Reverse Meal Planning

joedenise

Cooked a gammon joint in the slow cooker yesterday on a bed of carrots and onions.  Wizzed up the carrots, onions & some of the stock to make soup for lunch for today.  Love a free meal!

Suffolk_lass

That reminds me I have chicken stock to finish turning into soup!

ruby_eskimo

In my bid to try and finish things in the freezer so I can defrost it, I'm having a portion of haddock chowder that I found lurking in there for dinner tonight.  Probably should mention that I've ended up adding 2 portions of lasagne and 2 portions of bolognese to the freezer last night as I had leftovers   Oh well that's 2 dinners sorted over the next couple of weeks.

rtandon27

SL we ended up finishing the turkey on open face danish style rye sandwiches with sliced cucumber for breakfast & then had a use it up veggie omelette for lunch.

Joedenise - what a great idea to cook gammon in the slow cooker on a bed of veg - might just steal that do up a small one for sandwich meat - I've got two in the freezer atm.

Our bi-weekly grocery delivery arrived yesterday, but with so many items missing that we will be doing freezer dives to creatively fill in the blanks on the meal plan!  We were lucky to get eggs, as the driver mentioned they are scarce again and constantly selling out.  Also convenience foods were missing so will be doing a lot of from scratch cooking for the next two weeks!

Last night we used up spinach & mushrooms from the veg box, along with 1/2 jar of porcini sauce I'd stored in the freezer, stirred into some fresh cappelletti which the OH liked better than tortellini, but I found too starchy.

Tonight instead of battered cod from a box with packaged oven fries, we'll panko crumb some cod fillets & have home made wedges & zucchini fingers.  Same basic idea, but more effort required!  I'm sure the homemade version of fish & chips is healthier & cheaper 

joedenise

@rtandon27  I'm sure the homemade fish and chips will be far healthier and far tastier than anything that comes out of a box from the freezer!

If you do the gammon joint on a bed of veg in the SC don't forget to soak it overnight to get rid of some of the salt - my stock was definitely a bit on the salty side because I hadn't as I'd thought I'd bought an unsmoked joint but it turned out to be a smoked one but I didn't realise until it was too late to soak.

We're having the LO gammon tonight with chips, mushrooms (which need using up), half tin of beans which are in the fridge and some home grown tomatoes.  Definitely a bit of a use it up dinner tonight!

Baileys_Babe

We usually cook our gammon joints in the slow cooker, I bung it in and hope. If you have suggestions on timings that would be useful @joedenise?

joedenise

I just put mine in on a bed of onions and carrots and a little veg or chicken stock and then cook on Low for 8 hours, or I don't have time to do it all day then can be done for 4 hours on high but I find it's much more tender cooked on Low.  This week I actually did a combination of 2 hours on High and 4 hours on Low (an hour on High is the equivalent of 2 hours on Low roughly).  All ways work.  It won't overcook if you find you have to leave it longer than the 8 hours on Low but wouldn't want to go over by too much if it's on High.

Baileys_Babe

joedenise said:

I just put mine in on a bed of onions and carrots and a little veg or chicken stock and then cook on Low for 8 hours, or I don't have time to do it all day then can be done for 4 hours on high but I find it's much more tender cooked on Low.  This week I actually did a combination of 2 hours on High and 4 hours on Low (an hour on High is the equivalent of 2 hours on Low roughly).  All ways work.  It won't overcook if you find you have to leave it longer than the 8 hours on Low but wouldn't want to go over by too much if it's on High.

Thanks, @joedenise for the details, that is roughly what I do but with less thought and more guesswork.

Suffolk_lass

Apart from the one that lives in the van, all my slow cookers are now in the cupboard (along with the toaster) as the range is now on for winter. We love slow cooked meals and just bung them in cast iron pots in the warming oven for 24 hours or the simmer oven for the day.

I must freezer dive for meat today, ready for tomorrow and the weekend but will be making a chicken pie to use up the rest of the chicken pickings. We had a very generous curry with hm flat breads using about half the meat for supper, and soup made from the stock for lunch.

ruby_eskimo

Having a range oven must be lovely Suffolk_lass. 

We're having fajita's tonight using chicken that was leftover from our roast on Sunday combined with peppers and onions I found in the freezer.