Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

rtandon27 said:

SL - are crown Prince pumpkins the same as japanese Kombucha pumpkins?

I don't think so, as Crown Prince was originally developed in New Zealand. I think the skin is thinner and they are raved about by Sarah Raven who says they are the best tasting winter squash. I grew them over netting on a (plumber's copper pipe) arch last year and it meant I could pick them earlier before they were too enormous. Think cereal bowl size rather than a large white pasta bowl size! You need a windowsill to ripen them to store though

Primrose

Totally irrelevant to current discussion but wondered why our garage storecupboard was full of old plugs.  Then I remembered  why. Today we,re having a new microwave delivered to replace our 25 year old broken one.  It will come with a plug attached.

I recall  the days long passed when all new appliances actually came with bare wires and you had to fit your own plug!   Sounds unbelievable now but of course in those days, whenever an old appliance packed up you would cut off the plug before disposing of it to attach it to the new one so plugs got collected and saved but were no longer needed  when appliances all started to come fitted with them. 

Primrose

zafiro1984 said:

I do most of my shopping online and for some reason - and I'm not sure what - I was looking at old online shopping. I found one for March 2022 and worked out how much the same shop/items would cost today. In March 2022 the shop came to 72.84p today the exact same shop would be 89.21p. The interesting thing was convivence foods have gone up by the biggest percentage, and I also know dairy items have also risen sharply but surprisingly quite a lot of vegetables/fruit was the same price or had dropped slightly. 

i always try not to waste anything, sometimes I'm more successful than usual. On Thursday I put a large chicken casserole in the oven attached to the woodburner. it cooked slowly overnight. Friday was casserole with creamy mash and the remainder was portioned and frozen. However, I had quite a lot of sauce leftover which I usually throw away - not this time as it formed a very tasty basis for soup on Saturday with the addition of some frozen turkey bits lurking in the freezer from January plus peas and sweetcorn.
Today I've discovered a smallish piece of frozen cooked brisket which I'll turn into meat paste for toast at lunchtime. I'll tell DH it's pate, he won't know the difference.

I do most of my shopping online and for some reason - and I'm not sure what - I was looking at old online shopping. I found one for March 2022 and worked out how much the same shop/items would cost today. In March 2022 the shop came to 72.84p today the exact same shop would be 89.21p. The interesting thing was convivence foods have gone up by the biggest percentage, and I also know dairy items have also risen sharply but surprisingly 
Today I've discovered a smallish piece of frozen cooked brisket which I'll turn into meat paste for toast at lunchtime. I'll tell DH it's pate, he won't know the difference.

Like a certain male relative of mine who absolutely refused to eat tinned rice pudding until he was duped one day into eating a tinned ice product which had been cooked  in the oven until it had developed a brown skin !   Having declared. "There, , now isn,t that better than that  awful tinned stuff" he was mortified.  It was thereafter called "humble pie" with stewed fruit ! 

rtandon27

Dinner last night was produced via freezer dive 😋 - The last of our salmon fillets turned out to be a side of salmon - who knew clever packaging and mis- labeling would be such a pleasant surprise!  We bought it in a sale last year for an eye-watering 8 pounds and when I looked at the current price it was 28!!!! (I may have had a little sit down to recover from the shock.)  As 95% of our meals are budgeted at 1 to 2 pounds a head, our meal felt extravagant!

We have lots of leftovers which will be flaked and added to a rice bowl concoction for lunch. Veg was pan fried pak choi courtesy of the c00p clearance section. As we had the oven on which is a rare occurance these days OH threw in a sheet pan of homemade oven chips with sesame seed coating.  It was an odd fusion food dinner but tasty and filling.

Must make a mental note though, and make sure that next time we double up on the oven chips or do some baked potatoes that can be reheated via microwave for a future meal.

EssexHebridean

The chips sound really tasty RT!

Start of a new week and once again I have a meal plan in place - which may or may not prove to be flexible through the week - we'll see!

Tonight is going to be pasta with a tub of the roasted tomatoes I did a few weeks ago, plus some other veg, and topped off with tuna steaks I think It'll be pretty simple but a nice quick meal to start the week - just what is called for on a Monday. 

The rest of the week will include our usual couscous tomorrow, chilli and rice on Wednesday and - I've just realised already a change for Thursday as the plan says sausage, mash & beans, but in fact I used the tatties up for a roast dinner yesterday (there were less than I thought, and not enough to be worth hanging on to) so I'll need to decide on a suitable carb option alongside the sausages, or simply plan something entirely different. 

The dinner yesterday made use of the last of the Christmas ham from the freezer, and helpfully eating it reminded me how I cooked it - as if there are decent offers around in the run up to Easter I plan to get another one to cook. 

joedenise

EH - butterbean is a good substitute for potato mash if you have some in the cupboard.  Alternatively celeriac or carrot and swede mash if you have the fresh veg available!

zafiro1984

That's brilliant rtandon I love surprises like that.
Last of the frozen pheasant from this winter was turned into 3x puff pastry plaits with mushrooms and bacon. Two frozen for the future and one was for tea last night. The legs and thighs were turned into a casserole with apples, mushrooms and some cider. The left over sauce had more veg added and became soup this lunchtime. Good job the pheasants were free as I hate to think how much the birds would be to buy. 

Suffolk_lass

We had mystery pie last night. I think it was leftover stew but there was no meat (in mine), and poor DH had a bitter bit of cabbage that stopped him eating the rest. Not great. We have most of a huge cauliflower to have this evening. I might add a bit of macaroni, but I also have a frozen small loaf so we could just have it with bread and butter. Keeping it simple as we are repairing the wind damage to the workshop felt roof

Suffolk_lass

I have got half a rack of Gloucester Old Spot ribs out (vacuum packed by the farm butcher), and rather than defrost the second, I have got out some of the pigs in blankets I froze after Christmas, and some pre-slime lettuce that needs using will be camouflaged with coleslaw to accompany it!... Half an apple crumble to have with it so DH does not feel deprived. He took one for the team and spent yesterday afternoon on the workshop roof, re-felting it, so I made the crumble (using pre-made mix from the freezer) as a thank-you treat

EssexHebridean

I ended up doing the couscous for both of us at the same time last night as MrEH had no rugby training - he still went down to the club to catch up with folk and also to retrieve my car after it's MoT Test but was able to eat beforehand which made far more sense. We shared half the jelly with tinned peaches that I made on Sunday for pudding - the other half will be eaten this evening, and we both agreed that truly we should eat jelly more often - not least as it works out as a remarkably budget friendly pudding - this time round it was £1 for the jelly itself, and I think 34p for the fruit as I just bought fruit in syrup because it was going to be drained anyway. 33p a portion is cheaper than our preferred yogurts would be these days. 

Tonight is the chilli and rice deferred from last week - so a nice quick midweek tea and making use of the chilli base from the freezer - I'll just throw the tin of beans in as I heat it up while the rice is cooking.