Reverse Meal Planning

greent

Fridge has been cleaned and tidied this morning so the very last of the Easter lamb will be used up for lunch today - finely diced and mixed in with diced red onion, chopped peppers and ras el hanout. Cooked off in a heavy based pan with a handful of tinned chickpeas and some of the water from the can and served with  spoon of houmous stirred through and steamed broccoli 🥦 on the side to up the veg content:) 

I have had some ys beef strips in the freezer for a while, so tonight they will be cooked off with chilli, honey and soy sauce and some rather old spring onions (from 0li0) and served with jasmine rice and the last of the broccoli pan fried off with garlic 😋

Suffolk_lass

I found a pack of lambs hearts in the freezer (£1.39 for 2) and slow cooked them with onions, ginger, an oxo cube, a few herbs and half a teaspoon of garam marsala. We had them with brussel sprouts and peas, and a spoonful each of mash - so much nicer than I was expecting. Full of iron (as Granny would say!) and good for us. I might try currying other things now...

Tonight will be chicken pie though, as I need the freezer space as I plan to empty my garden produce freezer in the outbuilding as it is icing up a fair bit. I suspect we will just have buttered leeks and brussel sprouts with this.

greent

Yesterday's beef stirfry was yummy - nonleftovers, sadly! Will make that again soon as I know I have some thin frying  steaks lurking in the freezer  

Lacking inspiration today, so may plump for the never-refused and easy option of chicken fajitas, especially as I have several peppers which are getting quite old.... most will have the meal as 'standard' fajitas, but I will have my chicken mix on a big bowl of salad as a - I'm not a fan of soft tortilla wraps and b- it means less calories and carbs for me! And c - I have 1 and a bit iceberg lettuces which have been hanging around for a while now!! will also throw the last couple of tbsp of an opened tin (decanted into a tub) of sweetcorn from the fridge into my salad .

Primrose

I know its probably been mentioned on here previously but if you have limp sad lettuces or other green salad items lurking in the fridge they can be perked up massively by thinly  shaving off the brown lettuce stalk and soaking in very cold water for a couple of hours. 

rtandon27

We've restocked the freezer with a bulk order of pork & chicken, which when mixed with bargains from the weekly shop should keep us going for the next six months for protein.

The last of the winter swede and parsnips were sliced on the mandolin and turned into a layered pie with cheese & onions for dinner last night. Tasty, but oh my does it ever make a huge pie so that should last us quite a few meals.  Looking forward to fresh green things soon 😁

Also working on using up our Sunday roast & sides - made shaved pork and salad wraps for lunch - mine had reheated roast sweet potato cubes as well - OH was rather unenthusiastic about them, so had some leftover pasta on the side instead.

Dinner tonight will be simple and low effort - cardboard box fish & freezer chips with sprouting broc for veg.

Primrose

A brief word of caution on your pork for the freezer.  I commented on here a while back that this meat doesn,t seem to freeze as well as other meats long term, and somebody else shared my experience.  We may just have been unlucky but perhaps a good idea to try and plan menus which use it up relatively quickly.  Both and the other person felt that while the pork didn't taste "off" its flavour was no longer as pleasant as we expected it to be once it had been frozen for a little while.

ruby_eskimo

Thanks for the advice Primrose.

DH has requested homity pie for dinner tonight so that will use up the potatoes which are starting to sprout in the cupboard plus the leek that I picked up at the weekend (and peas from the freezer plus the last of the cheddar in the fridge).  

rtandon27

@Primrose - Thanks so much for the reminder - I'll keep an eye on it & see if the quality declines after defrosting.  Fingers crossed it will be ok, the chops we had yesterday were delicious, but they've only been in there for a short time!

Our veg box just arrived - happy to see some spring veg in there - Will have to plan meals around the box this week - off to trawl some recipes & get inspiration!

Suffolk_lass

We eat out (!) yes, really! Met our Son at the local pub and they both had Fish and chips, while I had a cheeseburger and chips. Back to the straight and narrow for me as I have let 2-3lbs show their face after a hard February to shift them. I have meat, eggs, fish and plenty of veg so back to sensible healthy food for us.

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, been using up lots of things from the freezer - even took things from home on our recent caravan break so we could keep the spends low. I've got a pot of cream cheese open which we've been using in sandwiches this weekend but I'll need to use it up this week. Any ideas of meals I could make with it?