Monthly meal plans

S_Wales_Saver

Sweet chilli chicken

Chicken breasts to serve your family
Sweet chilli sauce (I use Nando’s)
Oil

Add a little oil to the bottom of a baking dish. Place chicken breasts on in the dish and spread with a dessert spoon of chilli sauce on each. Cook at fan 180 degrees for 20-25mins til almost cooked, then spread with another spoonful of chilli sauce. Put back in the oven for 5 more minutes or til fully cooked.

Savoury rice

2 cups basmati rice
Small onion finely chopped
Half red pepper chopped
Frozen peas and frozen sweet corn
4 cups chicken (or veg) stock

Saut! the onion and pepper in a little oil til onion is translucent. Add rice and stir. Add stock and a couple of handfuls each of the peas and sweet corn. Bring to the boil and bubble covered for 3-4 mins. Turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve with sweet chilli chicken and salad.

If you are in a hurry you can leave out the onion and pepper and the saut! bit and use some of the small cut frozen mixed vegetables. A pack of savoury rice would also work.

Quantities to suit your family, just remember 1 cup rice to 2 cups of stock.

S_Wales_Saver

Chilli

500 grams minced beef
1large onion finely chopped
1 red 1 green pepper chopped
1 garlic clove crushed
Large tin tomatoes
Large tin red kidney beans drained and rinsed
Large tin baked beans
1 teasp chilli powder (or to taste)
1 teasp ground cumin
Half teasp smoked paprika
1 teasp sugar
Beef stock cube
2 tbs tomato pur!e

Saut! the onion and peppers, add garlic (I sometimes grate in a carrot or two at this stage). Add minced beef and fry til browned. Add all the spices and sugar and cook for a few minutes. You can add a glass of red wine at this stage (or drink it :rotfl:)
Make up the stock cube to about 300 mls with boiling water and stir in add tomato pur!e, and both tins of beans. Season and simmer for 45 minutes.

This is my basic chilli served with rice and soured cream. I use about half for the chilli meal, then freeze half for the pasta.

When you come to make the pasta, defrost and reheat the chilli in a large pan. Meanwhile, cook about 80-90 grams of penne per person, drain and tip into the chilli sauce. Serve in bowls with grated cheese to sprinkle over, garlic bread and salad.

Occasionally, if I can be bothered , I put the chilli pasta in a baking dish, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 15 minutes.

S_Wales_Saver

This is a cheat:D. (Well we all need some!)
I cook a pack of mushroom (or chicken) savoury rice (the dried kind) Just before it’s ready stir in a pack of sliced chicken tikka from the supermarket. Serve hot with salad. Any leftovers freeze well and make a quick lunch.

S_Wales_Saver

2 tbs oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion chopped
1 tsp grated ginger root
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tbs tomato pur!e
Half a jar balti paste
150 ml water
1 red pepper sliced
1 green pepper sliced
500 grams chicken in bite sized pieces
4 tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp Garam masala

Heat the oil in a large heavy frying pan. Add the cumin seeds and fry briefly til they release flavour. Add the chopped onion and cover. Fry slowly til translucent (about 10 minutes) then add garlic and ginger and fry a further 5 minutes. Add tomato pur!e, balti paste and water and simmer for 15 minutes. (I often do this the day before while cooking dinner and keep it in the fridge)

In your clean pan fry the peppers in a little oil til they just soften and turn a little black just at the edges. Put on a plate. Fry the chicken until just sealed. Add half the peppers back into the pan with the quartered tomatoes, sugar, garam masala and the base from the fridge. Add a little more water if it’s too thick. Bring to the boil and bubble til the chicken is cooked and the tomatoes soften.

Serve with basmati rice and garnish with the reserved peppers and chopped coriander.

Sometimes I add half a bag of baby spinach to just wilt in at the end so it’s chicken saag balti. Or I’ll add some new potatoes quartered with the peppers. If you do that it needs more water and a longer cooking time til the potatoes are done.

This one sounds fiddly, but if you get the base done the day before while you cooking that dinner it doesn’t take too long at all. Believe me with two 9 yr olds about, nothing can take too long!

Maiden_Mum

I had the Korean chicken last night klbooth or at least I think I did! So much for being organised, I made the Korean chicken and the homemade BBQ sauce and froze both in separate freezers, labelling neither but feeling really sure that I would remember which way round they were! But a few sleeps later & that thought had completely gone so I can only say I think I had the Korean chicken! Well it was very nice and everybody eat it so double bonus. It was so nice to just come home from work & stick it in the oven so thanks again for the recipe!

klbooth

So glad you enjoyed it, it is my favourite part of these recipes, the quick cook but with something a bit tastier!

And you made me laugh, I am forever doing things thinking I will remember and of course no chance, next day and !!!!!!..... all gone out of my head. I do write more stuff down but of course I have to not lose where I wrote it.....

purpleivy

There are so many obstacles to making a meal plan! Yet starting with a proper 'repeating' plan has made me much more organised and is part way to getting rid of the 'decision fatigue'.

Obstacles for me....and solutions perhaps for some!

- I run out of time having got immersed in my work (home based garment alteration business)
- I forget to get whatever out of the freezer
-I have omitted to purchase 'whatever', although I'm attempting to use up freezer supplies.
-I find that different combo of family members will be present. DD and I have things we can't eat. I'm deliberately low on grains for IBS. She can't eat peppers and won't eat sweetcorn. Her appetite is rather ropy sometimes due to CFS/ME levels. Or maybe hub will be home alone or with her. That affects menu choices too.

I'm working hard on trying to get over these hurdles. Trying to remember to get stuff out of the freezer in the morning, staying a day a head on soup, bread and yogurt making. Planning shopping ahead so I have the right things in.

My meal plan has more things than a month's worth of days, so I try to cluster items that are similar in some respect together, so some days will have 3 lines.

If a day falls out for any reason, then I will judge whether to have the meal another day instead of something else or just abandon. If it's a storecupboard meal or something that is sitting in the freezer waiting, then might go either way. If it's something where I have the ingredients in already, then need to decide whether to eat another day instead of a storecupboard/freezer meal, or whether to freeze.

Maiden_Mum

It!!!8217;s tricky isn!!!8217;t it purpleivy? I!!!8217;m not even attempting meal planning at the moment as I am too busy planning my 50th birthday party!
I!!!8217;m looking forward to trying the next dish klbooth!

Maiden_Mum

S_Wales_Saver - I am so sorry, you must think me very rude! In my mind I had thought that I had responded to you but tonight looking back on this thread for more ideas of things to cook I realise that I actually hadn't! Thank you so much for all your lovely recipes. The chicken Balti dish is actually the next one on my list to try!
klbooth - we had the other chicken dish tonight that I had prepared before - the homemade BBQ sauce with Chicken. Again it went down very well and all four of us liked it so thank you again for another successful to this household dish!
Jellie and purpleivy - would you care to share any of the meal on your meal plans?

purpleivy

Errggh! Just tried to copy and paste the grid into here. I'm happy to share it, but you might have to PM me your email address! Will watch out for messages!