To ask what a typical week of family dinners looks like for you?

[wefly]

What family meals do you make in a week?

I need inspiration and also just interested to know what everyone does...

I live alone but enjoy cooking

Weekly it varies a lot but typical meals

• Halloumi with roasted veg and merchant gourmet grains (I roast big trays of veg and keep in the fridge)
• Shakshouka (I add any left over roasted veg from the above) and either feta or goats cheese depending what's in the fridge!
• batch cooked meals - cottage pie, lasagne, beef stew sausage and mash pie are staples for me

- pasta bake - I do this to use up what's in the fridge so any bits of veg, cheese or meat. Always a tomato based sauce and great for using up pesto or cream cheese too. It's never turned out bad (typical one would be onion, tomatoes, sweetcorn, bacon, cream cheese, homemade tomato sauce, pasta, mozzarella and cheddar)

• lazy meal for after netball - pizza!
• simple meal like omelette and salad or jacket potato

My two main inspirations are

https://www.instagram.com/boredoflunch?igsh=Nmk0ZGRrYm1vd2lv

(This one is doing 20 min summer dinners at the minute so worth a look!)

https://www.instagram.com/dontgobaconmyheart_?igsh=MWdxb2Rib29oZHhkZQ==

BBC Good Food recipes are good for easy to prepare meals. There are some fantastic traybake recipes

Ok, I'm intrigued - What's goblin pie please?! 🙂

Roast pork or chicken
Fish pie
Tofu or prawn stir fry
Spag bol
Chicken wraps w hummus n salad
Chilli / burritos
Aubergine parmigiana
Pasta n pesto
Jacket pots, salad
Ratatouille & cauliflower cheese
Fish cakes and greens
Thai prawns
Chicken goujons
Salad nicoise
Sausage & mash
Lasagna
Roast veg & feta
Curry

What are sloppy joes??

This week we've had

Goan chicken curry with rice
Roast chicken with veg and roast potatoes
Steak and sausage puff pastry pie with veg and mash
Wholewheat penne arriabata
Meatballs will pasta
Homemade burgers, coleslaw and chips
Beef stir fry (adults) fish fingers, beans, waffles (kids)

Also regularly do things like spag Bol, chilli con carne, mince & tatties, lasagne, tacos, fajitas, etc

What we've had so far this week and what I've planned

Roast dinner chicken
Pasta bake with left over chicken added
Sausage and mash and veg
Jacket potatoes and salad
Fajitas
Homemade pizza and wedges

@MadameMassiveSalad - sloppy joes are meatballs in a tomato sauce served in a roll/bun/bap. DH follows a Jamie Oliver recipe from his 5 ingredient book with green pesto and mozzarella. Traditionally, I don't think they are necessarily meatballs, just mince but we still call them sloppy joes!

This week the meal plan is -

Spanish style cod fillets (cod steamed on a bed of spicy chickpea and tomato stew) with steamed new potatoes and green beans.

Home made chicken curry and rice (batch cooked at the weekend)

Penne pasta with homemade beef ragu

Smoked mackerel pilau rice

Baked salmon fillets with creamy leaks and potatoes.

We eat of lot of fish mid week - it is healthy and quick to cook.

I get hello fresh for four days a week (just two of us now)
Sunday: chicken burgers with wedges and salad
Monday: lamb stew with cous cous
Tuesday: chicken Kiev with wedges and roasted veg
Today: stir fry with noodles
Thursday: shepherds pie
Friday: fish with veg
Saturday: teriyaki pulled beef bao buns

I buy Batchelors marrowfat peas (dried). They come in a pack of 400g, and I use all of them at a time, even though the packet instructions suggest 200g at a time. They come with 2 tablets of bicarbonate of soda, which you simply unwrap and put in with the peas, then cover with 2 pints of boiling water and leave to soak overnight. The next day, drain the water, rinse the peas, then put in a pot with 2 pints of water, bring to a boil and simmer until mushy - an hour or so. Season to taste, and that's it! I usually divide the result into 4, freeze 3 lots in freezer bags, and eat the other between 2 of us. Hope that helps!

Sunday - Lasagne with garlic bread
Monday - beef and mushrooms in a red wine sauce, veg and mash
Tuesday - Peanut butter chicken and rice
Wednesday - Honey and mustard sausages, veg and mash
Thursday - Fish, chips and peas
Friday - Burritos and salad
We rarely eat a meal on Saturdays, just graze.

Sunday- roast chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, veg and gravy and pudding was homemade blackcurrant shortcake with clotted cream

Monday - cheese and onion quiche (shop bought), homemade potato salad and salad

Tuesday - made Bolognese sauce and served it with spaghetti for kids and as lasagne for adults. With salad

Wednesday - beef and veg in honey and garlic sauce with rice and prawn crackers

Thursday - beef koftas, halloumi, greek salad, tzatziki and yoghurt flatbreads

Friday- pulled pork fajitas

Saturday - pulled pork with stuffing and apple sauce on oven bottom muffins with wedges and salad

Looking back this is quite a meat heavy week! Trying to use up stuff from the freezer

This week:
Sunday - baked potatoes with beans and cheese and some quiche left over from Saturday.
Monday - bean burgers with wedges
Tuesday - lasagne (I bulk cook and it goes into the freezer) and garlic bread. It's beef lasagne but I put loads of veg and lentils in it as well.
Wednesday - sausage toad with mashed potatoes and veg
Thursday - cottage pie (this is assembled from the freezer - I do bulk batches of the filling and we're always making too much mashed potato so it goes in the freezer till we have enough to top a cottage pie!) Again, the filling is beef but with lots of veg and lentils in there.
Friday - gammon with roast veg and mashed potatoes
Saturday - cold gammon with roast veg and either mash or wedges

There'll also be enough left over gammon that I'll make at least one pasta bake (cheese sauce, green veg, chopped gammon) for the freezer.

