Reverse Meal Planning

Suffolk_lass

So, what plans to use up Easter fayre? our plans were cancelled last minute so we had rapidly defrosted turkey escalopes with veg for Easter Sunday. No leftovers there but a bag of carrots in the "beer" fridge!

rtandon27

We too are devoid of any Easter fayre, given the cost of a decent joint vs my desire to come up with the next mortgage overpayment!  No leftovers at all, as we even skipped our usual Sunday roast!  We've finished up all the yellow stickered pickety bits that we brought home on Saturday and will be having the last of the bargain nitrate-free bacon with our brunch.  Very little chocolate to be had in this house as well - a box of 12 posh mini-eggs were opened yesterday & all but 2 have been consumed!  We are emulating the Easter version of Bah Humbug!

On staycation this week, so regular meal plan is out the window in favour of true reverse meal-planning to work on the contents of the fridge and freezer.

Primrose

Husband has spent morning in kitchen dismantling yesterday,s chicken and turning it into lots of mini freezer meals. We have avoided the chocolate Easter splurge.  It seems such poor value for money these days. Local store gave him a £65 Lindt choc Easter bunny to raffle for our local charity this morning. Wonder if they couldn't sell it?  Who would pay that amount for an Easter chocolate gift?

joedenise

Just did a small roast pork dinner yesterday and the leftovers will be turned into a sweet and sour for dinner tonight so a quick and easy meal.  Have got some frozen fish out of the freezer to make a fish and pasta bake for dinner tomorrow with hopefully leftovers to have for lunch on Wednesday.

No chocolate bought her but DD1's partner (a chef) made us some dark chocolate brownies (made with real chocolate and not just cocoa powder).  They were lovely but very, very rich.

D123456789

Hello all, I am looking for inspiration please. 

I have 2 bags of lemons, 6 apples, a bag of sweet potatoes all need using up. I would previously have made a lemon drizzle cake and an apple crumble but I am trying to avoid added sugar. 

Sweet potatoes I might just bake and freeze. I have loads of other fruit and veg which don’t need using so quickly. I have no meat in. I also have some bananas past their best. 

Any ideas welcomed as I must do something with them this morning 😊

Suffolk_lass

Personally, I would slice and freeze one bag of lemons. I put them in a plastic take-away box and stack them in little half moon rows so that they can just be added to water as I go. - edit - I meant to say, est and then juice the lemons and add them to an ice cube tray. Once frozen, they could be stored in a zip-bag or takeaway freezer box to liberate the tray.

 Re the apples, I would gently stew them with  the zest and juice of a lemon, and about two teaspoons of sugar. Then pop the apple into clean, hot jam jars and store portions of stewed apple (for apple sauce with meat (pork or sausages), or to top your yoghurt (or have with custard!) the stewed apple lasts all winter for me when I do this at harvest time. 

In addition to chopping and baking or freezing a glut of sweet potatoes, if you cook them wrapped in kitchen roll, in their skins, in a microwave, you can let them get cold, then peel and mash the sweet potato. My go to is a cake - here's a recipe where I use honey instead of maple syrup, and a lot less (just over half, let down with a little water to take it to the volume, and not almond butter, I use baking block (Stork baking for cakes) - I'm not dairy free but it seems to work better with this than butter. This cake can be frozen (in portions!) or gifted.

My other go-to is to make a cheat's curry with roasted SP, tin or Take-away freezer pack of chick peas, onion and curry paste, then add balls of frozen spinach near the end, with a lid on. Stir the spinach through. We have this as a main meal (occasionally I will stir cooked meat in when I add the spinach - chicken is good, especially the carcass pickings). You don't need rice or bread but my husband says you do!

D123456789

Thanks @Suffolk_lass the curry sounds like a great idea. 😊

I will stew the apples and lemon as you suggested. Thank you !

rtandon27

Hello All - we've had a couple of weeks with no meal plan!  Easter week because we were on staycation and last week because I failed to produce a plan!  We've been grazing & not had many balanced meals!  Fixing that tonight with a storecupboard & freezer staple - Thai curry & rice.  Today's red curry will have chicken, potatoes, green peppers & bamboo shoots.  Chicken and paste from the freezer, veg from the bi-weekly box that arrived today, coconut milk, bamboo shoots & fish sauce from the stores!  Rice is leftover that will be reheated.  It already smells delicious and 15 mins to go on the stove.

