Reverse Meal Planning

rtandon27

Yesterday we went for a planned lunch out at a posh establishment with an eco-conscious ethos for OH's Birthday.  We enjoyed the experience immensely, food was good value as we ordered from the January set-menu, but the 2 glasses of wine & 2 mini-mugs of coffee were extortionate!  Mind you birthday's only come round once a year and it was in a beautiful local and in a beautiful building that lived up to the hype!

We got home absolutely exhausted as it was a 2 hour round-trip and a 3 hour leisurely lunch 😂  Dinner was back to our usual frugal reverse planned way of being - non-posh charcuterie which means a bit of ham, cheese, houmous, tapenade & the last of the christmas crackers.  We rounded it off with mugs of hot-chocolate and a couple of biscuits each.

This morning's brunch was based on the things that needed using up.  Two h3ck chicken burgers, homemade guac and a fried egg served stacked on a warmed tortilla bread.  I was sorely disappointed with the avocados as they were in a state so could only be turned into mash, but the guac was elevated with a bit of cheap cooking bacon lardons added in.  Definately a keeper - we will happily do that again!

(manky avocado's were free in the end as on-line purchase meant I clicked a link for a refund!)

Brambling

zafiro1984 said:

Suffolk Lass - I didn't know rhubarb goes well with strawberries - that' s anew one for me.. I know it goes well with orange and you seem to use less sugar as well

I find that you don't need a lot of strawberries to really taste them.  Ginger also works well with rhubarb 

Primrose

We always keep a pot of crystallised ginger in the cupboard for the rhubarb season. It indeed goes well, along with some sliced fresh orange.

Suffolk_lass

So does finely chopped stem ginger, with a little of the syrup, the rhubarb hardly needs sugar

zafiro1984

We're still eating batched cooked meals I made last year. Tea was the last portion of a pheasant casserole made in October. There wasn't enough for the two of us but by the time I'd added a bit of cooking bacon, a few chestnuts and the last of the mushrooms in the fridge there was plenty, scalloped potatoes and some frozen beans from the plot completed the meal. I love batch cooking and freezing the rest as it takes no time at all to produce a another meal and I'm always adding things to it or presenting it another way to make it appear different.

I've got quite a few portions of cooked venison mince that I need to be creative about. Unfortunately anything with pasta or rice is out, (DH calls it 'foreign food' - he's of that certain age!!!) I'm also restricted to not using tomatoes as he's genuinely allergic to them, so apart from pies/shepherds pie, putting it in a big Yorkshire pudding or as reconstituted burgers  I've run out of ideas. 

On the plus side, trying to use up what is already cooked from the freezers and not waste anything from the fridge has saved on my grocery bill this Jan as it's been mainly fresh veg and some fruit, so that's a win win for me.

Suffolk_lass

Having excavated to the bottom of the meat freezer and written it all down, I transferred it to a spreadsheet and printed and stuck a copy on the side of the kitchen fridge. I brought in two lamb leg steaks (had them with veg last night) and will have chipolatas and a very small pork loin joint this week as the rest of our meat "ration".

There is a piece of brisket, one chicken and the bargainous turkey crown in terms of remaining meat joints. Only a single 2-portion pack of pork loin chops and one pack of chipolatas plus some streaky bacon left in the pork department. 5 packs of mince will definitely feature in February and maybe next week too. A pack of venison mince is destined to be burger patties or possibly skinless sausages unless I can be bothered to empty pork sausage skins, combine the 2 meats and refill. The extra fat would help the venison, I think.

The produce freezer gave up a bag of pink gooseberries which I stewed and we had some with custard last night. There are maybe 15 bags of courgettes (soup prepped) so we are good for lunches stretching into the distance. Too much fruit too. I will have to make couli or jam from some blackcurrants I think, and start using blackberries in bramble jelly or with apples as there are four bags, at least. 

It is touch and go whether I could decant and defrost the produce freezer. It needs it but it also needs to be warmer outside so it does not take a week to defrost!

