Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

We had simple baked chicken in foil with tarragon, with plain carrots, boiled potatoes and some red cabbage, steamed and stirred through some separately stewed pink shallots and bramley apple. Really nice. Then some home bottled stewed plum and apple from my store cupboard

zafiro1984

This week is going to be a 'what's in the freezer that's already cooked week'
Today lunch is green peas soup with bacon bits, made last week. Then some twinks biscuits - recipe grocery challenge, I freeze the mix and cook some when needed. I've a bit of sourdough bread in the fridge which needs using so that can be croutons as well as going with the soup.

tea - Pork with honey and mustard casserole for DH frozen Oct/23 in single portions. I'll do something with a couple of potatoes in the box, probably mash, plus half a packet of green beans from the fridge. I'll have leftovers from yesterday - Waldorf salad with some goats cheese. Pudding - well here's the challenge - I found what looks like a frozen rhubarb crumble, not sure as I didn't label it but it's out defrosting at the moment. I've a bit of cream in the fridge or it could  be custard, who knows.

Suffolk_lass

Who doesn't love Twinks Hobnobs biscuits? They are a firm favourite here. I have the recipe transcibed and adapted for my oven. 

I think we will have steak tonight (defrosted ready), to use up some salad and I'll get DH to mash one of the giant potatoes remaining. After reading @foxgloves plans, I'm going to slow cook the shin of beef I defrosted from home to make into a goulash for tomorrow (my study night). With snow forecast on and off all week, it has to happen!

EssexHebridean

Mmmm I've not made Twinks in ages - it's one of the recipes I have written into my own recipe book though! 

I'm also with Zafiro on having a nice easy week - grabbed a tub of bolognese sauce out last night to defrost in the fridge and we'll have that with spaghetti this evening. Tomorrow will be couscous as usual for a tuesday I think - with some of the leftover from the pork joint we had yesterday and some pan fried veg. There will be more of that pork later in the week with a stir fry and noodles, too. 

On the subject of that pork joint it definitely proved its value - as well as it doing sunday lunch yesterday and two more meals this week, I have also frozen a tub of sliced and another of chunks, so that will be 5 meals it will have done in the end. 

One of my missions for this year is going to be making better use of the slow cooker for more varied recipes I think - I tend to only use it for stews and sometimes a slow cooked bolognese sause, but I should be able to get far more from it than that really. I think as always the BBC Good Food site will be the starting point for inspiration. 

Crazycatlady2

Haven't made twinks for ages...I'll look out the recipe I think today is burgers, tomorrow chicken skewers and wed pasta bake and sausages

rtandon27

Tonight's meal will be a simple one (when I eventually get home as still on the train - 😆) - soup from our weekend batch and pasta with pesto and spinach. Technically its meatless Monday but we may throw in some cooking bacon lardons which don't count 😉 and make everything taste better!

zafiro1984

It looks like quite a few of us are heavily into reverse meals/leftovers or determined not to waste anything.

 Yesterdays lunch and tea went as planned except for the unlabelled pudding which I thought was rhubarb crumble. It turned out to be that Scottish Cranach which I made when son came to visit on New Years eve. Quite nice as leftovers!!

Today - lunch is sausages wrapped in bread, HM mixed spice biscuits
Tea - again leftovers from the freezer - 2 portions of chicken/bacon/mushroom casserole, the label I wrote says  'suitable for pie/casserole/mash top. I think I'll do scalloped pots on top as we haven't had those for a while.
Pudding - frozen cooked apple pieces with some HM mincemeat probably under pastry, I'll use the bit I saved from the other day and is in the fridge - that should see the end of that. If there is not enough to make a topping I'll do a lattice instead - at least it will get rid of it.

EssexHebridean

well it's nice to get an unexpected pudding, and yes, I can well see why it might look a bit like a crumble! 

I am reminded that I have swede to use - and carrot come to that - as well as potatoes, so I may cook up a pot of three root mash in the next few days I think. That will then enable some mash-topped pies - I'm currently thinking that I might grab a leek at the weekend and combine some of the turkey chunks with some leek and mushrooms in a white sauce for the filling...in fact that might feed us on sunday and one day in the week... 

I've started writing a rolling meal plan for the next few weeks anyway... 

Primrose

These mixed veg mash mixtures with mashed potatoes and some strong grated cheese mixed in, perhaps with a few herbs can make a cheap tasty meal.  The other thing you can mix in for added flavour is a small amount  of sage and onion stuffing.

rtandon27

Monday's dinner went ahead as planned!

Last night on the other hand we had a little glitch!  I forgot to pick up fish fingers last time we were at the store, so our Tuesday Fish Finger Tacos went a bit awry.  Thankfully we did have some cooked flame-grilled chicken in the freezer found in a yellow sticker bargain pre-xmas so our tacos still happened!  We preceded these with the last of the weekend's batch cooked soup so bargainous all-round.

Tonight's dinner will be leek risotto with what's left of the casserole chicken and veg from Sunday.  OH is starting to cook this as I type and I'm soooooo hungry that smelling it is torture! 😊