Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

Yes sure. I have put the original amounts below too - spread out it is more biscuit like - my (higher amounts) make it a bit more spongy and about 3cm deep. Personally, a little too sweet but then I never remember to hold back any sugar to sprinkle on top:

Butter Nut Fingers 

• 9 (6) oz SR Flour
• 6 (4) oz butter or stork
• 6 oz Demerara sugar
• 2 (1) oz sultanas
• 2(1) oz chopped glace cherries
• 2 oz chopped walnuts (my variation - she used flaked almonds))
• 2 (1 large) egg(s)
• 2 (1) tablespoon(s) (15ml) milk
• ½ oz flaked almonds 
• Gas Mark 4, 350F or 180C 
• Line an 8” square tin with paper, heat-proof film (or grease it)

1. Sieve flour and rub in the butter
2. Keep 1 tablespoon sugar separate
3. Stir in rest of sugar, dried fruit and cherries and mix thoroughly
4. Beat the egg and milk together and add it gradually to the mixture aiming for a stiff dough - keep a dribble back for glazing
5. Press it into the tin (it is quite sticky)
6. Glaze with the milk and egg, and sprinkle over the flaked almonds and sugar (I don’t bother with the sugar and almonds)
7. Bake for about 35 minutes until the top is firm but springs back
8. Remove from the tin after maybe 10 minutes and cut it into fingers while it is still warm - I do 24 (6x4) or 30 (5x6), depending what for

NB Mum’s recipe is in imperial - works using 25g to an ounce

QueenJess

Very much reverse planned my lunch today by looking in the fridge to see what needed using up.  I have too much lettuce, too many eggs and some tuna cans that have been hanging around for years.  So I made a tuna salad with lettuce, the rest of the cherry tomatoes, the rest of the microgreens (need to sow more now), broad beans, boiled eggs and kohlrabi.

Dinner will be veggie sausages and mash as I have too many potatoes and still tons of veg to use up.  Will pair it with carrots and cabbage.

zafiro1984

Suffolk Lass:-  Many thanks  I'll have ago on Wednesday as we're too busy tomorrow. I'll let you know the outcome DH will be the judge!!

Lunch was a quick egg an toast - no reverse planning there.
Tea:- I've chicken left from a roast yesterday, some mushrooms, plenty of veg so that will be a no fuss tea. I was going to do a rice pud with milk from a meeting here at the weekend but it's too late so I'll have to open a tin of peaches and use up the cream. 

rtandon27

Dinner tonight will be Spiced Aloo Gobi Tray Bake - a low effort favorite from lock-down days - the cauliflower we sourced from 0li0 wasn't just large - it was ginormous - we've been using it for days! Also made JaimieO's yogurt flatbreads, adding nigella & sesame seeds to make them a bit more Naan-ish. (We are still waiting for it to finish baking, as the OH decided to have a late afternoon nanna-nap and he's the chief cook these days!)

Soontobeoap

Did a stock take and tidy of freezer after all visitors have gone home. Plenty to eat in there for a couple of weeks. Toast, beans, bacon and egg cobbled together last night when I couldnt even think of another meal. (hubbys idea) tonight I have taken out a chicken breast to make chowmein. That has become a favourite quick/cheap meal to make. We are taking it day by day and eating what we have in again! Its quite good fun seeing what can be put together. Dont want soup this weather and lots of bubble a squeek in freezer so must start using that up regularly or it justs builds up and takes up too much freezer room. Now I will stop waffling and get on with my day. Good luck all

zafiro1984

Busy day today as we had no staff, so lots more to do than normal. Just got in so tea is going to be an easy one. Cooked gammon from the freezer and salad. Rice pudding  with LO milk from he weekend, I'm doing it in the microwave, I've never done it this way before but my dairy book has the instructions so I'm giving it a go.

Suffolk_lass

I did a big shop on Monday and ended up buying a carrier bag full of things for the freezer. We should only need fresh fruit and a bit of veg and dairy now

rtandon27

Last night's dinner was herbed roast veg along side oven wedges and some more of the bargainous battered fish mountain that has been hogging room in the freezer.  We are now down to one more serving of that fish & some Coley fillets we were gifted, so time to keep an eye out for something to replace it with!

While freezer diving, I discovered multiple packs of sausages, 6x no-junk pork (of dubious age), 8x standard pork & 2x chorizo flavour - which will need to be worked into the meal plan for the month.  We also have some chicken thighs and chicken breast - both to be reverse planned & then replaced. (ETA - also 2x pork steaks, 1x pork loin, 6x cooking bacon, 2x cooking chorizo & 8x surimi sticks - not so urgent to find replacements with that lot in there, so we have time to bargain shop!)

Have looked at the larder stores as well & need to have a re-jig there, as my nicely themed areas seem to have become unorganized. (ETA - might do this on Friday, we went for a walk and had latte's instead - one was free and the other BOGOF, of which I'll get the second tomorrow in the city)

Dinner tonight will be a Spanish-style one pot chicken - picked the recipe as all-but-one of the ingredients are from the stores, we did purchase a Spanish style rice & grains packet (on sale) as we have not made this recipe before, but I'm sure we'll find a larder option for next time, as we already have paprika, onion, brown rice and regular barley, all listed in the packet ingredients.  For the tinned tomatoes with olives, we have a bog standard tin of tomatoes & our favorite green olives which will work out to less than a third of what Waitfower charge for theirs!  Everything else is in the stores, including regular wonky red peppers which I'm sure will be just as nice as the pointed ones which look to be 3x dearer.  Love doing posh recipes on a budget - that's half the fun!

zafiro1984

Back to normality today and looking in the fridge for LO's to use up. 

The microwaved rice pudding didn't work, maybe my settings were too low, the rice was still too hard and the milk not creamy enough. I'll fiddle with that for tonight's pudding.
I'm going to have go at Suffolk Lass' Butter Nut Fingers now before lunch.
I'll have to freezer dive for a precooked tea for tonight, maybe something I can cover with a crust or with mash. 

zafiro1984

Suffolk Lass:-
Butternut fingers are a keeper according to DH. Fortunately I had all the ingredients except enough demerara sugar. I had 100g so make it up to 150g with dark muscovado sugar. 

We had one of those awful days yesterday, I seemed to be working all day and yet nothing seemed to get done. We came in the house at 8pm, hopefully to a gammon that had been in the slow cooker all afternoon - not to be - I'd forgotten to turn in on.
Neither of us was very hungry or bothered about tea so we had the rice pudding from the day before and a couple more slices of your butternut fingers, loads of coffee and a glass of the red stuff.