Menu plan help

[Liz79]

Totally BU but posting for traffic. Please can someone help with a menu plan for a month which is slimming world, purse and family friendly. DC are 8 and 10. We eat most normal stuff. I do 3x 12hr shifts a week and dh normal hours. Kids take pack up to school. I'm lacking inspiration at the moment. I want to cut the price right down for September to November, and lose a good stone, then splurge (a bit) in December. Thanks xx

I would do (for weekday evening meals):

1 meal a week based on mince, bulked out with veggies so week 1, bolognese, week 2, shepherds or Cottage pie, week 3 chilli con carne and rice, week 4 whichever’s your favourite of the 3

1 meal a week baked potatoes with different toppings and salad (beans/cheese/tuna etc)

One veggie pasta meal a week eg pasta with homemade veg sauce, pasta with cream cheese and peas and broccoli etc

One ‘roast or meat’ type meal per week so roast chicken and veg, lamb chops and veg, pork medallions and veg etc

One fish based meal a week eg salmon with veg, salmon with noodles and veg, fish pie, grilled fish with veg etc

That kind of thing.

Take a leaf out of my nan's book.

Get the best chicken you can afford. Don't roast it. Put it in a big pot with a halved onion, couple of carrots, celery. Bring it to a boil and simmer for half an hour. Then let it cool right down.

The meat is deliciously tender and moist and you can peel off the fatty skin and chuck.

Then it's there for almost a week of chicken with new potatoes and veg, chicken casserole (cook briefly after frying onions in a pot with garlic, add tinned tomatoes and some of the stock and adding cooked chicken). Also good in sarnies.

And the stock you have left makes a brilliant soup - again, cook garlic/leeks/carrots in a little oil, add potatoes, herbs - then add the stock. Serve with cheese for your DC and bread.

My DGM added herb dumplings made with vegetable suet. Delicious but definitely not slimming world. But it made a chicken go a LONG way!

Eggs are great: healthy, cheap and quick to cook. You could have omelette with veg or salad - put some frozen spinach in the omelette or leftover scraps of ham (finely chopped, a little goes a long way) or a knob of chopped/grated cheese. Or poached eggs with baked beans, green veg, or avocado.

Vegetable soup - onions, carrots, potato, and any root vegetables that are cheap - is a good meal for once or twice a week. Have a boiled egg afterwards or give the kids a slice of cheese on toast if it isn't sufficiently filling.