Things we’ve done to extend our food reach (trying to avoid going on a grocery run for as long as possible):
Last night’s dinner: we made a delicious vegetarian meal - dhal tadka, shared a rice and had one naan between us rather than a whole one each. The other two naans from the packet went into the freezer for two more meals. This was plenty filling and any more would just have been greedy (I generally approve of greediness 😉 but not atm!). I used a green chilli that had been in the fridge for at least two weeks and was looking a little tired. It was still perfectly fine to cook down.
I used the last of the fresh coriander leaves for the dahl, chopped up the stalks and froze them to be used next week in a Thai noodle soup.
I also froze the rest of the fresh herbs from the fridge as we aren’t having any meals this week that will use them up - rosemary, basil, chives and dill.
We’ve changed our meal plan - decided not to use our frozen meat for the time being to keep a good stock for now, so I froze the little leftover portion of braised red cabbage which I made last week - I had been planning to use that for a meal this week.
We don’t have many eggs so Mary Berry’s banana loaf has been cancelled (sad times!) as it would have used two eggs and I’d rather have them available for other things. Instead I made banana pancakes for breakfast yesterday with one of the bananas and one egg. My DH always has his with maple syrup; I like mine with maple syrup and a few rashers of streaky bacon. But again, I really didn’t need the bacon so I didn’t have any, that way we’ve got that for another meal. Tonight I’m going to make us each a banana mug cake (eggless) to use up one more banana. I’ll look for some new ideas this week to use up the last two (you can freeze them but I don’t have any room in my freezer). Photo attached to show how brown the bananas are - still perfectly good and delicious to use for cooking/baking, in fact these really aren’t quite over-ripe enough yet, IMO.
I will be making us single meal minestrone/other soup/stew for lunches this week and next, to keep on top of using our fresh veg (since I can’t freeze any more). I usually make one big batch to eat over 5 days or so but we don’t have room in the fridge to store it.
I’ve just checked our bag of salad and the last few leaves probably aren’t going to last to make tuna melts for lunch tomorrow, so I’ll make us a simple salad tonight instead.
I’ve got a bag of chopped swede that I bought on a whim because it was really cheap. It needs using, so tomorrow I’ll make swede/carrot/parsnip mash which I’ll probably use for a spiced cottage pie.