Reverse Meal Planning

ajmoney

Currently isolating with covid which means I am being quite inventive with what I have in the cupboards.  Luckily there are no strange combinations yet!!!!

EssexHebridean

joedenise said:

EH - have you tried lettuce a la Francais?  It's just braised sliced lettuce with sliced spring onions and some frozen peas.  It's really delicious.  I often make it when we've got lettuce which needs using up.  Little Gem works best but I've done it with iceberg and other lettuce as well, just tastes a bit different.

We've had a discussion on here before about my utter aversion to cooked lettuce, surely...?!   I'm now skimming past everyone elses references to applying ANY form of heat to a lettuce with fingers in ears...."la la la, can't hear you!" 

@ajmoney hope you're better soon - thank goodness for cupboard supplies eh!

Chicken extracted from the freezer for a stir fry tonight with yet more flipping cabbage - it's going, just very slowly! Might do a side dish of spring greens from the recipe we talked about last week for tomorrow as that will at least finish those up. 

I'm planning to be inventive over the weekend with getting more stuff out of the freezer too. I want room for Christmas leftovers! 

EssexHebridean

Morning - another cold one here, it was -7 when I got in the car this morning! 

Checked the fridge last night and the spring greens, while a bit floppy, will probably still be OK. allowing that I still have a courgette I think "the recipe" is a goer again this evening. 

Must remember to get the curry & daal for tomorrow evening out of the freezer later on, and will probably review meal options for the next few days at the same time. I have a "cookies in a bottle" dry ingredient thing I was given as a present that I might make tomorrow to give us treaty goodies for the weekend I think - they won't work out the cheapest as they require quite a bit of butter but I plan to make them with a split of butter & stork, in fact, so that reduces the cost a bit. (And the stork is a bit elderly and probably needs used up, so win win!) 

joedenise

Used up the last of the weekend's roast chicken yesterday and a pack of OOD curry mix for a Thai/Goan Xacutti curry, overdid the coconut milk a bit so a bit looser than it should be but it tasted good.  It's in the fridge for probably tomorrow or Saturday night.  We're going out for a meal with a friend on either Friday or Saturday evening not sure which as she isn't sure what time she'll be back from an appointment on Friday so may well be Saturday before we go out - just waiting on a phone call Friday!

Also made a beef casserole when the oven was on for DH's mince pies & apple pie so that will be dinner tonight with some mash and green veg of some sort from the freezer.

EssexHebridean

I finally used up the last spring greens today when I did the dish with the greens and courgettes again (that was discussed on this thread, wasn’t it?) - but added some soft cheese and turned it into a pasta sauce with the other pack of free posh pasta. Pasta was very nice, but I wouldn’t pay £3 a pack for it! 

Veg box turned up last night so now needless to say I have yet another flipping cabbage! I😂  had a sneaky feeling we’d end up with that as a substitution! Also got three enormous red peppers though which is handy - I can always find a use for those. Good sized sweet potatoes too which will be useful. Also an absolute mass of parsnips - which ai think will turn into curried parsnip soup as that’s always a favourite round here.

I need to do some meal plan re-jigging as MrEH is going to have some potentially long workdays this week so some things I’d planned won’t work. 

happydenial

The greens and courgettes recipe with soft cheese sounds yum, I shall have to give it a go! I’ve still got a whole cabbage left…..

Some meal plan rejigging will also happen here today - did the Hairy Bikers sausage casserole yesterday, but DH went out for an impromptu roast lunch with his rugby mates, and ended up getting home at 8:30pm a bit worse for wear 🤣 There's quite a lot of sauce and three sausages left, I think if I chop those up into chunks and serve it all with rice and veg (cabbage!), it should stretch to feed three of us tonight as well (eldest doesn’t eat sausages, will have a piece of salmon and sides). Tonight’s chicken and broccoli noodles will be bumped to later in the week. 

joedenise

Didn't manage to eat both the sausages in the toad in the hole last night so will be having 1.5 sausages reheated with the half tin of potatoes which is in the fridge fried up.  Will also fry up the last of the mushrooms.  That will do me for lunch today.  DH is having a 3 course lunch at the golf club today so probably won't want anything this evening so the planned beef stew (which is defrosting in the fridge) will do for tomorrow night and I'll just have something like eggs on toast this evening.

EssexHebridean

happydenial said:

The greens and courgettes recipe with soft cheese sounds yum, I shall have to give it a go! I’ve still got a whole cabbage left…..

Some meal plan rejigging will also happen here today - did the Hairy Bikers sausage casserole yesterday, but DH went out for an impromptu roast lunch with his rugby mates, and ended up getting home at 8:30pm a bit worse for wear 🤣 There's quite a lot of sauce and three sausages left, I think if I chop those up into chunks and serve it all with rice and veg (cabbage!), it should stretch to feed three of us tonight as well (eldest doesn’t eat sausages, will have a piece of salmon and sides). Tonight’s chicken and broccoli noodles will be bumped to later in the week. 

I have half a large white one, a whole small white one, and still about 2/3rds of the monster savoy...! Oh - and a bag of kale too, because bless them, they clearly thought a little more green stuff was a good idea!

I think pretty much everything we eat this week is going to come with a side of stir-fried veggies! I made coleslaw over the weekend too, and will almost certainly make more next weekend to go with christmas snacky type food. 

I might also do a big pan of roasted veg at some stage - if I retrieve sausages from the freezer then I could roast those in the same pan, then that will do a meal with some pasta one night, and I could use it as the base for a frittata for another with the spare sausages chopped into chunks. 

zafiro1984

EssexHebridean said:

! I made coleslaw over the weekend too, and will almost certainly make more next weekend to go with christmas snacky type food. 

Great idea as I have a white cabbage in the fridge and was half in a mind to give it to the geese but not now since reading your post.
Just got a few more things to get for the Christmas weekend. It will be the first time I have bought a turkey in at least 10yrs. I usually raise my own organically and sell a few to neighbours/friends but this year it didn't happen. It will be interesting to see how it measures up in taste to growing my own.
I think for the reminder of this week it will be bits and bobs from the fridge trying to make space for the turkey.
Off to the hosp tomorrow for a Ct scan for Dh - hope it's better news than last week!!

EssexHebridean

I’ve done deconstructed cottage pie tonight - to all intents and purposes mince and tatties. Needless to say there was also some cabbage use - stir fried with some kale as well to vary things a little, and garlic and lemon added. Extremely tasty and felt like proper winter food! It was also an easy way of dividing a pack of mince - half into tonight’s tea, the other half has gone in the freezer. I also cooked double quantity of the veg base for the mince (onion, carrot and red pepper) so I’ll find a little tub and freeze that, too.

I need another “cook for me and re-heat for MrEH” solution for tomorrow as there is a reasonable chance he’s going to have another long day. If he does finish on time then if the rugby team are training he’ll likely go straight there.