Reverse Meal Planning

joedenise

@Suffolk_lass - the dentist filled DH's tooth but said he will need a crown if the filling comes out again so now need to save for that as that will probably happen sometime next year.  Fortunately it's an NHS dentist so probably about £300 to find.

Freezer dive for dinner tonight and found a beef and bean stew so we'll have that with some mash.

rtandon27

Happy New Year 2024!

We ended 2023 with a pickety bits dinner platter using what was already in the house & not used for our xmas day feasting! This morning's New Year's breakfast was also gleaned from what was already cooked and in the fridge - 1/2 a frittata, pickled onions, olives & some toast from the crusty ends of a couple of loafs 😊

Copious amounts of coffee are being had - we are not of the late night variety & staying up to see the New Year in has wrecked havoc on our circadian rhythms 🤣🤣🤣

joedenise

Using up the last of Sunday's roast chicken by making sweet and sour chicken which we'll have with rice.  Everything for the sweet and sour sauce is stuff from the cupboard bar the passata which is one of the "pucks" I made with our home grown tomatoes last summer.  Just one "puck" left now and then it will be back to passata from the SM!

EssexHebridean

well hasn't some lovely food been being enjoyed on this thread then!

We've done pretty well dealing with the leftovers I think - the turkey carcass was stripped a few days after I last posted having done Christmas dinner for 3, the remainder of one breast being sliced off and left for Mum already. I also got two days leftover lunch sandwiches from it as well - always a highlight of Christmas!  The remaining meat was split into 2 tubs of slices and 4 of chunks and that is all now in the freezer, along with three 500ml and one 400ml tubs of stock made from the carcass. There is a single tub of bread sauce in the freezer which will make a fake Christmas dinner at some stage, the large pot of braised red cabbage I made got divided into 5 double portions and frozen, although one came back out again for eating yesterday and I can confirm it to be delicious - in fact I think it might be the best one I've done!

The ham has also done well - countless festive break lunches, sandwiches, salads and just sliced alongside picky teas. Oh - ham and cheese toasties on one day as well which also used up the last of the piece of brie I bought for the sausage rolls!  The remaining ham did a roast dinner yesterday and the final bits are set aside in the fridge ready for a stir fry tomorrow.

Cheap veg wise I still have plentiful tatties, parsnips will be at least partially earmarked for soup I think, and I've got around half the sprouts left (I bought two bags of those and they have already been used in a couple of small batches of coleslaw and lightly stir fried with bacon and chestnuts as a side for yesterday's lunch). The swede remains untouched, I've a chunk of red cabbage (which may well go partly into tomorrow's stir fry and carrots are as always set aside ready for using when I can sneak them in without offending MrEH's tastebuds too much! Shallots will just get added in to things which will benefit from them - they weren't bought for any particular use. I've a punnet of mushrooms bought for a bargain price on Christmas eve too which will get split between a planned bolognese for this evening, and the stir fry tomorrow.

It feels as though we are both pretty well organised and very well stocked now. I shopped on NYE for the week - just over £18 in Al's followed by just under £7 in T's although quite a bit of that spend was reduced bits - two packs of mixed Jacobs crackers at a favourable price. A couple of dark chocolate oranges which I will hoard away for a while yet, and a few others bits and pieces. We have a meal plan done up to the end of the week and the aim for the remainder of January will be to spend as little as possible in the supermarkets, I think. There probably will be a farmer's market visit, though.

rtandon27

JD - we also had a chinese inspired meal last night Sweet & Chili stir-fry - sauce from MrA's, it had been sitting in my sauce box stores for a while - we added cubed pork from last weekend's roast, the remainder of a chinese leaf cabbage from the fridge, cooked king prawns, orange & yellow pepper strips, both from the freezer and ready-to-wok udon noodles from the stores.  Super tasty and a nice change from what we've been eating over the xmas break.

EH - well done on stretching the xmas bounty! Your turkey and ham portioning makes me think of the loaves & fishes parable.😉  We didn't score much in the way of 15p veg, as it was decidedly poor quality with lots of bruises and water collecting in the bags, so just one bag of young parsnips made it home at that price.  We ended up buying full price potatoes from MrS, which made lovely roasties and Waitflower baby sprouts at 30p.  Carrots of assorted colours were still in the house from our veg boxes so more than enough veg for our 2-person quiet festivities.

