Reverse Meal Planning

rtandon27

Yesterday we had dinner courtesy of a freezer dive which yielded two generous helpings of Shepardess pie - lentil based with a polenta topping!

@joedenise - 'the meatless moaning' is a constant in this house, except on meatless Monday's - LOL

Tonight we will have fishburgers & fries with a side of courgette fritters - tbh the fritters are so good I'd make a meal of them given the chance! - The burgers are a result of yesterday's freezer dive where I discovered two rather large homemade fishcakes and two wholemeal buns!  - Fries are a naughty treat left over from our 'after holiday fakeaway' last week & we all know that at this time of year courgettes are inevitable - almost daily here!

Tomorrow the plan for dinner is Mei Fun (Vermicelli noodle stir fry) - this is very dependant on me being able to find the unlabeled box in the freezer containing roasted chicken meat. This will be combined with assorted veg-box finds, frozen prepped veg and the ubiquitous green cabbage that has a permanent residency in our fridge drawer!

joedenise

Not sure we're going to be having the chicken if I'm honest as it still hasn't defrosted (checked it about 5 minutes ago!) so may still be meatless tonight but at least I'll have tried, LOL!

EssexHebridean

It's the thought that counts Joedenise - and you THOUGHT about not making it meatless!

We DID have chicken last night - and currently the one I bought at the weekend is looking like being a thoroughly MSE-rubberised one. Sunday dinner for us both, a further portion each for tea last night, and I reckon I'll get risotto, and maybe two more 2-person portions for freezing from the remaining meat. It's also made half a slow cooker of stock by augmenting with the frozen giblets from the christmas turkey so I'm fairly pleased with that. 

I'm in the slightly odd position of not having too much reverse planning to do at the moment having run down stocks ahead of the move of course, and now also need to get to grips with the new freezer as well - larger but slightly less easy to access things in than the old one, but it'll be fine. 

joedenise

Most of the chicken defrosted - I cut off what I could while it was still frozen so it defrosted a bit.  The bits around the bones will be used to make some soup with some frozen veg so it won't be wasted and should easily fall off the bones!

EssexHebridean

Morning all! 

Chicken risotto last night using the scrappy bits off the chicken, and a third of the stock I'd made. Ended up with a further two tubs of stock, and one of chicken chunks for the freezer, I could have squeezed the chunks to two portions but they'd have been rather mean ones, and anyway, I'll still have got 4 meals for 2 people plus the stock from the chicken so I'll call that a win! Also a win was that the risotto used the last three slightly sad spring onions from the fridge. 

Swerved the plan a little for this evening and have got sausages out of the freezer - I've not currently got a frying pan of the right size to take them though so they'll need to go in the oven. Not a problem as I also plan to do jacket tatties with them, so those can go in the oven alongside to crisp after their blast in the microwave to cook them through. I'll need to remember to extract what I think must be the final portion of mince from the freezer this evening to do keema and sweet potato curry for tomorrow night - that will end up as keema, sweet potato and butternut squash in fast as the SPs are very small ones, but I do have a quarter of a medium sized butternut that needs using as well and that will work just fine. 

rtandon27

rtandon27 said:

...Tonight we will have fishburgers & fries with a side of courgette fritters...

This was a complete success of a meal & two extra fritters came to work with me for lunch today along with a 2G2G tuna nicoise salad.

rtandon27 said:

...Tomorrow the plan for dinner is Mei Fun (Vermicelli noodle stir fry) - this is very dependant on me being able to find the unlabeled box in the freezer containing roasted chicken meat. This will be combined with assorted veg-box finds, frozen prepped veg and the ubiquitous green cabbage that has a permanent residency in our fridge drawer!

Mei Fun was a bit of a slap dash meal - looks like we had already eaten all the roasted chicken meat, so I sacrificed some sliced roast chicken breasts that were slated for sandwiches,  Also forgot about the frozen peppers so all the veg was fresh from the fridge.  It was delicious but needed something extra on the side to have been truly filling.  Instead we shared a Chicken Caesar salad wrap from the 2G2G bag.

