This week’s meal plan: the coming-and-going one

Posted by louisa on Monday 21 March 2011 in weekly meal plans | 2 comments

We stuck to the plan much better last week than the week before – not perfectly but much better.

As well as continuing DIY madness (which is proving to be more disruptive than we thought), John’s out at a conference for three days midweek (and we’ve got a friend staying over to go to it too) and I’m starting to be get into crunch mode for the play I’m working on so we’ll be coming and going a lot. I’d still like to have a plan to avoid slipping over to the easy junk food option but I have a lot less inclination to cook for myself though and I think this is reflected in the easy/less-than-varied choices.

Sunday dinner: pasta with herby sausages, peppers & olives

Monday lunch: curried egg mayo sandwiches
Monday dinner: chicken fried rice

Tuesday lunch: leftover fried rice (assuming there is some) or a toastie
Tuesday dinner: homemade pizza (since the friend is over and that was one of the things we swapped out last week) or possibly a curry with some more friends, as they’re in town for the film festival

Wednesday late-lunch: pasta with tuna & olives
Wednesday supper: (John out at the conference dinner, I’m rehearsing ’til 10) crackers & cheese

Thursday lunch: leftover tuna pasta
Thursday dinner: tortilla, with sweet potato, wild garlic & chorizo, with side salad

Friday lunch: samosas & salad
Friday dinner: company meal out (Little Tokyo in Leeds, mmm!)

This week’s meal plans: enter the wild garlic

Posted by louisa on Sunday 6 March 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 0 comments

We ended up with more leftovers last week than I though – we got two dinners out of the risotto and two & a half from the kedgeree, so ended up shuffling things to get those used up. Four portions of curry went in the freezer too – homemade ready meals for the future – but I struggled to fit them in because we have a lot of previously frozen dinners in there – need to start working our way through them to keep them well rotated.

I’m delighted that the wild garlic in the woods is getting big enough to pick now – I hope it’ll feature quite a bit in our diet over the next couple of months (in salads if nothing else).

Sunday lunch – leftover pizza, mmm pizza
Sunday dinner – pasta with chorizo, wild garlic & pine nuts, with salad

Monday lunch – tomato & basil soup with bread
Monday dinner – spicy sausages & lentil casserole (will make enough for two dinners – second lot to be frozen)

Tuesday lunch – fish and chips if Strowger comes around :)
Tuesday dinner – pork chops with creamy mustard leeks and baked sweet potato

Wednesday lunch – bread and cheese & meat
Wednesday dinner – previously frozen keema & channa curry, with naan

Thursday lunch – egg mayo ploughmans lunch type thing
Thursday dinner – jerk chicken with rice&peas (or chips, if we’re feeling lazy) and salad

Friday lunch – leftover chicken with salad
Friday dinner – frittata

This week’s meal plan – it’s a curry-centric one! ;)

Posted by louisa on Sunday 27 February 2011 in cooking, frugal, weekly meal plans | 5 comments

We didn’t do great with our meal plan last week – I think the novelty of having one has started to wane but we’re keen to turn it into a habit so we’re going to keep trying with it. Actually, looking at it again, we did have most of the meals we’d planned, just not in the right order. And the one meal we didn’t have – Spanish omelette – didn’t result in anything being wasted – we had to go to the supermarket to buy potatoes and ended up getting something else instead. Anyway, onward and upward:

Sunday night – meal out – curry, woo! (we’re leaving very soon so double woo! ;) )

Monday lunch – soup & bread
Monday dinner – chicken & red pepper risotto with salad

Tuesday lunch – curried egg mayo sandwiches
Tuesday dinner – jacket potato & tuna with salad

Wednesday lunch – falafel in pitta with salad & raita
Wednesday dinner – keema & channa achar (a lamb mince & chickpea curry)

Thursday lunch – pitta with meat/cheese
Thursday dinner – smoked mackerel kedgeree

Friday lunch – bread & meat/cheese
Friday dinner – frittata

Meal planning: this week’s menu

Posted by louisa on Sunday 13 February 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 3 comments

Ok, last week – our first attempt at sticking to a meal plan – was a bit of a failure. It went up in flames on day TWO. We’d forgotten John was going out in the afternoon/evening for a talk so had to change lunch to make it more filling (and some people came for lunch too), and I worked late and forgot I was supposed to make the casserole anyway (John ate the sausages for breakfasts instead). Aside from that though (and having to find something else on Thursday, which was supposed to be leftover casserole day), we stuck to it and it worked well — I knew on Friday afternoon that I’d have to take a break mid-afternoon to start the pizza dough rather than waiting to start until the evening, and it had plenty of time to rise beautifully.

