Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

zafiro1984 said:

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.

This is us too. Highly nutritious!

MissRikkiC

Lunch reverse planned. Essentially a leftovers egg roll complete with spring greens, sausages, rice, ham, courgette, a tomato and a smattering of ‘cheese’ 

It was so big I’ve had to leave half which OH can take for work tomorrow. Healthyish and plenty of protein on account of 4 eggs, sausage and ham!

rtandon27

We have a meal plan for the week but were forced to go off piste!  Our 0li0 pickup yesterday gave us some seasoned roasties that needed cooking, so instead of mini quiche & green beans from the freezer heated in the microwave, we ended up turning on the oven! Yikes - what a thing to do on a hot day!

Dinner was an odd but tasty combination of crumbed basa fillets (yellow stickered from the freezer), 0li0ed roasties & oven roasted green beans with bacon bits & onions (freezer & stores) - followed up by a small bowl of raspberries from the garden. An unexpected reverse planned meal!

Suffolk_lass

They are the best sort @rtandon27. Here it was homemade coleslaw using up just one carrot, two small onions, about a fifth of the enormous white cabbage, 2 frozen chillies, finely chopped in for a bit of zing and the zest and juice of a wonky lemon, with mayonnaise and black pepper. Half left to have today with a small rack of ribs we will share, slowcooked

zafiro1984

reverse meal planning:- or in my case salvaging.
 
Last Easter I took advantage of 2.5kg bags of potatoes at 19p each. I bought 10 - a bit excessive I know but I had great plans of making mash, roasts and chips and freezing them. The mash and roasts have turned out well but the chips were a disaster. I par boiled them, used no oil and froze them, after cooking they were the right colour but hard on the inside and we do like chips to be soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.
DH suggested turning them into mash but I was browsing YouTube yesterday and came across 'old fashioned potato cakes'  - I'd completely forgotten about potato cakes - success, we had them with salmon and salad last night. There were introduced as 'Potato cakes, formally known as chips'

rtandon27

SL - your coleslaw sounds gourmet! - I've been buying posh supermarket stuff on yellow sticker since summer magically appeared, as OH insisted it wasn't his thing.  We've suddenly discovered he does like the posh stuff when half the last pot vanished

Haha Z1984 - salvaging is the truth of it, but it does sound more glamourous to reverse meal plan - almost like we set out on purpose to be creative & adventurous

Our dinner last night was on the meal plan, but definitely reverse planned to use up what had been languishing in the freezer.  We had some 2gtg Waitflower tikka marinated chicken breast chunks that only needed a flash in the pan to resemble kebabs, leftover aloo gobi tray bake from last weekend (the 0li0ed cauliflower that just kept giving, gave us at least 5 meals) and mini yellow stickered naans (not as good as homemade, but microwave vs over a hot stove won out!).  We made a nice large bowl of homemade raita with finely diced chopped cucumber, tomato & red onion slathered in store's own bargain brand yogurt.  Followed up with store's own cornettos which never languish in this house!  The meal felt like a  summer-time treat without the fuss of turning on the BBQ, planning in marinating time, or prepping dough.  Mr 'meat&2veg' (OH) did say my Wednesday theme of 'chicken something' went more towards 'Friday fakeaway' but I saw a mostly clear plate at the end of the meal so am going to take that as a win.

happydenial

I’ve started keeping a large Tupperware box (without the lid) in the top drawer of the freezer to put single items or bits and bobs in which need to be eaten up. I was fed up with finding one lost burger or a small handful of peas in random places! It’s come in useful so far - tonight the kids had a piece of fish, a chicken Kiev and the end of a packet of green beans from there which may otherwise have gone to unnoticed.

DH and I are using up an out of date olive pasta sauce from the pantry along with some spaghetti, and I’m going to make garlic mushrooms from a packet of flat mushrooms which need eating. Sadly I had to throw away some boiled new potatoes which had started going mouldy, some weeks I find it impossible to judge what we are/aren’t going to eat! 

rtandon27

@happydenial - have you tried mashed potato 'hockey pucks' - we don't often have leftover potatoes but when we do, they get mashed & seasoned, then frozen in muffin trays then popped out and stored in a plastic baggie - each one is good as a side with other veg when we are in a hurry and need an instant freezer meal (this method works well with homemade pesto as well)

Soontobeoap

Using up stock today made half an onion, frozen mushrooms, 3 bacon rashers, spaghetti and cheese into a pasta meal. Very tasty. I always call meals from bits and bobs "free meals". I know they are not but it makes me feel good 

MissRikkiC

I love hacks like that @happydenial