Reverse Meal Planning

joedenise

As we've decided to go away for a long weekend in the motorhome I've completely changed our menu plan between now and the beginning of September and am now using the slow cooker to batch cook a couple of meals which we'll have this week and again over the weekend way!  

Today's I'm doing keema curry and tomorrow a sausage and bean casserole (a bit like a cassoulet) which we'll have tomorrow and again over the weekend.

I'm hoping there will also be a couple of portions of both for the freezer for later in September!

rtandon27

...we've fished out one of two wax truckles from the freezer...

Mystery flavour cheese- one truckle was green and the other yellow, neither had a label on it, must have once been in a box that has been decluttered.  I do vaguely remember buying them at MrS - either after Xmas or New Year! - I'm hoping neither is pineapple or peach cheddar! - Fruit cheese is just a bit weird! 🤣🤣🤣  A nice chive cheddar would be excellent.

ETA - we debated ordering dinner in as it is Staycation for us, but instead decided to have jerk chicken, potato wedges & steamed carrots/runner beans - OH is rather pleased we 'shopped from home' as we'd already had brunch out & splurged on two fancy coffees each, and I'm happy that we are having some veg with our meal as all the take-away options that are currently open in our small town involve HPF & fried chips! - tbh I was leaning towards a bowl of raymun noodles rather than succumb!

Suffolk_lass

After a day sorting out DH's large workshop (great way to spend BHol Monday!!) I cooked some sausages with homegrown potatoes and green beans. Simple and delicious. Followed by homegrown raspberries and some out of date cream. It almost made up for the dirt!

zafiro1984

I'm having an office based day today, The back is hurting so I'm taking the opportunity to catch up with export paperwork for one of our youngsters off to the continent later this week.
Yesterday was a funny day I didn't seem to get anything done of any value, bit of a waste of a day but I also didn't stop doing things, so I don't know where I went wrong. 

Lunch was the rest of the green pea soup I'd made on Saturday 
Tea was some frozen salmon, new pots, beans, carrots and HM brown bread ice-cream, so easy and quite different, I can remember my mother making it as a treat in the 1950's.

joedenise

joedenise said:

As we've decided to go away for a long weekend in the motorhome I've completely changed our menu plan between now and the beginning of September and am now using the slow cooker to batch cook a couple of meals which we'll have this week and again over the weekend way!  

Today's I'm doing keema curry and tomorrow a sausage and bean casserole (a bit like a cassoulet) which we'll have tomorrow and again over the weekend.

I'm hoping there will also be a couple of portions of both for the freezer for later in September!

Managed to get 2 x 2 portions of the curry into the freezer as well as the 2 portions we had for dinner - very nice is was too.

Was a bit late getting the sausage and bean casserole into the SC so we just had sausages, new potatoes and green veg tonight.  We'll have some of the casserole tomorrow.  Hopefully another 2 x 2 portions into the the freezer.

rtandon27

Had an annoying appt at the lawyers today to sort out various bits of paperwork.  OH & I were so stressed afterwards, we spent the day out and about.  This involved a lovely bistro lunch, a bit of comfort shopping for jelly sweeties and a wander round a bookstore.  Food splurge will come out of the staycation budget so not really a hit on the regular pots but it wasn't planned so we both felt a bit grumpy about it.

Dinner was much more successful on the reverse planning front - oven roasted salmon fillet (50% off), baby king oyster mushrooms (40% off), watercress from the weekly veg box and choi sum from the fridge with steamed jasmine rice from the stores.  Really tasty and well appreciated as we were both famished after an afternoon of walking!

EssexHebridean

OOH - jelly sweets - you've reminded me that there is a bag in the treats basket that I can pull out to put in the car for treats on our trip to Devon!  I wonder if I might find some biscuits in there too... 

I don't seem to have made much inroads into clearing the freezer, sadly. In spite of best efforts over the weekend, more bits made their way in. Sigh. 

Last night's couscous used a good amount of veggies which were roughly chopped and roasted, and I shoved a tray of home grown tomatoes in to roast at the same time - those will be divided up into two portions and frozen ready for future pasta dinners.  This evening is going to be a salad using the last of the eggs (which MrEH helpfully hard boiled yesterday) plus the remaining two sausages from the ones cooked at the weekend, along with various veg including more of the HG toms and cucumbers. 

In the interests of not letting things go over I inspected the bag of peppers yesterday and transferred those to a stayfresh bag to prolong their lives a bit. I need to check the bag of beans later and see if those need blanching and freezing - although it might be worth doing anyway in order to use them at their best. 

Still plenty more toms and cukes to come - and courgettes too, even though those plants haven't been as prolific as we might have hoped. The waxpod beans are close to finished (I suspect this evening's trawl through will remove the last of those from the plants) and runners are not only still producing but still flowering, too! 

TracyS66

My freezer is looking very low, but that's not a bad things as we had a week away and spent a bit too much on treats!! So I have made a real effort to eat what I already have.
Its amazing what you can do when you put a bit of effort into meal planning. I do have a freezer list that I keep updated but things did creep into the freezer and were missed off my list, so from now on I will try and keep it as accurate as I can fingers crossed.
On another note I saw a few supermarkets are displaying Christmas biscuits and chocolates already! Way too early, lets get Halloween and bonfire night over 1st please! 

Suffolk_lass

TracyS66 said:

My freezer is looking very low, but that's not a bad things as we had a week away and spent a bit too much on treats!! So I have made a real effort to eat what I already have.
Its amazing what you can do when you put a bit of effort into meal planning. I do have a freezer list that I keep updated but things did creep into the freezer and were missed off my list, so from now on I will try and keep it as accurate as I can fingers crossed.
On another note I saw a few supermarkets are displaying Christmas biscuits and chocolates already! Way too early, lets get Halloween and bonfire night over 1st please! 

Back in the day, I used to take the Monday after autumn half term off and go and do all my Christmas Shopping on the basis that all the parents went "phew, I'll have a quiet day, now they are back at school" and I avoided any out of stock or crowds, closer to the day

TracyS66

Suffolk_lass said:

TracyS66 said:

My freezer is looking very low, but that's not a bad things as we had a week away and spent a bit too much on treats!! So I have made a real effort to eat what I already have.
Its amazing what you can do when you put a bit of effort into meal planning. I do have a freezer list that I keep updated but things did creep into the freezer and were missed off my list, so from now on I will try and keep it as accurate as I can fingers crossed.
On another note I saw a few supermarkets are displaying Christmas biscuits and chocolates already! Way too early, lets get Halloween and bonfire night over 1st please! 

Back in the day, I used to take the Monday after autumn half term off and go and do all my Christmas Shopping on the basis that all the parents went "phew, I'll have a quiet day, now they are back at school" and I avoided any out of stock or crowds, closer to the day

Don't get me wrong I love Christmas and I love getting ahead so when the big day arrives I don't feel too worn out!