Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

Used up some freshly dug new potatoes to go with some of the eggs that we don't seem to have eaten this last week. With another dozen arriving on Saturday we had a simple salad with them hard-boiled (the eggs, not the potatoes!) and I picked a couple of Cos sproutlet self-seeded lettuce to put some flavour in with some shop bought iceberg, and chopped  homegrown small cucumber too.

I also picked our dessert gooseberries that I had netted after the pigeons scoffed the other three bushes. Two zip-lock bags, each weighing 872g have been topped and tailed (using a large pair of clean nail-clippers; DH's idea - inspired and so much easier than scissors or knife!) - and finally frozen, along with three sticks of rhubarb (just the right size for a small crumble or compote). We are slowly working our way through chocolate brownies (a small square with yogurt, cream or ice-cream. I might have put more tabasco sauce than I intended (it's a catering bottle and the dash was more than normal) so they need something else with them!

MissRikkiC

Love the idea of spicy brownies @Suffolk_lass

rtandon27

So for lack of anything to reverse meal plan with, we picked up a 2gtg magic bag from the little waitflower for dinner last night.  It produced an eclectic mix of surprisingly healthy snacks, main and dessert. We also have put a couple of bits in the freezer for our next off-piste meal.

Tonight's dinner is planned from what we have in house - large homemade fishcakes on brioche burger buns with shredded lettuce and mayo - think along the lines of a posh mcd's fish burger. To round it off some onion and savoy will be wilted down in the wok.

Suffolk_lass

Just back from a slightly longer break than we originally planned. The joys of staying somewhere that costs £5 a night and being retired. An extra night felt so spontaneous. After our return, and a cup of tea and toast at about 4.30 I skipped dinner and DH had cheese and crackers. Today will involve sausages and salad, I think, as we left some bits for our son who was house and cat sitting, and only the ready-made bits were used. Hmm! At 31 I sort of expected more!

rtandon27

Cheese & crackers (with a glass of red wine) is one of OH's favorite dinners!

We gave in & purchased two yellow sticker chickens on Thursday which were cooked up along with a tray of assorted root veg.  Odd dinner for mid-week but the remaining chicken was duly 'rubberized' yielding a huge container of shredded chicken, some breast meat that was sliced and made into chicken & salad wraps for lunch on Friday, and two carcasses & dripping saved up in the freezer for the stock pot.  We don't use our gas oven often, in part because it is very temperamental and in part because I insist that if we are going to bother warming it up, we have to make a complete meal (or two).

Have also rediscovered some frozen (prepped) parsnip in the freezer which had self-seeded in the garden last year and overwintered in the ground.  As it is a cold/wet and very unseasonal day today, I think a slow-cooker parsnip/ginger soup may be in order.  The same freezer dive yielded a chopped leek so leek/potato soup is also an option!  One way or another we will have to use up some veg & make way for the shredded chicken meat.

Freezer and fridge are currently filled to the gills - not sure how as we've not overspent on anything.  We have however been making selective use of 0li0 & 2G2G recently which has kept the grocery budget in check and introduced some unusual meals and non-standard ingredients into our meal plans.  Selective use for us means not snapping anything up 'just because' - focusing on meat/fruit/veg/good bread rather than very tempting cakes & pastries & squish bread.

2Scratters

I have some defrosted diced steak that will need cutting into smaller chunks as DH thinks that 500g should make 2 meals 
I have a packet of pastry tucked upon the top shelf of the fridge which I will use to top the dishes off. Also adding from the bottom of the fridge drawer will be a few potatoes to bulk out, onion & mushrooms. Need to UU OOD some stock  that came from parents house into it too. I'm happy to add any tinned beans yet DH does not care for that suggestion. Some for me separately looks the way forward. 

2 Scratters xx

EssexHebridean

Hello all - for various reasons reverse planning has been in short supply here for the last little while but I'm moving back into it again as I want to aim to get the freezer at least mostly thinned out ahead of moving...

A productive kitchen morning yesterday with a large punnet of mushrooms chopped and cooked, most of a family-bag of peppers likewise, 4 red onions finely chopped and sweated off, and a bit tub of chickpeas which had been pre-soaked for 24 hours cooked off. All of those have been divided up and split between some to be used yesterday, some to be used tomorrow, and the balance in the freezer, so a few meal building blocks there.

A "use-it-up" lunch yesterday saw saw the remainder of last week's roasted butternut squash combined with some of the cooked veg from yesterday morning, the last of a tub of soft cheese, a small amount of passata from the freezer, the remainder of a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, a couple of pieces of black pudding cooked and chopped, and a third of a chorizo cut into small chunks. All mixed up with cooked pasta and cheese, and baked - annoyingly delicious, annoying because of course there is no way I will be able to recreate it! 

This evening is bolognese sauce from the freezer - that will make a nice quick tea as I just have to cook the spaghetti and heat the sauce.
Tomorrow will be the Tuesday standard of couscous - I'll probably get a tub of roast lamb chunks out to go with that. I also left out a tub each of chickpeas, peppers and mushrooms to go with that. 
I had omelettes on the list for later in the week but have just realised I'm an egg short so that may end up a scrambled egg and toast instead. 

Suffolk_lass

I have been MIA. Yesterday though, I made cake, sourdough bread, a humungous ragu and a lemon meringue pie where I forgot to add the lemon juice. I rescued it by cooking some blackcurrants in the lemon juice, adding a little sugar and pushing them through a sieve to make a pouring sauce to counteract the sweetness. It was delicious and two portions left for today. I realised I had no penne when I came to make the pasta dish with some of the ragu, so I used macaroni instead. Just a but more dense. I have more than 50% left so will make another cheese sauce to have with the same thing tonight. Our friends who visited yesterday are very rewarding to cook for - they eat well! Seconds of cake and dessert!

joedenise

Bit of a panic yesterday morning as no sausages in the freezer (how did that happen?) for the planned fry up so just made up a hash of bits from the fridge - spring onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes all diced up and fried off, added some frozen free flow mince from the freezer and fried that off, when that was nearly cooked added a small amount of beef stock made with an oxo cube to moisten it and topped it al off with a fried egg.  Very tasty it was too.

We still had our fry up but at lunchtime after going to the butcher and buying some more sausages!  The rest frozen in small usable portions to use over the next few weeks.

Also realised I had a swede in the fridge which needed using up and a couple of kilos of carrots (courtesy of Morrisons TGTG bags!) so made up a batch of swede and carrot mash.  I had to use the base of my pressure cooker to cook them as my biggest saucepan wasn't big enough for nearly 2 kilos of carrots and swede.

Still have about a kilo of carrots left to use up!  Some will be roasted later for dinner, along with some onions and peppers.  I've also got a bag of radishes and have heard they can be roasted so going to give that a go too.  Want to make a big batch of roasted veg as want some LOs for another dish later in the week.

Suffolk_lass

Nice bit of adaptability there @joedenise - I do love a bit of a "what have we got?" hash!

We had the second pasta bake night last night. The muggy warmth of early reason combined with my DH leaving the butter in the sun. I was not happy when I came to make cheese sauce as I could have poured it in the pan. I apologised for taking him to task for an innocent mistake. I had specifically asked him to refridge it after use only the previous day though!