Reverse Meal Planning

fionaandphil

I'm pretty sure there is a covent garden recipe for baked potato soup

JIL

I often use jacket potatoes in my soup and they are excellent, a more concentrated potato flavour.

I bought some frozen jacket potatoes recently, a named brand, I bought them very cheaply but really didn't like them. I gave them to my dad, who said he enjoyed them.
I cant see why you couldn't use them in soup, along side other flavours it should be fine.
If ever I make a "beige soup" i flavour it up with bits of cheese, cream cheese etc. 

CCW007

Thanks all, will give it a try

EssexHebridean

Having had best part of a month without “real” meal planning or the need for a shopping list (a week ahead of holiday when we ate mostly fairly prepared ahead things from the freezer, two weeks away, then last week buying a handful of basics on the way home and then pulling meals together from previously frozen stuff) I got part way to the supermarket this morning before realising that I had neither a plan nor a list…not ideal! I had an idea in my head that I wanted either a chicken or a decent sized lump of pork shoulder for Sunday lunch tomorrow and then to provide a couple of meals in the week, and of course I know the basics I usually buy - fruit, yogurts etc - but aside from that it was on the hoof! 

Current thinking then:
Sunday - Lunch: pulled pork, mash, veg. Tea: cheese & crackers
Monday - sardine & butterbean pasta
Tuesday - omelettes (Bacon & mushroom)
Wednesday - pulled pork & rice
Thursday - butternut squash, bacon & pea risotto 
(and THAT is truly an example of reverse planning!) 

ruby_eskimo

Been having a very reverse meal planning couple of weeks over here, trying to work our way through the things I froze before we went on holiday.  Have noticed the cupboard is looking rather full at the moment though so need to try and take stock of that before we food shop next week - I think there are lots of baked beans and tins of tuna so could probably just move a few of those out into the pantry so they aren't taking up too much space.

DH finished harvesting the last of the jalapenos and peppers at the weekend so have picked all of those in the last remaining jars that I had and will probably end up gifting some away as not sure we're going to be able to make it through 5 huge jars of pickles any time soon!

Primrose

Now on third week of trying to eat from freezers and storecupboard and finding that by far the  easiest option is to use up various batch cooked meals.

menu planning is certainly a good discipline for not bunging  things in the freezer which rarely get eaten and are only stored because they seemed a cheap bargain at the time.  Slowly learning thet "false" bargains are anything but, especially now rising electricity costs make it more expensive to store them ! 

Still have large chunks of frozen water melon infreezer from summer heatwave!  Got over enthusiastic. It WAS very hot and it WAS rather  a large water melon !

EssexHebridean

Oh my word the slow cooker pulled pork was absolutely stunning! It's a recipe I've used before in fairness, and it was nice then too, but I really must bookmark it as something to do regularly as it was so tasty. Pretty much started falling apart as I lifted it from the pot and dead easy to shred - I must try to remember to note somewhere that I switched out cranberry sauce for the onion marmalade in the recipe though (as that was what we had and it needed using) as I think that made it even nicer. In fairness I'd often make a switch of that sort anyway - using whatever needs used up that fits the rough flavour profile. Anyway, that now means a slight switch-about of th emeal plan I think..

Sunday - Lunch: pulled pork, mash roasties, veg. Tea: cheese & crackers (the two meals were also switched)
Monday - sardine & butterbean pasta
Tuesday - omelettes (Bacon & mushroom)
Wednesday - butternut squash, bacon & pea risotto 
Thursday - pulled pork in buns, potato wedges
Switching the Wednesday and Thursday meals around as the risotto will cook faster on a night when we'll be later back to start cooking than the wedges will. I've switched the second pulled pork option to having it in buns etc as we have YS'd brioche buns in the freezer and it's such a cracking way to have the pork! 

I have a sneaking feeling that the beans in tonight's pasta dish might be getting changed for something else too as I'm not totally sure we have a big tin of butterbeans in.

Job for later in the week is definitely to get into the top shelf of the storecupboard and see how much additional tin-storage space I have as I'd like to stash in some more yet if possible.

CCW007

Leek and potato soup worked well using jacket potatoes so will do that again, added butter beans for protein and had one portion for lunch with home made bread and YS hummus.

Dinner will be stir fry with beans for me using up pak choi from Oddbox and sugar snap peas I found lurking.  OH will have beef in black bean sauce with LO roast beef from yesterday.

Been batch cooking (pressure canning) meals for OH.  One jar of beef in red wine and a couple of jars of chilli failed to seal (my fault, it's unusual that it happens) so that's a few meals for OH and the rest will go in the freezer.

zafiro1984

Made some parsnip and squash soup this morning. Not quite finished it as it needs a bit of curry powder adding and then the stick blender broke. I couldn't be bothered in getting out the big food processer so it's now in the fridge awaiting tomorrow.

Tonight LO frozen Kentucky. I refuse to cook on my birthday so I went and got a Kentucky. Birthday was several weeks ago and this is the LOs which I froze. I've done this before and find if heated slowly in the cooker for quite a while it's good, tender and crispy. Dh prefers it to the 'just bought' pieces.
Some left over puff pastry cut into squares and cooked with a little icing sugar on the top, split and filled with jam and cream will be pudding.

ruby_eskimo

We (well me) often freeze leftovers from takeaways @zafiro1984 but haven't done it with the fried chicken, usually because DH eats it before I get a chance to put it away!

Having a carbonara tonight to use up a couple of bits of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and parmesan that are lingering in the fridge.  Really need to do a cupboard and freezer inventory but that might be a job for Friday when I have the day off work.