As we now do the one out & one in rule for storecupboard items, I'll be replenishing the coconunt milk & bamboo shoots.  We have plenty of jarred red & green thai paste and whichever jar gets opened next time will be divvied up and frozen in small pots.  Also discovered we are out of tinned lentils and cream of mushroom soup, which OH used early last month and forgot to get me to add to the list

In my trawls online to add all the tinned goods to my online basket I found that they are stocking TINNED SPROUTS!!!!!  Do we all remember the days of the sprouts?  Was is @Hypno or @Cheery_Daff who owns that claim to fame????

Suffolk_lass

I have a bag of blanched and frozen sprouts but I am not sure I would ever buy tinned one @rtandon27. Over here, our very different diets continue. (He is fat free, I am sugar and starchy carb free.) We can both share a piece of protein with salad though and a single (gargantuan) chicken breast, sliced into cm+ thick slices, sprinkled with seasoning and fried with a lid on for five minutes, then turned and heat off, while a small salad plate is prepared, has been our go-to this week. I seem to be spending more on F&V and our home-grown crops so far are limited to asparagus and rhubarb. Berries and our respective yoghurts have featured as a shared but very different dessert. The dog has quickly learned he doesn't like the texture of the Greek 0% fat yoghurt Mr Sl has, and lurks near me (full fat Greek yoghurt here!) for a finger run round the bowl at the end!

It's always a bit weird here in May and June as I try to balance the garden and the bees, and often we realise the light is going and we have not eaten. Soup is our go-to, although Hummus and veg sticks was Mr Sl's choice after our monthly lunch (village community lunch was cajun meatballs; mine without the pasta or garlic bread, his without the garlic bread, he did have plain bread to mop up the sauce, then had a second portion!). We both missed out on the sticky toffee ginger cake but I had the fruit with cream. My stash of stewed fruit (kilner jars, bottled hot, as though it were jam) has lasted all winter and there are about 8 or 10 left, just to see us through to this year's fresh berries). Cheaper to store than in a freezer, we don't mind eating this on repeat!

I can't think what I need to buy beyond yoghurt this week so must do a bit of an audit. 

jennypennysaver

Suffolk_lass said:

I have a bag of blanched and frozen sprouts but I am not sure I would ever buy tinned one @rtandon27. Over here, our very different diets continue. (He is fat free, I am sugar and starchy carb free.) We can both share a piece of protein with salad though and a single (gargantuan) chicken breast, sliced into cm+ thick slices, sprinkled with seasoning and fried with a lid on for five minutes, then turned and heat off, while a small salad plate is prepared, has been our go-to this week. I seem to be spending more on F&V and our home-grown crops so far are limited to asparagus and rhubarb. Berries and our respective yoghurts have featured as a shared but very different dessert. The dog has quickly learned he doesn't like the texture of the Greek 0% fat yoghurt Mr Sl has, and lurks near me (full fat Greek yoghurt here!) for a finger run round the bowl at the end!

It's always a bit weird here in May and June as I try to balance the garden and the bees, and often we realise the light is going and we have not eaten. Soup is our go-to, although Hummus and veg sticks was Mr Sl's choice after our monthly lunch (village community lunch was cajun meatballs; mine without the pasta or garlic bread, his without the garlic bread, he did have plain bread to mop up the sauce, then had a second portion!). We both missed out on the sticky toffee ginger cake but I had the fruit with cream. My stash of stewed fruit (kilner jars, bottled hot, as though it were jam) has lasted all winter and there are about 8 or 10 left, just to see us through to this year's fresh berries). Cheaper to store than in a freezer, we don't mind eating this on repeat!

I can't think what I need to buy beyond yoghurt this week so must do a bit of an audit. 

Hi peeps; I'm new here.
@ Suffolk_lass please can you tell me how you do your stewed fruit? 😊