If you are organised and do meal planning every week - can I pinch your ideas?

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I need to meal plan each week, beyond spag bol, shep pie.

What do you do?

Very grateful in advance .

[nailpolish]

oh a lovely safe thread.

i plan my meals cos money is tight, and i have a list when i go to the shop.

my fave is pasta, piles of veg and different sauces.

[lunavix]

Jacket potato and salad meal, an 'exotic foreign' meal lol like mexican (tacos, fajitas) or a curry or japanese or similar, a pasta (usually a bolognese or carbonara), soup (to make it a little cheaper.. although we usually have covent garden ) and a random meal for the week, whatever looks good in the pizza department usually.... saturday is usually at a friend's house and sunday a roast.. pretty boring I'm afraid!

[laa]

chicken stir fry - chicken, courgette, mushroom , red pepper and soy sauce and lemon jusice and garlic, with rice - v. quick and easy. Also pasta shapes with bacon, tomatoes, and above mentioned veg. with grated cheese. Meatballs in tomato sauce - Waitrose so nice fresh ones to save the hassle. Also nice recipe in How to Eat by Nigella Lawson for chicken burgers - sounds vile I know but they are v. tasty and easy too.

[zubb]

lasagne / stroganoff / goulash / fish pie / salmon / pie and jacket potatoes / omelletes / meat balls - usually lamb mince / stir fries / casseroles / pasta with chicken, pesto and creme fraiche / curry / risotto etc etc
I tend to do a roast on a sunday and then use the left over meat for the monday dish, so could be roast chicken then fajitas on the monday. I do a fish dish once a week, and a mince dish, a potato and veg meal - with a pie or chops, then try to do a different meat, and a vegetarian one.

[nailpolish]

oh yes omlettes are a good one.

[Marina]

Jacket potato with cauliflower cheese, pasta with broccoli and anchovies, leek and smoked fish risotto, spaghetti carbonara and lamb, spinach and babycorn korma are all quick-to-prepare faves in our house.

[galaxy]

Sausage casserole with crusty bread
Spag Bol with garlic
Lasagne
Ginger lamb chops with new potatoes and peas
Fahitas
Chilli
Jacket potatoes with tuna and salad
Beef in burgundy sauce
Coq au vin
Chicken stir fry
Minute steaks with veg and a pepper sauce


(Quite amazed myself there as we only started meal planning 2 weeks ago)

[FlashingNose]

Drool - can I come and live at your house galaxy??

[galaxy]

LOL - quite proud as we only spent £70 on groceries this week and usually spend over £150. (Mind you dh has run out of beer and I'm not drinking at the moment)

[FlashingNose]

And could you talk me through Fajitas - never done them? And tuna - is that steak or tinned?

[FlashingNose]

£70 for that lot?? V impressed.

[galaxy]

Tinned I'm afraid. Fahitas are easy but don't buy the El Paso kits - buy Discovery fahitas and fahita mix (powdered), chop up an onion and fry with skinless chicken breast and the sauce mix.

Get some gaucomole and sour cream and bobs your uncle.

[FlashingNose]

Don't be afraid .

[galaxy]

No (We haven't eaten that much in 1 week). That was over 2 weeks so probably about £120 but that includes household stuff like loo roll etc.

[frogs]

Tuna rice
Vegetable stir-fry
Pumpkin risotto
Sausage casserole
Chicken soup with noodles or rice
Baked potatoes with salad and cheese
Pasta with tomato/bolognese sauce
Lasagne
Home-made pizza (breadmaker!)
Lamb couscous
Roast vegetables with pasta
Spanish omelette

Like zubb I usually do a Sunday roast, and then do the meal planning on Sunday night according to what we've got left. We also get a box delivery of fruit and veg. on Fridays, so it also depends what comes in that.

[geekgrrl]

oriental turkey mince with peppers, spring onions, ginger, soy sauce and fresh basil stirred in at the end on thai rice;
also when we do spag bol we make double amounts and have chili con carne a day later (the children have spag bol two days in a row but they like it) - just add chili and kidney beans to the sauce - we also add a bit of dark chocolate to chili (sounds weird but really adds to the taste)

[zubb]

yes, I always make double amounts of most things so that I can just get something out of the freezer a couple of times a week.

[Gwenick]

This week we're having

Asian Fish Stir Fry
Barbecued Confetti Pasta
Cajun Pork Chops
Roasted Vegetables and Winter Beans
Cube Steak Skillet Stew
Crock-pot Chicken Indonesian
Bangers and Mash

did the shopping yesterday (online) and including all the 'weekly' stuff - nappies, dishwasher tablets, yoghurts, bread, milk (24 pints!)etc etc and delivery charge spent £88.

[mckenzie]

I like the sound of those dishes Gwenick - are they in your head or from someone's recipe book?

[Gwenick]

mckenzie - they're from an American menumailer I subscribe to. Some of the ingredients aren't avaiable in the UK as the names we know them as and they use strange terms (broil=grill) but I've not had any problems with them so far - and it comes with a 'shopping list' so you don't need to sit down and work out how much stuff you need for each recipe. I get 6 recipes each week so I just add a 7th myself - sometimes one of my old ones (been using it since August) but more often than not just grab one of the old recipes from it and use that.

I've got about 30 redundant recipe books now LOL

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

Great ideas!

Can I just ask for recipes for some (most I can work out from what you've said).

Recipes for:

sausage casserole (Galaxy)

Pumpkin Risotto (Frogs)

Barbecued confetti pasta (Gwenick)
Crock pot chicken indonesian (Gwenick)

Thank you .

[Gwenick]

puff I'd love to give you the recipes - but I can't. It's a subscription service and if they find out I've been sharing recipes they could stop sending me them

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

Bummer! I could subscribe of course !

[frogs]

Sorry, missed this on Thursday!

Pumpkin risotto is pretty simple, but relatively labour-intensive in terms of stirring. I adapted this from Nigella's recipe for mushroom risotto in 'How to Eat' as we kept gettting pumpkins in our vegetable delivery and I was sick of watching them go off while I tried to find a use for them!

I cook this in one of those large Spanish terracotta dishes. If you like precision wrt quantities, you'll have to check with Nigella.

Put in some olive oil (a good bit) and some butter (a decent wodge -- unsalted). When it has melted, fry the onions and garlic till soft, add chopped pumpkin or squash, fry a bit more, add the arborio rice, fry a bit more. I spice it up with a knifetip of chilli flakes, which are readily available from Turkish shops in North London.

When it's all cooking nicely add about 300ml (a large glass) of white wine, and simmer. When it starts to dry out, add the stock which you will be keeping warm in another saucepan. I use that Marigold swiss bouillon powder, or chicken stock from the previous Sunday's roast.

Keep adding the liquid, a ladleful at a time, and keep stirring. It's done when the rice is cooked (fairly obviously). At the very last moment, add some parmesan (shaved is better than grated, if you can be bothered). It's also v. nice with something green stirred in at the last minute -- chard or spinach works well, or even parsley.

A less labour-intensive way of cooking pumpkin is to slice it (having removed peel), and arrange in a dish with roughly sliced onion and garlic. Slosh olive oil over, add some bacon or chorizo if you have it, plus some salt and black pepper and cook in hot oven for c. 20 mins, turning once. When it's starting to brown, pour over a tin or two of chopped tomatoes, maybe some wine if you have it, and cook for another 20 mins or so. Top off with a bit of cheese. If you need extra carbohydrate with this, a bit of couscous is a good companion.

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

sounds lovely frogs. Thanks .