This morning's brunch was a home-made version of one I had the other day in a Turkish café.  While we did not have spicy beef sausage, we did have the remains of a giant boar & venison air-cured salami that we picked up on xmas eve.  We made Sucuk Yumurta - just a fancy way of saying fried sausage and fried eggs accompanied by toast for dipping in the yolks!  I love that so many cultures have variations on basic recipes that sound ultra fancy when not described in English 🤣🤣🤣 - I didn't have any rocket to make a posh side salad, but OH is never impressed by 'rabbit food' anyway, so I'm the only one that missed it! (I have to gleefully report that feeding both of us came in at just over a pound a head rather than the eye-watering 9 pounds they charged for my meal the other morning!)

joedenise

We were going to have jacket potatoes with tuna mayo for lunch today but DH checked the fridge and said he thought the ham wouldn't last any longer than today so we had ham, egg, chips and beans instead.

We'll have the jacket potatoes for dinner in a couple of days time when we were supposed to have been having the ham, egg, chips and beans!  So just a straight swap!

marionmgcars

I love reading everyone’s meal planning, makes me happy that I’m not the only one thinking like that.  So many in our family waste too much food as don’t know how to use leftovers or cook from scratch 👍

Crazycatlady2

Kids had burgers and waffles we having quiche chips and beans 

EssexHebridean

Having committed to a proper "how low can we go" Grocery spend month, I now need to put some work in to a meal plan for the month, using what we have. And goodness knows, we have plenty!

Freezer 1 has a large FR chicken, a good sized joint of pork and a cooked ham, one of those will get used this month to make a sunday roast and then the associated leftovers. Also in freezer 1 is some stewing mutton on the bone - I suspect it doesn't have a lot of meat on it but used in a straight 2 person stew/casserole it should still provide plenty of flavour. That will either get cooked in the oven alongside something else or possibly in the small slow cooker. 
In terms of previous leftovers for use there is of course plenty of turkey, some pork chunks from a previous roast, and at least one tub of veg curry. Freezer 2 meanwhile has lots of (YS'd) bread - which will mostly sort us for weekend breakfasts through the month, and a good amount of stock - some of which will get used to make soup (which will in its turn head back to the freezer!). There is certainly not a shortage of things to make meals from. 

The remainder of this week currently looks like:
- Today: Stir fry to use up the last scraps of the christmas ham, and various bits of veg.
- Tomorrow: Sausage, mash & beans
- Friday: Lamb burgers and the last of a bag of oven chips. I'll probably top the burgers with cranberry sauce as we have a quarter of a jar of it left, and I think that will work well. the burger buns will be from the freezer too. 
- Saturday: MrEH should be out at rugby, so I will have a think what I can do for my own lunch, although it may well be that I'll choose to make the curried parsnip soup and I can then have a bowl of that. Tea will be picky bits I suspect, as we still have some in the freezer - that depends on whether I think himself's ETA for getting home can be relied on though! 
- Sunday: currently leaning towards doing the mutton stew for this as it would be a nice easy one, and also will use up 15p veg. If I do then I'll probably do a side of sauteed sprouts with it to add some green! 

Next week needs to look like a combination of:
Two "spare" sausages > Sausage and Mushroom pasta - this can also use up some of a tub of creme fraiche which will be on the end of its date by then - some of that will also go into the soup. 
Stir fry again I think - probably using pork chunks
Maybe a curry plate for Friday night - this would use a tub of turkey chunks, and the stray veg curry from the freezer. Might we still have any daal lurking? If not then I might just make a big batch of that and freeze the balance.
Veggie risotto 
Couscous with assorted roast veg plus halloumi. (we have the halloumi already)

marionmgcars

Great planning 👍. I popped out with a list and then decided to get vegetarian sausages for my partner, to come home and find some in freezer. Will I ever learn !  Shop list only !  Hopefully this will keep me in straight and narrow this month.  Working through Olio pick ups and leftovers this week 👍