Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

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?

@D123456789  Personally I use a combination of chick peas, baked beans and borlotti or pinto beans when I make chilli as we don't like kidney beans.

I also make a roasted butternut squash, onion, chick pea and spinach vegetable curry as a regular accompaniment to meat curries (I add more veg and red lentils if it is the main veg event). You can add any sauce you like to it but personally we like Gujarat regional curries - the fenugreek goes really well with Chick peas, as do Goan style mixes. I hot roast it until the sauce has gone sticky and there are lovely treacle-y burnt-on crispy bits (my DH's favourite food group) and then either serve it like this or slacken it off again with a little water, stirred through (if it is going to be had with rice or flatbreads). 

Feel free to join in here with ideas or problems. There are lots of knowledgeable participants here

Suffolk_lass

happydenial 

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 👍

Their meat quality is excellent, isn't it. Not cheap but good. And yes, rule number 1 is toilet rolls.

Their own-brand wines are good too, if people buy such things. I had a middle aisle moment first time. Went in for napkins, came out with a cordless vacuum cleaner!

zafiro1984

I need to spend at least a couple of days just living from what is in the fridge. I have a awful habit of cooking something and putting the remainder in the fridge only to cook something different the following day.
Need to use up part of a gammon cooked on Monday, the rest of a loin of venison cooked yesterday, an apple and blackberry crumble cooked today plus quite a lot of cheese. Then there is a bit of pate I made last weekend and one cooked sausage, plus some uncooked shortcrust pastry, quite a lot of vegetables, lemons, a couple of jars of HM jam and a jar of HM spiced pear chutney. 

The challenge will be not to open the freezers until next week. I can see flans, pies, stir fries and lemon drizzle cake being made, but I'm not sure what to do with one sausage - maybe the dog would enjoy a treat....

JingsMyBucket

@zafiro1984 your fridge contents sound delicious. Lucky. For the sausage maybe slice it up and sauté it with some of the quicker cooking vegetables. 

Suffolk_lass

JingsMyBucket said:

@zafiro1984 your fridge contents sound delicious. Lucky. For the sausage maybe slice it up and sauté it with some of the quicker cooking vegetables. 

Or you could have it for lunch as a sausage and marmalade sandwich! (don't knock it until you try it!)

Very little reverse meal planning unless you count using my homegrown stuff. Normally it is all about my store-cupboard and freezer contents but I am consciously trying to use what we grew last year.

I made cakes yesterday - having defrosted some shredded courgettes (300g when they went in the freezer) I made 2 x 1lb loaf tins of the BBC Good Food Courgette, Carrot and Orange spiced cake and started a Nigella Courgette & Lime cake (in a 2lb loaf tin (all using paper liners so no bu**ering about with greasing tins or stuck on bits!) - both these recipes work well in loaf tins, and freeze well. We eat them plain without fillings or frostings (unless we have visitors!) and they are fab with a cup of tea. I froze all of these because I also did a tray of butternut fingers (this is an old recipe my Mum used to make in the 1960s or maybe 70s) I have adapted the recipe to our taste (I use more flour, butter and dried fruit, with the same amount of sugar, and substitute chopped walnuts, using them as a third part of the cake instead of the original toasted almond topping). I think it is DH's favourite with a cup of tea at the moment. It is unfortunately, pretty irresistible!

This morning I prepped a (hg) butternut and several (hg) onions, and made more (hg) courgette soup, including some butternut for a little sweetness and as a bit of a thickener. This will be lunches for 3-4 days, with a slice of hm bread.

I also started an oxtail casserole, using more onion, (sm) carrots and butternut, that we plan to have this evening. I split a jar of (hm, hg) passata between these.

Then I started a 3L kilner jar of cassis (1 litre of (sm) vodka, 500g of granulated (cane) sugar and 1 kilo of (hg) blackberries.

Oh, and I stewed some (hg) rhubarb in the oven while I was sorting out the casserole and soup on the hot plates before transferring them to the slow oven. Time to get dressed now as I am still slouching in my nightie!!

Primrose

I smiled about the sausage and marmalade combination because once, when reading the paper with a lack of concentration over breakfast I slathered Bovril and Seville orange marmalade on the same piece of toast.
it was surprisingly tasty!

JingsMyBucket

@Suffolk_lass wow, you have been cooking and baking up a storm! Such a dynamo in kitchen. And aren't you still recovering from being ill with Covid?? Take it easy, woman. 

zafiro1984

RE:- Fridge contents:
I was rather busy yesterday getting ready for a group of people visiting today plus their four legged friends, so dinner had to be simple. Today after everyone left I'm what they call nack....., so again dinner will be simple.
I used the gammon up yesterday with egg and chips. Today I'll use the venison in a stir fry as I've found a stir fry sauce in the cupboard- not something I usually buy so I checked it was still in date, it's ok. Dessert is LO treacle and spice cake - used a Mary Berry recipe  - from the visitation with custard from a tin - simple.
I'm just glad to sit down. 

P.S. The dog had the sausage - I'll call it 'a very early birthday present,' although the sausage and marmalade sandwich sounded intriguing, I'll store that idea for another day. 

joedenise

Then I started a 3L kilner jar of cassis (1 litre of (sm) vodka, 500g of granulated (cane) sugar and 1 kilo of (hg) blackberries. 

@Suffolk_lass - rather than quoting your whole post I've just copied the above bit!  What you're making is mure rather than cassis!  Cassis is made with blackcurrants not blackberries!

Just back from a short break in the sun so making do with stuff from the freezer.  Just had toast and butter when we got home last night.  Did a small shop today for basics - potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, eggs etc.

I got out a box of HM faggots for dinner tonight which we had with mash & cabbage.  Tomorrow we will be having a fry up for breakfast with sausages and burgers & chips for lunch.

Did a quick look through the freezer and planning on using up quite a lot of stuff from there over the next month.  Menu plan has been done which will use up quite a lot so will hopefully run it down enough to defrost properly and eventually empty it and turn it off.  Want to try and manage with just the fridge/freezer but we'll see!

Primrose

Seville orange marmalade making session today so gas usage will be up.   Have been saving peel from oranges in fruit  bowl as we like it extra chunky and the peel would only otherwise go in Compost heap.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll make a batch of citrus (orange/lemon/grapefruit) which is deliciously tangy.  It stores for years in good condition so hopefully at our age we should have enough to keep us supplied for ever.   A friend joked we can leave any surplus Citrus marmalade to him in our Wills!