Reverse Meal Planning

Primrose

Suffolk-lass   They're one vegetable I've never grown.  I know they're long.  Do you have to grow them up a pole or a trellis?    We find one of the best ways of cooking courgettes, especially if they've grown a little large, is to slice them lengthways and griddle them which seems to improve the taste & texture. 

Suffolk_lass

I think if you pick them young they are tender like a courgette (and yes, we do this - the caramelisation of the sugars in the courgette def add flavour) - I was talking to someone last night who let his grow to a metre long (! eek) and then said they are soft but picked young they are rather nice. We have a copper arch over the path between two raised beds and they grow up one side of that. They throw out lots of little corkscrew strings so might appreciate more net than poles to climb up. We have ties them in a bit but they are only 1-1.2m high and one has taken off across the ground (as they do). I think if picked and left to "mature" they go biscuit coloured like butternut squash.

Wraithlady

Frugalistamama said:

I have a TON of rice to use now. Any ideas apart from fried rice and boiled rice?

Pilaus, biryanis, kedgeree, jambalaya. anything you can google with 'one-pot rice dishes'

Suffolk_lass

We eat at the pub last night (celebrating both the DH and DS cars passing their MOT with no advisories!)

joedenise

Chicken thighs and corn on the cob from freezer today to make Fakeaway KFC; will also do HM chips and do some baked beans too.

rtandon27

Last night's dinner was chicken burgers & oven chips, both from the freezer, with a summery cucumber & tomato salad on the side.

Only 10 more dinners until we move, so tomorrow will take a proper freezer stock and work exclusively from that for our meal plan.  From memory, there are a couple of packages of chicken drums easily dealt with using some montreal steak spice or chicken wing sauce then bunging it into the oven.  As well there are a couple of pork chops & some chunky fish fingers. Last night I discovered frozen mango cubes, blackberries & blueberries, which I thought we had finished ages ago, so it will be smoothies for breakfast & snacks to use them up. Also a stack of garlicky pita bread, which we freeze every time we get greek take away, so either a savoury bread pudding or cheesy pizzas will feature for lunches.

As soon as that meal plan is complete, I'll put aside any bits needed from the store cupboard & then pack the rest away in boxes ready to be moved.

Phew - reverse meal planning has taken on a whole new meaning this week!

Suffolk_lass

I seem to have lots of bags of chicken thighs in the freezer - so we had two more with veg and mash last night. Followed by homegrown stewed fruit and greek style yogurt

joedenise

I'm using up a can of corned beef from a couple of days ago and making a corned beef hash for dinner tonight - I don't really like it but DH loves it so I just tolerate it!

Have got some chicken thighs out of the freezer for tomorrow; not sure what I'm going to make yet but probably sweet & sour with rice as not had that for a while.

rtandon27

Chunky cod fingers were made into street food tacos with all the trimmings for our Saturday meal.  OH did pork chops, spinach, baby corn & new potatoes for dinner last night.  That's two meals done &  8 to go!  I have a feeling there will not be a meatless monday either this week or next if we want to use up everything from the freezer.

Also did an audit of the dairy drawer in the freezer & got rid of a few things I did not realize were BB 2012 & 2014 (insert blue shrieky smilie here!)  Gone are a chunk of paneer, a block of reblochon, a dodgy camembert, and some spring roll wrappers.  A great deal of guilt at wasting food but those dates were horrific!

ruby_eskimo

Best of luck with the meal planning and moving @rtandon27, don't envy you at all!

Tonight we're having chicken rice bowls to use up a carrot and a courgette that are in the fridge and a rather large chicken breast that was in the freezer.  We're going away in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping that we'll have run down the fridge by then so I don't have the usual pre-holiday panic of having to throw stuff away.