Reverse Meal Planning

rtandon27

Brunch yesterday was the last of the homemade soup, a Christmas quiche with cranberry & brie, and a very non-seasonal salad as we had a lettuce & cherry tomatoes arrive in our veg box on Friday.

Dinner was lasagne from the freezer with a side of the never ending kale fried up with an onion.

This week will be eating down the fridge and freezer to make room for our large seasonal delivery on Thursday!

joedenise

Definitely a couple of use it up days today and tomorrow!

Today - Breakfast:  portobello mushroom stuffed with couscous mixed with maple bacon seasoning, chopped up piece of cucumber, 1/2 tomato and topped with end of tub of cottage cheese, sprinkled with more maple bacon seasoning; served with LO bubble & squeak cake from yesterday & end of tin of beans.  Lunch today will be cheese on toast with coleslaw made with piece of cabbage, couple of carrots & onion; Dinner tonight toad in the hole using sausages from freezer; potatoes, carrots and onions from stores; some more cabbage and peas from freezer.

Tomorrow - not sure about breakfast and lunch but dinner will be half cauliflower from fridge to make cauliflower cheese and will have with HM chips.

ruby_eskimo

Same here denise - need to get stuff out of the fridge ready for all the defrosting I need to do

Lunch today is the last of my massive mushroom soup batch I made last week.  Dinner tonight is some fake nandos - using up the bottle of marinade that's been in the fridge for a while with some chips, salad and HM coleslaw.

joedenise

Had some leeks in the fridge to use so made a creamy leek and barley soup, made it creamy with some light coconut milk from the cupboard; rest of can frozen in a silicon muffin pan in 100mls each.  Once frozen will go into a freezer bag for curries etc.

rtandon27

@joedenise - I can't remember where I got the tip, but to save yourself some pennies - when you want light coconut milk, just use 1 part full-fat canned coconut milk with 2 parts water - once mixed, you can then divide it up into the hockey puck trays to freeze!

Yesterday's dinner was a roast pork shoulder and duck fat roasted potatoes, carrots & parsnips - So tasty & we have pork for our lunches for the rest of the week!  The bed of chopped veg that I used under the pork as an organic trivet is waiting to be made into soup with some bone broth from the freezer.

I also managed to rescue some boneless/skinless chicken thighs that somehow got forgotten in the fridge, but were still in date (just) - cut them into strips, seasoned and baked in the oven.  Now stored in the freezer for a quick shawarma during twixmas. 

joedenise

Thanks @rtandon27.  I knew you could dilute the full fat stuff but couldn't remember the proportions!  Will try that once I've used the Light stuff I've already got.  Also means I'll get more pucks out of each can - win/win!  Will make a note of that on my laptop so I don't forget!!!

ruby_eskimo

Thanks for the tip also @rtandon27 .  I'd also forgotten the proportions for diluting, will make sure to do that with the other coconut milk I have in the cupboard.

Fake nandos went down well last night.  Only used half the chicken so the rest is going in the freezer for another day.  While I was rummaging in there to make room, I found a portion of chicken curry I'd frozen a while ago so that's going to be my dinner this evening.  Using up the last of the mushrooms in the fridge to make some mushroom rice to go alongside.

Suffolk_lass

Wow, @ruby_eskimo - just spotted your weight-loss in your signature. Well done! I hope you are feeling fabulous

Back on subject, we had egg salad on Sunday and I made fridge-freezer soup yesterday and we had a light supper of courgette soup with a swirl of cream. yum!

I have finally prepped the first of seven pumpkins and frozen half - we will have veg curry tonight I think. I need to roast a chicken too as there is not really room in the freezer with all the Christmas treats!

rtandon27

@Suffolk_lass - I love that your reverse planning is to engineer room for Xmas treats - that did give me a chuckle!  I was lucky that our weekly veg box delivery is still happening this week, so Thursday instead of Friday.  We made the descision months ago to have an organic Xmas day, so our bird & trimmings & sides will all arrive just in time for the day!

Keeping in mind that we will be eating too much next week, we stuck to our Meatless Monday & used up some shelf stable gnocchi, a bit of creme fraiche, 2 leeks that had started regrowing and the last of our mushrooms.  Tasty & a bit different from the traybake we usually do with those ingredients, when we have some soft cheese in the house to use as a topping.  We both agreed that the new recipe would have been just a touch nicer with some lardons in it, but that would not be in keeping with the theme of the day!

ruby_eskimo

Thanks @Suffolk_lass its taken me about 10 years to get here (lots of yo-yoing up and down ) but I think we're on the home stretch now!   I was running own my freezer so I could fit all the Christmas stuff in, which just about made it. 

@rtandon27 That does sound like it could be "improved" with some lardons next time