Reverse Meal Planning

Primrose

happydenial . I think a trip to Costco is on the cards as have completely run out of part baked rolls, salmon, washing detergent and uht oat milk!

Ah, Costco! . We always used to go there with a pre arranged shopping list and come out with a bill needing a second mortgage !   Amazing how many "bargains" you come across you find you simply, can't manage without !    

happydenial

Ha @Primrose - yes! I always go in with a list and get waylaid by massive tubs of nuts and boxes of muffins 😁 Definitely best to go alone but I do find it hard to steer the enormous trolley 🤔 It’s so useful though, we must save a fortune on takeaways and ready meals as I can keep ‘easy cook’ items in stock for when we’re in a rush (breaded chicken fillets, salmon, good quality sausages etc) and it stops those emergency dashes to the supermarket for milk/bread.

I noticed yesterday that the pack of puff pastry in the fridge was bb today, so tonight we are having puff pastry pizza, topped with leftover pasta sauce from last night and some
pepperoni that has also been lingering in the fridge. I’ll just have mushrooms on my portion, and eldest will have dairy free cheese on his bit. 

ruby_eskimo

Keep debating about joining Costco - my parents had a membership a few years ago and we used to piggyback off that.  Was good for some of the savings you could make but not sure we have enough space to store some of the bulk items 😆

Dinner tonight is a new recipe of BBQ turkey meatballs with roasted veg which will use up the odd bits and pieces from the fridge.  Really need to get around to that inventory at some point this week so I know what we actually have and what I need to use up!

Suffolk_lass

ruby_eskimo said:

Keep debating about joining Costco - my parents had a membership a few years ago and we used to piggyback off that.  Was good for some of the savings you could make but not sure we have enough space to store some of the bulk items 😆

Me too. The last time I went with my friend was to the Lakeside one in February 2020! I still have coffee and Worcester sauce in the store-cupboard from that trip. It should be telling me I bought too much. I remember I bought a clear plastic sack of 9-packs of the koala toilet paper - I thought I had a year's supply but I ended up giving some away to DS, and my neighbour. Not sure I can afford to forget about these things when they do now!

Primrose

Costco membership is good if you,re,organised about using up stuff regularly but there are only two of us and in the past we got rather over enthusiastic about our purchases!  A good idea to share visits with family or friends so you get the benefit of cheaper prices without having  to buy so much stuff it goes out of date before you can use it.

D123456789

Hello all.  I popped over from the decluttering thread as someone suggested I shop from my cupboards! have a lot of tins in …… any good recipes for using chick peas and / or cannellini  beans please?

Primrose

Apart from making hummus as a dip with the chickpeas, both of them are ideal for packing  out  small quantities of meat in various stewed meat casseroles or adding some filling content to home made soups.  They can also be used to pack out various curries.

happydenial

Tonight I’m using up a leftover bacon wrapped chicken fillet and some potato gratin from Saturday. We are having teriyaki salmon with ginger rice for dinner - fish hater DH will have the chicken instead of the salmon, and the rice dodger will have potato gratin. I’m sure it will get eaten 😬

Re Costco - I go every 2/3 months and try to buy two different large packs of meat/fish each visit so at any time I have 4 different items to choose from in the freezer. At the moment I have stewing steak and sausages left over, so this time will get chicken and salmon. The first time I went I did go crazy in the aisles but have to repeatedly remind myself that - whisper - I can always go back and don’t need to buy it in one go! 

Always, always, get toilet roll though, first rule of Costco 👍

happydenial

D123456789 said:

Hello all.  I popped over from the decluttering thread as someone suggested I shop from my cupboards! have a lot of tins in …… any good recipes for using chick peas and / or cannellini  beans please?

Hi! I would suggest looking at the recipes at the beginning of the grocery challenge thread which is pinned to the top of the Old Style boards. Lots of brilliant suggestions there. 

EssexHebridean

Hugh Furry-Wotsit's Merguez Chickpeas recipe has been a bit of a staple in my house for a good long while - although in fairness I rarely use the original recipe any more, it tends to just be a variation on a theme! 

Yesterdays failure to check the meal plan ahead of time worked out fine when I looked as soon as I got in last night to see that it was in fact risotto - hurrah! Less good was getting to the cupboard and remembering that I had intended to stick "Risotto rice" on the shopping list after last time I made it though... Still, the spanish style chorizo and mushroom pilaf we ended up with was delicious...!  

All under control for tonight with the "usual" tuesday night tea of couscous 'n' stuff. This week's "stuff" is leftover roast lamb shoulder from sunday, mushrooms and chickpeas (which will get pan-fried with some smoked rapeseed oil and some middle-eastern-y spices) and possibly some form of additional veg alongside. 

I still need to work out what I am subbing in later in the week in place of the eggs I couldn't get on saturday because everywhere was out of stock. At least T's DID have a few boxes, but from the looks of the price on them, they must have popped out of hens with gold-plated backsides! They stayed on the shelf!