Reverse Meal Planning

Soontobeoap

Not sure this is strictly reverse meal planning but tonight we decided to treat ourselves to our first chinese  meal in ages. When hubby rang up to order he  discovered that they were closed for the whole of Feb! So i found 4 sausages in the freezer and some cheese in fridge chopped an onion and quickly made up a cheesy sausage pasta. Yesterday in all of the panic of collecting everything up for daughter to catch ferry, i made the dairy free boys sandwhiches up with the wrong butter! It was the last gf bread! 🤦‍♀️. I just had time to raid the freezer and cook some pizza for them to eat on the ferry. I think thats panic!!!!! Rather than reverse meal planning but was glad that I could provide her with an alternative so that she only had to get the boys to bed after her long journey home. I ate the gf sandwhiches so nothing wasted. 

Suffolk_lass

That sounds perfect to me, @Soontobeoap. I hate waste!

We had homemade meatballs, in a cast iron dish with cooked conchiglioni (which take 15 minutes but are the jumbo shells) - about 6-8 shells arranged around the (cooked) meatballs, then half a jar of tomato & chilli pasta sauce and topped with a bit of grated cheese. Then baked for 20-30 minutes (it was def 30 as I forgot them...). Eaten out of the dishes (served on a wooden board) and copied from a restaurant dish in somewhere with multi outlets like Bella Italia or Carluccio's (more than ten years ago, it is our fave meatball dish). Lots of semi-burnt on crunchy bits that DH loves (me too, but I don't tell everyone)

EssexHebridean

LOL kudos to you Soontobeoap - you couldn't pay me enough to eat anything involving gluten free bread! 

SL I love the crunchy bits round the edge of a dish too - I can never understand why anyone wouldn't! 

I need to review my fridge situation with a view to "using things up" - I know full well there are two aging avocados in there that I have a suspicion will be no good when cut into, so those can be factored in, but not relied on. Then there are beetroot which need using - I'm leaning towards peeling, dicing and roasting those, possibly for tomorrow. there are also still a handful of carrots so I need to think about how best to use those too. Then the final cabbage (yes, still!) - I had meant to put stir fry on the plan for this week but forgot - although I might still be able to swap something out. 

We'll get our last regular veg box next week - after that the prices go up so we've agreed to step back on the boxes for a while - I might perhaps get one monthly, we'll see. Having checked contents this morning I've popped on the free add-on (containing chilli, but MrEH will probably eat it cheerfully enough) and have also opted for Jerusalem Artichokes as they were on offer at 99p and we do enjoy them. 

QueenJess

No planning ahead for today.  For lunch I opened the fridge and saw kale, mushrooms and red pesto that need to be used up, so pesto pasta it is with kale and mushrooms.  Dinner will be the same kind of thing... I shall be opening the freezer and seeing what I can use up.. possibly burgers, burger buns, chips and veg.

Soontobeoap

Good start to my reverse planning today. No time tomorrow so we had pancakes for lunch. Very cheap. Bought lemons last week and intend to make a lemon meringue pie with what is left this afternoon. 

EssexHebridean

Half a pack of mince (bought at the farmers market on Saturday) got turned into chilli this evening - three double potions, one of which got eaten tonight, the other two are destined for the freezer. 

Tomorrow is going to be couscous with some of the stuff that needs using I think - although I’m pretty certain one of the avocados has had it. Still, there’s options. I’m currently considering grating some of the carrots, mixing with sultanas, and doing a peanut butter dressing for that, but that will only suit me as MrEH doesn’t do carrots. Hen roasted beetroot, maybe some roasted chickpeas too, and probably halloumi. 

Suffolk_lass

We had a slow roasted shoulder of lamb on Sunday and I chopped (rather than minced) about half the leftovers with onions, carrots and some HM tomato soup and an oxo cube and topped it with mash for a large shepherd's pie, with half left for tonight. We will be having pancakes too - with the (hm) mix in the fridge already. I plan to bake bread and so DH has just fed the sourdough starter and I will add the discard to my mix as I am convinced it acts as a natural preservative. I also want to make soup as I have so much veg in!

zafiro1984

We need something quick tonight so I'm afraid its a freezer batched cooked pheasant casserole with bacon and mushrooms made last November, I'll add some veg, probably carrots, peas and sweetcorn to bulk it out along with some small salad potatoes. Pudding will be a steamed jam sponge done in the microwave with half a tin of custard opened last night.
All in all - little effort and not much to go in the dishwasher afterwards.

Soontobeoap

Day 2 of my personal reverse meal planning challenge. I made the lemon meringue yesterday with home made pastry made with 1lb flour. I put the other half of the pastry in the fridge for today. Today I made a cheeseburger roll using 2 beef burgers, onion and 2 rashers of bacon. which cut into 4 good size portions. There was enough pastry left over to make a cherry pie with a tin from the store cupboard. Its not pretty but I am sure that it will taste yummy. The meat roll and cherry pie have been put into the freezer and the leftover bacon from the burger roll was cut up and has been frozen to add to pasta, omelette or a quiche. We did spend £5.00 on bread and a tin of fruit today but I think it has started well. 

EssexHebridean

Ooh cheeseburger roll is a good idea - bet that tastes amazing too! 

Usual tuesday "couscous and stuff" went down well last night. As predicted the avocados had indeed had it, and a couple of the beetroot too annoyingly - these were some that I thought MrEH was going to pickle, but he decided against it at some point. The rest of the beetroot were all peeled, diced and roasted though and half have gone into the freezer for another time. I julienned a couple of carrots and made a peanut butter and lemon juice dressing for those with a handful of sultanas chucked in - yummy, that one will get done again!  

I've got turkey out for tonight - it's "bits" so will suit either a risotto or a stir fry and currently I'm leaning towards the stir fry I think, although I may have to be creative about what goes into it. I've got a third of a jar of char sui sauce to use as well so that will see that off. Tomorrow is going to be fish pie which means I MUST remember to get the fish out to defrost! (I'll be cooking it as two individual ones too as MrEH is likely to be at the rugby club so not wanting his until later. After all the chat about fish pie on here I'm thoroughly looking forward to this!