Reverse Meal Planning

QueenJess

Been eating out of the freezer for the past few days as DD has been ill; so i now have a load of veg to use. Just roasted a huge amount of carrots, celeriac, cauliflower and beetroot which I’ll use for the next three nights of meals.

Tonight will add onion, smoked paprika, chopped tomatoes, butter beans and veggie sausages to make a casserole/stew type thing. Tomorrow I will rescue the cooked chicken from the freezer from a previous roast and add hm Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes. Sunday I will make a quick tomato sauce and add it to pasta. If it looks short of veg I will throw some purple sprouting broccoli at it.

Suffolk_lass

Just been on March Grocery Challenge and saw this post by @Greying_Pilgrim - not sure if pasting it here will work but here goes (there is a picture of it) - puy lentil stew
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6336768/march-2022-grocery-challenge/p18

zafiro1984

Just come back from the shops. Petrol was the main reason for going out as both Kawasaki mules needed a top up so that was 6 x 5L cans. Then went onto Lidi for my weeks shopping, mainly fruit and veg, plus milk, cheese and cream. 
The cost of my weeks shopping was cheaper than the 30L of petrol - daft or what?

Tonight is going to be quite simple, I've some LO chicken casserole in the freezer so I'm going to put it in a rectangle of puff pastry, followed by apple amber as I've a couple of apples that are starting to go wrinkly and I've loads of eggs.

Prudent

I had never heard of apple amber and as I have lots of cooking apples and eggs I googled it. I will make it tomorrow, thank you zafiro1984.

I have covid so I am self-isolating just now and will need to be very creative. I knew I had leeks and Wensleydale cheese that needed to be used up so I make a Quorn and leek pie with a cheesy pastry for dinner. 

joedenise

Using up the last leek and some lardons from the freezer to make a baked risotto for dinner tonight.

Suffolk_lass

Sticking with the diet I had soup (albeit, it has potato in it) and a large sausage for lunch (great decadent snack, the jumbo sausage!) and then picked up my TGTG bag (only 2 bread items) with ten F&V items. By coincidence there was an OOD fennel bulb which I will slice and roast the chicken I bought on top of it tomorrow. I do love stretching chickens!

Dinner was the pork loin chops, started off quickly in a frying pan on the floor of the hot oven, then into the simmer oven until the braised little gem lettuces were ready. I followed the recipe I did last time with spring onions, peas, chicken stock and cream. I used a different stock and double cream instead of single. It was absolutely delicious. Thank you so much @joedenise

I have two more little gem lettuces and the bunch of spring onions that were in the TGTG bag so I could do it again tonight as DH is away with his bike club mates. On the other hand I fancy egg salad and will use some of the bag of mixed radishes that were in my bargain bag too. I see DH finished off the strawberries that were over (we had most with yogurt and a tiny drizzle of honey last night

CCW007

Tomato and aubergine stew is in a haybox type affair to see how it does.  That'll be dinner for a couple of nights.

Hopefuljoy

@CCW007 Do you mean an actual haybox? I have just finished reading the Make do and Mend book which contains all the WWII leaflets and am fascinated. I already use my electric pressure cooker for batch cooking and it has been a real eye opener. Delicious food for a fraction of the fuel price! 

Today I am supposed to clean but am actually more interested in reverse meal planning to fill my freezer. I have found d an app, put in the contents of my larder and fridge and it tells me I can make over 38,000 recipes from what I already have! Flabbergasted to say the least and I'm looking at my food shopping in a competent different way.

joedenise

@Hopefuljoy - which app did you use?  It sounds like it could be useful to find new recipes for what I have in stock!

Hopefuljoy

@joedenise Hi there! It's called Supercook and is also available as a website supercook.com. I put in all my available ingredients but you can also do it on a meal by meal basis by highlighting the main ingredients you have. It's US measurements but I have a set of measuring cups which I bought for a couple of quid so it makes it easier. I think these days anything that helps us cut down waste and bills has to be a good thing.