Tonight the plan is sausage and rosemary stew. Sausage & bone broth from the freezer, rosemary from the garden, chard from the bi-weekly veg box.  I've left all the ingredients and recipe where OH can find them, so everything should be ready by the time I get home from the city!

joedenise

joedenise said:

Most of the chicken defrosted - I cut off what I could while it was still frozen so it defrosted a bit.  The bits around the bones will be used to make some soup with some frozen veg so it won't be wasted and should easily fall off the bones!

Change of plan with the meat around the bones - I cooked in the oven for about 15 minutes so it was cooked enough to get the meat off the bones and used the meat in a chicken and chorizo Spanish rice, very tasty it was too.  Also saved me having to buy veg to make soup with it.

EssexHebridean

Some excellent reverse planning there!

I will be very glad when we get past the "stocking back up on the things we let stocks run down on ahead of moving" phase ends, as right now shopping feels painfully expensive! This week was also a Farmer's market week so £39 spent there, although that also means we now have a couple of cuts of lamb for sunday lunches (both of which will also do at least one leftovers meal following), a couple of packs of the lamb man's rather wonderful sausages, plenty of minced beef (1 lot of which will get used to make a big pot of ragu this evening) and a pack of burgers, plus some yellow courgettes and - fabulous - two bulbs of smoked garlic! 

Right now I don't have a meal plan as such for the week - although as usual I do have ideas in the background to work with. The ragu will cover this evening, and will also give a number of additional portions as I'll pad out the mince with mushrooms and red lentils. I may add a little smoked chilli again as we both really enjoyed the slightly spicy version I made last time. Sausages will feature for one day - as far as I can recall I still have a couple of potatoes large enough for jackets. Couscous is an easy option for tomorrow evening when MrEH will be at rugby training - that will be with halloumi I think. That will probably leave something like a stir fry for the final day to plan for the week - although I'll have a think about what I'll have in the way of veg for it before I fix on that for certain.  

joedenise

Overrun with tomatoes at the moment so ended up making a SC full of bolognaise sauce.  Have portioned up and we'll have some for dinner tonight instead of the planned Thai fish curry which we'll have tomorrow instead.  Another 4 portions of the sauce have gone into the freezer for future meals.

Got some jacket potatoes in a TGTG bag yesterday so they will feature at some time this week probably with beans and cheese or possibly tuna mayo!

Also got 2 bags of carrots so some of those were chopped into the bolognaise, some were roasted to have with dinner and some have been prepped and frozen ready to roast at some future date.  The last few will be turned into carrot and lentil soup - may well do that in the SC too but haven't decided yet.

Suffolk_lass

Oh my, It's a bit quiet here! We are back from 3 weeks away to giant courgettes. We had courgette fritters last night, with a jacket potato. They were a bit ordinary, despite adding ground cumin. I also liberated a courgette and lemon cake out of the freezer, to have a slice with a cup of tea. It's all a bit mad here at the moment, we had a motorhome trip for several nights, returning to change vehicles, wash and pack, then off to my Mother in Scotland for several days before a week on Arran. All except one meal, I cooked. It kept the cost down and the one meal out was lovely.

Tonight I have a single chicken breast out of the freezer that I plan to have with mash, peas and the last carrot. I made courgette and potato soup yesterday as I have limited space in my freezer until we use up some stuff.

I am hoping for a mostly freezer and store-cupboard month in October, or there will be no treats for Christmas. I will have to top up milk and buy some fruit and veg - thinking pears and apples as they are seasonal for the fruit bowl, and continuing to liberate bottled fruit for desserts, plus the odd bits and pieces. I am resisting the Waitflower 255 off 6 bottles of wine offer that ends today, despite discovering something lovely last time. We have enough wine for this month and probably next too!