Reverse Meal Planning

Soontobeoap

Hope  your veggie roll goes down well @Suffolk_lass. It does make a little filling go a long way. 🙂.

Went out for lunch with DD yesterday. So nice to have a catch up without little ones around. 🤭. The time passed so quickly that we were nearly late to pick the kids up from school. That was from another budget. Back to reverse planning today. Stopped DH going to Aldi for cereal and milk this morning. Reminded him that we have decided to eat up cereals that are left from GSs stay. We went for walk and got Milk from co op. DH threw a couple of boxes of tissues into basket🤦‍♀️. He has a chest infection so they will get used but I dont understand why he always needs to buy 2 of everything!

Cheeseburger roll pulled out of freezer for tonights dinner. We will have with the few onion rings that we have left, beans and chips. Egg and bacon bits (from freezer) for lunch. Have also taken a small honey glazed gammon joint out of freezer for tommorow. We will have that with a few new potatos that we have left in fridge, peas and a tin of sweetcorn. I also have a few cherry toms left to have with that.

I have found that keeping a small tub of bacon /gammon pieces in freezer helps create a quick cheap meal very easily. I used to always put the extra rasher into DH sandwich but he hasnt missed it! Its also better for him. 

zafiro1984

Soontobeoap:-, just catching up, love the idea of a cheese/burger roll. It looks to lend itself to other fillings - I'll keep it in mind. 

A loose meal plan done for this coming week. It has to be flexible as DH has a habit of inviting people to stay, particularly at lunchtime. It can be quite irritating but I've learnt over the years how to cope and smile. Not much in the fridge except a few veggies so tea was a 'bottom of the fridge' (Love the phrase and stole it from someone's posting earlier) stirfry adding the rest of an opened packet of king prawns from the freezer.

An online order arrived late this evening. I kept it as near to the minimum spend as I could because I need to make space in the freezers for later in the year so there was no meat, fish and very little dairy bought.

On a more positive note I looked back over my monthly spending for the last six months. I have actually spent less on food this six months than for the same period last year which is quite satisfying especially as most things have gone up in price. I've always tried to be careful about not wasting food but never this focused. 

Soontobeoap

This reverse meal planning has hit a problem. DH has chest infection and is only eating light meals and his appetite has gone. He jas even refused the cherry pie I made so I know its bad! Had honey glazed gammon tonight which was just the job apparently. Doesnt fancy ham egg and chips tomorrow so I will jave to see what else he fancies with the gammon when the time comes. 

EssexHebridean

Hope your DH is feeling better soon Soontobeoap - definitely the right thing for him to be eating what he fancies if he's poorly too. Hopefully the gammon will find a use that appeals to him later in the week!

Veg box delivery on Saturday night included a radicchio - not something we've had before but as far as I can see it's "treat it like any other lettuce" - albeit that's not wildly helpful at a time when all pother salad veggies have proved unobtainable. I can see a small heap of it appearing on the side of several other meals this week!  I've got avocados too - two were transferred straight to a paper bag with one of MrEH's bananas and I'm hoping they might be ripe for use tomorrow. 

Got sausages out of the freezer tonight and it'll be an easy tea of sausages, mash & beans I think. Tomorrow is destined to be couscous as usual - with leftover lamb from the other week I think, and there will also be some pan fried courgettes with that as having bought some with the weekly shop, 4 more turned up in the box - honestly, a glut of courgettes in February? who'd have thought it?! Wednesday will be courgette and sausage pasta in creamy pesto sauce - that will deal with some of a tub of soft cheese left over from making smoked mackerel pate too. Thursday comes under the heading of currently undecided - but might yet be chilli and rice. 

QueenJess

Had a good rummage through the fridge and freezer last night for reverse planning purposes.  Lunch today will be leftover passata from the fridge turned into a tomato sauce with gnocchi and salad leaves.  Dinner tonight will be spicy chicken with chips and freezer veg.

I have the largest amount of celeriac known to man... I have 2 and they are as big as my head!  I was thinking of turning some into soup.  Maybe I could even make chips with it.  I can also use some in a chicken stew and next time I make potato mash I can put some in there too.  Any other good ideas?

Brambling

I buy red chicory which i think is now called radicchio in some shops? it is bitter but raw works well with blue cheese and pears or i tend to roast or char grill it and have as a vegetable

I add find celeriac works well when added to boulangere potatoes i layer alterative potato, celeriac and onion layers.  It does make a nice mash on it's own or add to other root veg to make a root veg mash which does freeze i have several portions in my freezer made from parsnip, turnip, carrot, swede and celeriac cooked in the pressure cooker. I tend to throw a bit into most soups when i have it but not too much.  Luckily it seems to last a long time 

BBC recipes offer lots of ideas

 Celeriac recipes - BBC Food

QueenJess

At lunch time I realised I had a half tin of vegan condensed milk left and wasn't sure what to do with it, so I made two tubs of vegan ice cream.  One I've flavoured mango (I have had a bag of frozen mangoes in my freezer for an age) and the other I did vanilla with chocolate chip.  I already had 2 boxes of hm vanilla ice cream in the freezer, so there will be a lot of ice cream desserts coming up!  I've only made vanilla and chocolate ones before, so I hope these turn out nicely.  The vanilla ones I made last week are so good and I like that after the whipping up the cream and condensed milk, you just flavour as required and throw into the freezer. The condensed milk stops it forming ice crystals I believe, so no need to stir.  That's my kind of lazy cooking and definitely cheaper than vegan ice cream (or if non-vegan an expensive one).

I'm also thinking stirring through compote and meringue pieces is another great idea for an ice cream, especially as I have loads of vegan meringues I made and DH crushed them all in the freezer   That'll be one for next time!

I also gave up buying chocolate chips ages ago after realising what a rip off they are.  If it's fine rough and ready, I just cut up a chocolate bar, otherwise I have a tiny little chopping machine (cheap from Argos I think) which does the job.

Primrose

Grated celeriac mixed with a little horseradish sauce makes s tasty vegetarian sandwich.

it,s also good grated up in a coleslaw mixture.

One advantage ie that it lasts a long time in a fridge salad ray! 

Soontobeoap

So I cooked up a bit of rice for next 2 days lunches today. Chopped half a small onion, some cherry tomatoes, 2 baby boil potatoes, left over peas, some grated cheese and mixed it all together. Spread a wrap with mayonnaise and added. Cheap lunch and left over bits nearly used up. 

For dinner tonight we have decided to have the ham with chips. Will add sweetcorn and peas again I think.
This afternoon I am using the left over boiled potatoes that we had yesterday with 2 small tins of tuna, some chives, a finely cut onion, my last egg and a breadroll from freezer for breadcrumbs to make fish cakes for tomorrow and some for the freezer. We can also use up the sweet chilli sauce with them.

EssexHebridean

Great tip about radicchio being a form of chicory - that has helped me to expand my thinking on what to do with it! I've also found a BBC Good Food recipe for a salad type dish involving lentils, beetroot and smoked mackerel so I may well adjust a meal for later in the week to make a variation on that. (May even get MrEH to swing in to T's or Al's in the morning when he's out for his walk to see if he can get a pack of smoked mackerel!) 

I love this thread - it's so good for those moments when you need inspiration to strike!