway secrets book.

Hope this helps. We've not had a takeaway now for over a year now!

When we have friends round on a Saturday il make my curry up and chuck it in the slow cooker on low around 12pm il prep the starter dips for the popadoms etc and i serve the main with a warmed naan in the microwave 30 secs, i use a tiny bit of marg on it a tad of garlic powder and coriander leaf amd your done! and the flavour from the curry being in the sc is out of this world. I use my sc for 95% of our cooking so maybe think about using it to save you time? I made a lasagna the other day and it was tastier than it going in the oven!
It's loads more stress free using my sc if its just us or a party of people so I've now got two sc my new one is a bigger one hehe

mrsJef

Wow, Thank you all for your suggestions! We went for hm pizza, coleslaw & wedges last night and I am going to use some of your other suggestions for future weeks to try and change things up a bit. Definitely agree with the idea of trying to cook something earlier in the week and freezing so i at least have the 'base' of a meal ready.

Thanks again and feel free to post any recipes that have been requested by others as it is always helpful to share! or any other suggestions you all think of!

mrsJef

krlyr

Soworried wrote: »

The paprika chicken sounds lovely, do you have a recipe please?

It will be in the vat of pinned recipes on my Pinterest somewhere!
http://pinterest.com/paperpangolin/food/ if you fancy a browse, I will try to hunt it out for you though..

pjran wrote: »

Please could you give me the wrap recipe but only if its really easy

Thank you, sorry to hijack this thread, I need inspiration too. I feel quite peckish reading all your suggestions not that I'm hungry as I ate HM cottage pie at lunchtime.

http://www.mywaytocook.com/?p=1519
is the one I followed. They seemed a bit stiff at first but I made them in the morning, covered with a piece of kitchen towel then clingfilmed the whole plate, by lunchtime they were a lot softer.

krlyr

http://eatdrinkpaleo.com.au/spicy-paprika-lime-chicken-recipe/
Is one - it's a "paleo" recipe but I'd probably just tweak it to suit, e.g. use olive oil instead of coconut, skip the coriander seeds since I don't have any, use just a bit of regular table salt.

Or there's this one, which I think looks more of a warming winter meal than the above
http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/grilled-paprika-chicken-dinner-packs/d416be18-eef3-40e0-9eaf-286df9494e59/