Reverse Meal Planning

fionaandphil

Thanks for the tip about the soup @Suffolk_lass I'll give that a try next time I make it

EssexHebridean

Morning all!  The duck I bought for a nice keen price over Christmas has made it out of the freezer and into the fridge to defrost ready for cooking on Sunday which means there is almost certainly space to get the freezer 2 stuff over into freezer 1…BUT if I buy another box of the frozen pretzels and the fish I’m planning to get (15% off in the L+ app) in Lil’s later that situation might change. We are musing about pizza and wedges again for tonight - although I’m going to hold off on the decision until I shop I think. I also quite fancy cooking something like a curry - so that’s another choice. At some stage I want to cook up another big pot of dhal as well and portion that up for freezing - just need to decide which sort! 

My stock-up list is growing but I’m still of a mind to hold off for a bit and see if I can make it into March by being inventive. It’s probably going to be a bit of a monster shop when I tackle it though! 

Other food plans currently are repeating the brilliant crunchy salad/slaw I did the other week for my lunch tomorrow - I’ve still got lots of carrots to use, there are a few sticks of celery which will probably be threatening to go bendy before too long, and I’m pretty sure there is still a red cabbage in the fridge as well, so this time I’m thinking of combining those with a handful of the peanuts again, dried cranberries and the same curried vinaigrette I used last time. I can either serve with a sachet of rice/grains as I did last time or get myself something bready to accompany (or, come to think of it, bake a pretzel!) 

redofromstart

I picked up two more boxes of the pretzels this morning, which meant I had to re-jig the freezer drawers. 

The last bit of gammon is therefore out to defrost which works well given a free artisan baguette from the spin thing, and the rather nice indeed box of lovely cheese that arrived today. 

rtandon27

Inspired by redo's baguette & cheese mention, we had cheese & charcuterie & salady veg with part-bake baguettes I had in the stores - the house smelled amazing while it was cooking - such a nice easy meal for a Friday. Leftover cheese was had on bagels for brunch/lunch yesterday & today.

Yesterday I was under-the-weather and truly uninspired to go out to the food truck at the brewery even though it was yummy hog roast night!  So we ordered in from the local grill/turkish place instead and it was really tasty.  Well too much food for us as our meals are considerably smaller, so we'll be stretching what was left into other meals.  This morning we had the leftover fresh flatbreads with veggie omelets & tomorrow we will use the leftover rice & salads for a tofu & veg stir-fry.

Tonight we turned a rather large cauliflower into bacon and shallot cauli cheese.  It made a giant pyrex dish worth - 6 portions worth so will be rolled over into other meals during the week.  We each had a pork shoulder steak that we chanced upon in MrL at 50% reductions on Tuesday - a tiny bit of room made in the meat freezer drawer.  I'm not sure how it happened but we have a freezer packed with ingredients again despite having mostly emptied it in January!

I'm not entirely sure what this week's menu will be - but I'll have to give it some thought past tomorrrow!

redofromstart

When I was little French stick and cheese from the supermarket was a huge treat, we took it in turns each month to pick a new cheese to try, filling up on salad and bread and a tiny slice of whatever it was. I reminded my mum of this recently and she said it was a payday (or the day before in the days of cheque guarantee card) thing.  

I made some indifferent Muffins (don't halve the quantities for bananas and blueberries and maintain the dry stuff, should have halved everything) and macaroni cheese for the eldest. The macaroni cheese was well received at least, and he has the other half for tomorrow. In between good cheese, and I have a butternut squash to roast ready to serve with the goats cheese

Suffolk_lass

Currently rewriting my shopping list to remove large amounts of the dairy produce. With DH on a strict diet I shall join him. I may not have had a health episode but I am overweight and particularly so after a winter of sweet treats, too little exercise and lots of starchy, comforting, loveliness. Ideally, we each need to lose two stone, and ideally more. No more reassuring myself that next week is OK. It is now!

rtandon27

@Suffolk_lass - looking forward to hearing about the changes you will be making & how you adjust your cooking style.  New recipes are always welcome!

For us this past week has come and gone in a blur - I may have had a meal plan at some point but tbh we mostly ate leftovers focusing on veggies at the fore as the main part of every meal.

EssexHebridean

Well in a moment of indecision yesterday relating to lunch I made stoup - it was either a stew or a soup but we couldn't really decide which! The final two leeks, the remainder of last week's mushrooms, the last few of the 8p tatties from christmas, a chunk of butternut squash, a chicken stockpot jelly, a cup of dried soup mix (Pretty sure we acquired that for free some time ago but can't recall where from!) and a tub of the chunked up leftover turkey from christmas all lobbed in to the slow cooker and left on high for a few hours. It made sufficient for both of us to have a good sized bowl yesterday with leftovers for tonight which will get bolstered slightly by the addition of a sachet of mixed rice/grains I think, and possibly a couple of handfuls of frozen sweetcorn as well. 

I've done it again with the meal plan too - completely failed to produce one, but I have been shopping, which now means that the rest of the week's meals have to work with stuff we have in. I do have a couple of good sized potatoes though so you can be sure that jackets will be on the list for one evening or another! (Probably with savoury mince and some cheese, as that gets another tub out of the freezer!)

Will this be the week that freezer 2 gets emptied into freezer 1? Watch this space...! 

zafiro1984

Just catching up again - things move at quite a pace on this page don't they. 

Suffolk Lass  - regards to Mr SL, I believe gall stones are quite painful. and empathy (probably the wrong word) for you for having to cope with a restricted diet.  'Dieting' seems to be the word of the month, I've to lose 2st before I can have my last knee done. Some has disappeared since the beginning of the year but it's getting harder and harder. 

Our usual weekend visitor has gone home so it's left overs for the next few days in the hope of emptying most of the fridge. The LO roast chicken is going to make an appearance tonight in a pie with LO mushrooms and a bit of bacon lurking in the fridge. I've run out of thin cream to make a gravy for it so it'll have to be done with milk. The carcass and all bits are now frozen ready to be turned into soup when I have time. Pudding - not sure - I've wrinkled apples in the bowl and plums in the fridge. The plums look ok at the moment so I think it will have to be the apples.

I'm trying to have skinny month with the food money so it will be a month of delving into freezers and cupboards and staying away from the supermarkets.

EssexHebridean

We did end up with a surplus again last month although not as much as I would have really liked - there is a limit to how long you can keep spending right down though isn't there! I've already done a bit of stocking up at the beginning of this month - I was in the right area for F@rmf00ds so decided I may as well get the tinned tuna we needed at the same time - I also picked up a big box of Jacob's crackers while I was there for £1.99 - one of the big 800g boxes they do for Christmas so that was a bargain worth having!