Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

My leeks are pencil thin, having been covered by squash leaves all summer but luckily I have a bag of prepped ones in the freezer. I like cheesy-leek tart when there is a bit of pastry floating about

joedenise

Got chicken breast out of the freezer a couple of days ago and only needed one so the other one I have chopped into pieces and have been marinading overnight in a jerk marinade.  Will cook that this evening and have with rice 'n' peas which reminds me I need to get some coconut milk out of the freezer (I only every use 100ml and the rest of the can I freeze in 100ml pucks in a silicon muffin tray until hard and then bag up).  I do the same with LO passata as rarely use a full carton.

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, going to do a freezer inventory and meal plan for this week and the rest of October. I need to start using some of it up rather than keep adding to it. I currently get a family & freezer bundle from a local community grocery once a week. I may have to decrease to once a fortnight for the freezer bit as I can't get through it quick enough. Yesterday I got 3 bags of qu0rn pieces, a big bag of frozen cod fillets (probably 6 large fillets), 4 steak & ale pies, 6 beef burgers and some chocolate puddings. 
The rest of the bags included a bag of chilled items - qu0rn slices for sandwiches, fresh burgers, sausages, houmous etc, fruit & veg (not much fruit or usable veg so will have to top up) and a bag of ambient products which includes bread, eggs, cereal, crisps etc. 

rtandon27

Last night's dinner based on what we have in the house - pan-fried pork sausages with onion & red wine gravy, steamed carrots and cheesy mash.  Sometimes the simplest dinners are the tastiest!

We are giving a serious think to how often we get a veg box in (it's currently on pause).  They put the weekly delivery price up just before we moved & we also seemed to always have something left over at the end of the week.  Our new place has a much smaller kitchen & no pantry so storage is also limited, so may drop the box to every other week & top-up anything we else through the weekly grocery order if we need to.  I do like to eat as much organic veg as possible, with as little packaging as possible, but we still need to do this in budget & the supermarket stuff may end up being better value for the moment.

gavinaw

We had a sushi party last night at my flat. Had a bit of leftover rice. Saw some sausages in the freezer. So what I did for breakfast this morning was tossed up those leftover rice into the pan, added the sausage and egg. And man, best breakfast I've had.

EssexHebridean

I love our veg box RT  - we have a large veg box from OddBox. We couldn't have it weekly as the value isn't as good on the smaller boxes but I do get the issues of struggling around trying to use everything up sometimes! It works well for us though as we're not bothered about stuff being organic at all - the OddBox ethos of getting stuff that would otherwise go to waste is great though. 

Tea tonight will be as planned - pasta with chorizo in a tomato, rocket & onion sauce. There will be some other veg in there too. Last night's mince mixture got the addition of some rather tasty roasted mushrooms from the freezer, too, and was all the tastier for it! 

Today's foray into the garden also meant another handful of runner beans and two monster courgettes - those things still seem to be growing at a ludicrous rate! 

joedenise

I've meal planned for the whole of October and will be using up loads of things from the freezer!  Shouldn't need to buy too much apart from fresh stuff and dairy.  Hoping to empty my outside freezer before we go on holiday mid November but not sure that will happen; definitely have too much stuff to use up!

Primrose

Hopefully the fuel crisis will resolve itself shortly but it,s been a stark reminder of how vulnerable iur whole food supply chain is.  I was thinking od our own supplies and wondering how quickly we would start running iut od things were the system to grind to a halt.

Obviously  within hours we,d start needing water.  Milk  might follow rwther swiftly afterwards and then ai guess, according. To our individual eating habits, other meals might soon start to be rather "adapted" to what was available.   

it,s surprising though what odd combinations of foods can sometimes be thrown into the pot to produce a perfectly edible meal. 

Suffolk_lass

We don't have a veg box because we grow so much of our own and my periodic trips to the supermarket or weekly market top us up sufficiently. I can't say our garden produce is organic because I don't know if the farmyard manure we add in the autumn is organic, but I certainly add no chemicals to control anything, resorting to rabbit fencing, a bit of pigeon netting and some reluctant sharing with mice and slugs. It is just so nice, seeing where it comes from. 

Our planned stew came to nothing last night as the main road back from my hospital appointment was blocked by a crash and rather than sit burning fuel(!) we diverted to a nearby pub and had an early supper there. So tonight is the neck of lamb stew (maybe with suet-free dumplings or a scone topping from stores) 

Primrose

I just think growing your own, however modest your crops are, give you a good feeling of well being and the thought you're actually providing  some of your own needs.  (And think of the road or air miles you've saving the planet into the bargain).   Just a pity we can't grow your own petrol right now.   The queues and frustration round our way have to be seen to be believed.   If this is what it starts to be like on a daily basis as all the world's resources run out, I hope I'm not around to see it.

But if we all think honestly and deeply, we surely have to admit that there will come a time when there are too many of us for humanity's ever growing demands  on all resources to be met.