Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

Oh welcome to the thread @Spendywendywoo (great name, makes me smile). Yes, we are all trying to make slightly different meals to the recipes by omitting, substituting or just taking as a guide, the ingredients and recipes for the dishes we eat. 

I actually shopped yesterday because we were committed to producing sausage rolls, which DH has made, for a party. It sort of did for him. He's gone back to bed now, and hopefully he will get the rest of a night's sleep. He has been up since the crack of nonsense! I made him take pholcodeine to try and stop the coughing. So food for today is toast and soup (hm leek, potato and celery, with the last of the cauliflower) then this evening the remnant of the pasta bake made with the last of the rubber beef joint. 

I bought a small piece of pork shoulder I plan to slow roast tomorrow, to have roast dinner again.

Spendywendywoo

Morning

Todays meals are;
cereal
sandwich
chicken curry

all made from items I already have in

I plan on doing a small shop today to buy a few bits to add to the things I have in, which will allow me to make everything on my meal plan this week 😀

have a great day,
Wendy x

Spendywendywoo

Two quick questions… my bananas were green when I picked them up on Monday (Aldi Organic bananas) and by Tuesday they were browny yellow. They aren’t looking great tbh but I don’t know if they are edible… they aren’t yellow with brown spots, they are brown with traces of yellow 😬

Secondly, I want to buy quite a bit of veg, for adding to meals and for prepping and freezing so I always have it in. Where do you all buy your veg from? Fresh vs frozen? What’s your routine with always having veg available please? 

Thank you for any insight you can provide x 

Spendywendywoo

Said bananas as I realise I can add a photo! 😀

cheerfulness4

It looks like the cold has got to them, spendy, but I've eaten them like that if they are still cream coloured inside with no worries.

Spendywendywoo

Thanks @cheerfulness4, not sure how the cold has gotten to them as it’s quite warm in this house usually with having a child and dog here. They did turn quite quickly after I bought them, Monday night to Tuesday morning so perhaps something to do with how they have been stored before I bought them. 

I’m planning to make my very first banana bread with them so I’ll check what they are like inside, thank you x

MissRikkiC

I had 2 bunches like this last week and they were fine inside although them too just went into muffins. 

Lots of reverse planning this week, we’re down to very little in the fridge now on account of the low spend January we’re doing (£150 for the month instead of £600) but we managed to feed 8 Saturday night so can’t be that bad! I am dreading the replen shop next weekend as it really will be huge (think bulk items as well as the day to day) but I’m under no illusion that we will do it within Febs budget. 

Friday was vegan chicken fajitas as intended and i made the children homemade chicken nuggets. They were plain chicken and breadcrumbed with a slice of seeded bread I had airfried on low earlier in the week. They ate them up along with egg fried rice so I think it’s a staple now.

Saturday was a bolognese with added carrots, mushrooms and onion to bulk it out. Everyone got dessert which was a mixture of the last bit of PUD cake, the last bit of icecream, a kitkat and some yoghurt. 

Today we’ve had pasta with cream cheese and tuna (not for my son who’s allergic) which was a double portion on account of having ran 16k with lamb leg for dinner. I got the lamb from Sainsburys shortly after Christmas for £12 so that should feed us for a few meals. Casserole and dumplings coming up. 

I was thinking earlier, does anyone ever eat thungs like Sadza or Fufu? African foods that are cheap but plentiful? 

Spendywendywoo

Morning all, 

Today's meals are all from stock and meals I have prepped this weekend;

B - Cereal
L - Veg soup
D - Beef stew

May also find time to make banana bread with the bananas...ummm... I have tinned custard in the cupboard too.... there goes the diet!

Have a great day, all
Wendy x

Suffolk_lass

Hi Spendy,
Re veg, my overall approach is seasonal or preserve premium for out of season use. I do occasionally buy a punnet of fruit but I find this works for us, eating seasonal veg grown in UK means it is suited to our climate (casserole veg in winter for example, it works well in chilli and curry too!)

• I always have a bag of onions hanging from a hook in the larder (hessian bag of homegrown when they last, but this winter it is a bag of brown onions removed from the plastic and transferred into the hessian. 
• I buy and freeze ginger
• I buy carrots (sometimes wonky, sometimes not; depending if I am making soup, casserole or eating as a steamed veg with a bit of meat - the wonky are fine for soup and long slow cooking). 
• I buy potatoes now all my homegrown have been eaten (I grow a small bag of ten tubers in a rotating bed as potatoes make the soil lovely and crumbly (friable) and ready for roots that grow straight the following year
• I buy seasonal fresh veg like cauliflower, leeks, calabrese and cabbage at this time of year
• I keep a few bags of shop frozen peas, spinach, broccoli and corn in the freezer (and chips)
• I buy apples, oranges, clementines and pears for the fruit bowl

On top of this:

• I grew garlic last year for the first time and have masses
• I grow fresh herbs
• we grow berries which I preserve by bottling, so blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries (mostly we eat the strawberries), 
• also plums and apples, which I cook and jar as though jam (saves on freezer running costs)
• I grow and freeze or dry store masses of squash (prep courgettes and freeze, store pumpkins and butternuts)
• I grow chillies which I freeze whole and tomatoes from which I make hm passata in Kilner screw-top jars, and 
• I grow snack sized cucumbers, a few salad leaves, and radishes, oh and some stir fry veg like chard, spinach, pac choi, kale which is cut and come again
• I grow some beans and French Beans
• I have grown broad beans but struggle to remember to use them (2 bags in the freezer still)
• When I can I grow Borlotti beans and use them instead of tinned kidney or pinto beans

I do keep one or two tins of baked beans but mostly I buy dried beans, pulses and chick peas (cheaper, and last ages) and I cook 1k at a time in my pressure cooker, storing them in takeaway trays (the plastic ones with lids) in the bottom of the indoor freezer. Oh and one or two tins of sweetcorn kernals

Spendywendywoo

Wow, @Suffolk_lass, thank you! This is really useful. I buy most veg that I use now (other than when I'm making soup, which I've only just started to do) as frozen so it doesn't spoil, but with the new organised me, I intend to use fresh veg as it isn't as watery. 

You do amazingly well with growing your own. We don't have the room here atm but possibly something to consider in the future. Thanks again