Here is our plan for this week – and hopefully there won’t be any unexpected events!

Sunday brunch – bacon butties, mmm bacon
Sunday dinner – courgette & chorizo frittata, with salad

Monday lunch – falafel in pittas with raita (made with leftover yoghurt), with salad leftover chicken from Saturday night, with rice
Monday dinner – fry up (leftover bacon, mushrooms, hash browns, beans, & eggs – breakfast for dinner ;) )

Tuesday lunch – sigh, I’m going to just accept it – fish and chips probably; if not, something with hard boiled eggs as we’ve some older ones to use up
Tuesday dinner – chicken & bean enchiladas, with salad

Wednesday lunch – bread with a selection of cheese, meat & pickles (our default lunch option)
Wednesday dinner – (I’m out until 10pm) leftover enchiladas, with salad

Thursday lunch – John will probably be out; I’ll have the same as Wednesday
Thursday dinner – pasta with tuna, olives, chillis & parmesan

Friday lunch – something with eggs – scrambled eggs with chorizo? boiled eggs? tbc!
Friday dinner – burgers with salad

(Not planning for Saturday & Sunday this week as I’m out all day both days; I imagine John will have eggs for brunch then possibly go out or get take out later in the day.)

Meal planning: our lunches & dinners this week

Posted by louisa on Monday 7 February 2011 in cooking, eating, frugal, weekly meal plans | 6 comments

We’re not very good a meal planning. We usually manage it for the three or four days following our monthly big trip to the supermarket. I know they’re a really good idea – saving money, reducing food waste etc – but we’re quite quite rubbish at anything that involves personal organisation.

Often we’ll not even think about what we want for dinner until it’s already 8pm and we’re both blood-sugar crashing. When that happens we’re more likely to turn to ordering take-in or running to the (nearby, expensive) shop for something quick – which invariably means buying something junky for dinner and spending extra money because we’re hungry and everything looks sooooo good.

Our lunches are the same – we usually don’t think about them until we need to eat and they have to be ready quickly so we can take the dog out and get back to work in good time. Lunches are a lot cheaper for us now we both work from home than they were when we were similar disorganised and worked in offices – but they rely on what we’ve got in or another trip to the expensive shop. And I think they generate the bulk of our food waste – loaves bought in or made for lunches and not finished before they go stale etc.

So here we go – my first attempt at a week’s meal plan:

Monday lunch – boiled eggs & toast (I had food poisoning or a tummy bug over the weekend and am still feeling a little delicate. This is our favourite poorly tummy food)
Monday dinner – pasta with herby sausages & peppers in a tomato sauce

Tuesday lunch – spicy butternut squash soup (to be made this evening) with bread (which will need buying/making), & cheese
Tuesday dinner – spicy sausage & lentil casserole (the last of the sausages that need using up) with veg

Wednesday lunch – more spicy butternut squash soup with bread & cheese
Wednesday dinner – a difficult meal slot as I’m out until 10pm – keema achar curry (made by John last week, now in the freezer) either with rice or chapattis & naan (depending if he can be bothered making them fresh)

Thursday lunch – John will probably be out so probably just more soup & bread for me
Thursday dinner – leftover sausage & lentil casserole and veg (will need to buy something green)

Friday lunch – our random version of a ploughman’s lunch with samosas (from the petrol station … yes! I know! but strangely they’re some of the best samosas we’ve ever eaten and only 60p each!) and pickles
Friday dinner – homemade pizza – tuna & chilli, and chorizo & peppers (need to buy mozzarella)

Saturday brunch – scrambled eggs & muffins/crumpets (to buy, whichever are on offer)
Saturday dinner – spicy marinaded chicken pieces (need to buy the chicken) & rice

Right, let’s see how much we stick to it!