This week’s meal plan – garden a go go!

Posted by louisa on Monday 27 June 2011 in weekly meal plans | 8 comments

Our first Swillington Farm meat box arrived last Thursday night – all the (fresh) meat we’re eating this week (and hopefully for the next three weeks!) will come from that. Most of it went in the freezer so we’ll have it across the month and like a veg box, we don’t have any choice in what’s in there, so it should encourage us to some try different things. We had some of the bacon & some of the sausages for breakfast over the weekend and I also jointed the chicken – we froze the breasts (which each weighed over 250g/half a lb!) and had the rest on Saturday/Sunday. Tuesday’s soup comes from stock from the carcass – it was supposed to be for eating today but it’s far too hot for that today!

As for the title for this one – the garden is finally providing! We’ve been having spots of salad for a few weeks (much later than last year for some reason) but various things are finally starting to shine. I think there is something from our garden – either veg or eggs – in every meal, hurrah :)

Sunday breakfast – eggs & sausage
Sunday lunch – leftover chicken & potatoes, with homegrown garlicky broad beans & salad
Sunday dinner – dining out – curry

Monday lunch – marrow flower fritters with salad
Monday dinner – rump steak with purple sprouting broccoli, homegrown potatoes, broad beans & salad

Tuesday lunch – chicken & sweetcorn soup
Tuesday dinner – pasta with chorizo, pepper & homegrown courgette

Wednesday lunch – leftover chicken & sweetcorn soup
Wednesday dinner – chicken jalfrezi with lemon rice

Thursday lunch – bread & meat with broad bean salad
Thursday dinner – leftover chicken jalfrezi with lemon rice

Friday lunch – curried egg mayo with bread
Friday dinner – homemade pizza, with salad

Weekly meal plan: the lots of quick meals week

Posted by louisa on Monday 4 April 2011 in weekly meal plans | 3 comments

As I mentioned last week, this week is show week for my drama classes – we had our first dress rehearsal last night and … it’s going to be a long week. I didn’t get as much put in the freezer last week as I hoped either – and our store cupboard supplies are low because we’ve not been to the supermarket for a big shop in … a month?. John and I have also both woken up this morning with sore throats/swollen glands. It’s going to be a very long week.

Monday lunch – pastrami with toasted sourdough bread and pickles
Monday dinner – pasta with John’s pasta sauce (from the freezer), and salad

Tuesday lunch – either scrambled eggs or beans on toast
Tuesday dinner – chilli-glazed pork chops with carrots & green beans

Wednesday lunch – chicken pieces & salad and bread
Wednesday dinner – pasta with tuna, sweetcorn, olives & chillis before I go or possibly curry (from the freezer) after I return

Thursday lunch – some sort of dal and rice (pindi channa if I can find my recipe; something with lentils if I can’t)
Thursday dinner – boiled eggs & soldiers :)

Friday lunch – leftover dal & rice
Friday dinner – possibly, probably, something on the way home from the theatre

Saturday brunch – fry-up, hells yeah.
Saturday dinner – pizza at aftershow party

Menu planning: the week we hope to actually stick to it

Posted by louisa on Monday 14 March 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 0 comments

Apologies for dropping off the radar for a couple of days – I wasn’t just recuperating from all those stairs ;) Our bathroom refit has had problem after problem, so is dragging on and on, and John’s dad was here finishing up some work in our storeroom – so we’ve been rather distracted. Then rather than doing anything constructive on Friday, I spent the whole day refreshing the Guardian’s earthquake feed page and watching devastating videos that left my heart in my mouth as the water rushed over farmland and through cities. Not a really good week by any means.

The household chaos of last week meant we veered off the meal plan to a ridiculous degree – we didn’t stick to anything past Tuesday afternoon and ate a lot of junk food. Sigh. We’re hoping that things will calm down this week (John’s dad has finished; the bathroom is, hopefully, through the worst) and we’ll be better behaved.

Sunday lunch – bacon & mozzarella butties
Sunday dinner – Cottage pie – with reduced-to-clear organic mince, lots of veggies and parmasan & garlic mash, yum!

Monday lunch – ham & cheese toasties
Monday dinner – date night dinner out, hurrah!

Tuesday lunch – fish and chips if we’re being naughty; sandwiches if we’re being good
Tuesday dinner – Leftover cottage pie

Wednesday lunch – sandwiches (meat/cheese/egg mayo)
Wednesday dinner – previously frozen keema & channa curry, with naan

Thursday lunch – samosas & salad
Thursday dinner – Tortilla/Spanish omelette with salad

Friday lunch – boiled eggs & soldiers
Friday dinner – homemade pizza

February – end of month review

Posted by louisa on Monday 28 February 2011 in chickens, frugal, goals, growing, less than 12 clothes challenge, making, meta | 9 comments

February seems to have flown by and has been a lot of fun — a good balance between work, household/growing/making productivity, crafting, and future planning.

Goals in 2011 progress

I’ve started making progress on some of the more long term goals – started sowing seeds which will hopefully turn into homegrown veg and again, I’ve made things with wood which will help with my “make a piece of furniture” goal. I haven’t baked each week but I’ve tried a few new recipes – including some lovely cinnamon biscotti – so at least I’m doing bits. (We’ve not been baking much bread recently because it’s still a bit too cold for yeast to rise properly.)

From my secondary list, I’ve also tried making soap, although I’m not sure it’s been a success yet (the soap in the moulds is still very soft). I also made a notebook (above) from scrap paper and a curtain sample, which wasn’t on my list but I had so much fun doing it that I think “learn different book binding techniques” should be on there now! Finally, we’ve been working to reduce our food waste (and save money/our sanity) by preparing meal plans – we’re not sticking to them 100% but they’re working well in general.

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

In my no more than 12 items of clothes in 2011 challenge, my tally is still zero — I’ve not bought anything this month either. I have though started looking at stuff rather than just shutting myself off from the possibilities – partly because I need to develop willpower rather than just avoiding temptation and partly because I feel like it’s time I had something new to wear (I’ve not bought any clothes since November – and that was only replacement jeans). It’s when I’m getting ready to go to drama – the classes I teach or rehearsals etc – because my suitable clothes are such a subset of my wardrobe — they not only have to be neat enough to wear outside the house, they can’t be too cleavage-y (which is a problem with a lot of my clothes because my body is too cleavage-y!) and they have to be suitable for wearing as a supposedly-responsible adult in front of teenagers. I have plenty of plain t-shirts to wear but a limited amount of warm clothes so I’ve been getting a bit bored – and as we’re preparing for a production at the start of April, I’ll be there a lot more regularly which will mean cycling through them more. So long story short, I might break into my quota in March.

Growing stuff & the chickens