EssexHebridean

I'm a bit of a fan of mince in stir fries. Because every mouthful is pretty much guaranteed to contain meat, even if feeding a committed carnivore you can get away with surprisingly little as well - always a bonus! 

Last night's delightfully quick to prep tea involved a "large single portion" of spicy ragu from the freezer padded out with a rub of cooked black bean - also from the freezer. Served it with wholegrain rice which I love and MrEH isn't so keen on, but I really fancied it so it was just tough on him, last night. It was all polished off and declared tasty anyway, so all good. 

This evening is going to be the tuesday standard couscous - Halloumi tonight I think, plus sauteed peppers, mushrooms and chickpeas. I'll probably use up the rest of the middle eastern couscous seasoning as I haven't got any fresh herbs this week. 

rtandon27

Last night we'd planned fish finger tacos, but OH sensibly asked why we were freezer raiding when we had a lot of food left over from his B-Day weekend.  So dinner was our old standby of a charcutier platter.  Crackers picked up in the after Christmas sales, slices of a pork pie we picked up in Melton, baba ganoush found in a M&S on the way to Nottingham, cucumber, tomatoes, hummus & butter all from the fridge.  Lovely filling meal after a long day in the city & saved OH from having to do much more than make it all look pretty on a sharing platter 🤣 (Could have done with a glass of wine on the side, but I'm not a fan of red & that's all that was in the house!)

EssexHebridean

That sounds like a delicious weeknight tea RT! We tend to have those sorts of meals at weekends - very nice!

My meal plan is in disarray after MrEH reminded me last night that he was out for drinks this evening. He's not expecting to be late, but also doesn't know whether the person he is meeting will want to eat while they are out, or whether it will just be drinks in which case he will want food when he gets home. So my plan to do turkey, shallot and mushroom mash-topped pies goes by the board - must do that tomorrow instead though as the mash won't sit for much longer, the mushrooms are approaching soft, and I've already got the turkey out of the freezer!  I've taken curried parsnip soup out to defrost for myself, and can grab the other one of those out for himself if he does need feeding. 

It will be had with bread because we had a near-miss bread disaster yesterday. MrEH set the bread machine going first thing intending to make rolls, but then managed to forget he'd done so until lunchtime...when he found that the dough was obviously hopelessly over-risen! He was all set to sling it, until I suggested just shoving it in a load tin trying to know as little air out as possible, and baking it as bread. We now had a loaf which while looking like a bit of a doorstop, does actually have a decent if as you might expect quite dense crumb. It'll be fine toasted, I'm sure! 

rtandon27

Hooray for salvaging the bread dough EH!  I'd have been tempted to turn it into flat breads if it had over-risen, but good idea to make bread for toast.

The week has just flown by!  We have however had a successful reverse planned set of meals - mainly because I've not been planning 'properly' but also because the food in the house is giving me the impression it is multiplying!

Wednesday - Stir-fried chicken and veg with jasmine rice - everything was in the fridge/freezer & stores
Thursday - Steak burgers on seeded baps topped with cheese/onion/crinkle gherkins - again everything in house!
Friday - not quite reverse planned but yellow stickered bargains - chicken breast butter joint with spinach & mushroom pie
Saturday Brunch - Omelette with assorted greens & cheese alongside a melting middle cod fishcake
Saturday Dinner - Weekend roast chicken with dried fruit and rice stuffing and kale& potato colcannon - the remaining meat has been divvied up and should provide us with another 4 portions (2 meals) - the bones and skin and pan juices joined two carcasses & some turkey bones from the freezer and made lovely collagen filled bone broth after many hours on gentle simmering.
Sunday Brunch - Fancy quiche from the freezer - another yellow sticker bargain
Dinner - Mushroom & Spinach Lasagne - with leftovers for tomorrow's dinner 

Not sure what's on the menu for the rest of the week - may succumb to the same sort of non-plan we had last week, or may actually sit and plan it out before getting ready for tomorrow as have an early morning meeting - YIKES!