That's a pretty typical week. Other stuff we eat fairly often is spaghetti Bolognese, chicken casserole, sausage casserole, homemade pizza (we have a bread maker so do the base in that), fish pie, cooked breakfast.

I also try to make a batch of cake or cookies at some point during the week to have as pudding.

Quiche ( homemade)
Pasta and pesto with various veggies
Mushroom stroganoff with rice
Frittata and salad
Tuscan bean stew with homemade bread
Homemade pizza
Macaroni cheese ( homemade)
Also dahl with homemade flat breads features regularly.

Puddings are home made cake or yogurt honey and nuts

We are having a lot of BBQ meat with salad, roast chicken with salad and wraps at the moment as that’s all we fancy in summer. Our farm shop has been selling BBQ meat really cheaply because the weather has been so bad they aren’t selling it, so we just oven cook it. Various marinaded chicken, lamb koftas, different burgers and sausages, pork etc.

But our usual all year favourites are:

Roast dinners
Chicken, bacon and pea pasta (DD’s fav)
Salmon fillet with new pots and green veg
Sausage and mash
Bolognese
Chicken traybakes (Nigella recipes)
Chicken curry and rice
Chilli and rice
Fish and chips
Southern fried chicken burgers or wraps
Pie, potatoes and veg
Macaroni cheese

Variations on a theme. This week-
Friday night - son always cooks, this week honey and sesame chicken and rice, with long stem broccoli.
Saturday night - enchiladas, salad and red wine.
Sunday - roast chicken dinner
Monday - salmon and new potatoes one pot from.bbc good food.
Tuesday - roast vegetable and pine nut pesto pasta
Wednesday - freezer night one -breaded chicken, oven chips, salad
Thursday - freezer night two- fish , chips and peas.
We only shop once a week so stuck in a rut with the two freezer nights

I love reading what other families are cooking & eating!

Over the past week we've had:

Homemade butter chicken with basmati rice & garlic & coriander naan with loads of fresh coriander

Beef chili with mexican rice, guacamole, black beans, sour cream, cheese & jalapeños- dd had hers as a burrito, dh had his as nachos & I had mine just as a rice bowl

We had that x two nights as I like to cook enough for 2 nights during the week

Creamy tomato chicken pasta with fresh basil & parmesan & fusili pasta, marinaded Olives & garlic bread

Dh & dd had this x 2 nights while I had salad (caesar salad kit from supermarket with added tomato, cucumber, radish, red onion, Avocado, ham & hard boiled egg)

I made a large fruit salad which we ate over 2 nights - plums, cherries, Raspberries, strawberries.

Tonight I'll make slow cooked beef ragu which I'll serve with gnocchi & green salad & parmesan. I'll freeze half for another night.

Tomorrow salmon baked in foil with ginger, coriander, spring onion, red pepper & soy sauce served with steamed new potatoes & sugar snaps

Friday we'll have crispy Sesame chicken with sticky rice & broccoli

I'm losing weight so I will make these meals for dh & dd (who love my cooking) & I'll either adapt mine or I have salad.

At the weekend I'll do either:

Roast chicken, sage & onion stuffing, roast potatoes, parmesan parsnips, steamed carrots, marrowfat peas & gravy

Or

Roast beef with homemade Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese greens & gravy

I freeze leftovers of all these meaks which means there's usually something fast in to rustle up for dd as sometimes dh & I love to have something v simple like breaded haddock, steamed new potatoes with butter & petit pois & dd doesn't like that meal

I love making more luxurious versions of teen dds fav takeaways so we make really good versions of meatball subs (subway style), homemade burgers, bbq chicken, Chinese roast chicken etc

Fussy kids

Spag bol
Chilli (without spice) rice
Chicken kiev/breaded chicken of some kind
Fish fingers
Lasagne - without cheese
Pizza
Toad in the hole
Fajhitas - well, hummus veg wraps
Meatballs and pasta
Roast - under protest
BBQ hot dogs
BBQ burgers
Rice bowl with veg sticks, peanut butter or humus and proteins
Toast, all the toast.

All other food stuffs rejected.

This week we are having/had

Mon- KFC as we came back from hols
Tues- Chicken drumsticks jacket potato and salad
Weds- Steak, crispy potatoes and green veg
Thurs- Probably Moroccan chicken from the freezer
Fri - Burgers, chips and salad
Sat- Scouse with crusty bread- Leftovers for lunches in the week
Sun- depending on plans either a meal out/takeaway or if at home then chicken, mushroom, leek and tarragon pie

Next week i'll be batch cooking a big chilli to top up the freezer and using up some meat from the freezer so lamb leg roast dinner and either lamb koftas with pita and salad or turkey kebabs and probably a green curry as we've not had one for ages.

Sunday: Roast lamb and trimmings/ halloumi cutlets and trimmings
Monday: Pizza
Tuesday:Coconut curried sea bass traybake/ Brie and asparagus traybake
Wednesday:Chicken pot pies (carrot peas and asparagus in a creamy veloute) /oumph garlic and herb chicken version of same pie with homemade chips
Thursday: Teriyaki mince stir fry/teriyaki veg stir fry
Friday: Something involving pork chops for DH and Dd2 no clue what Dd1 and I want

We tend to have

Fish chips and garden peas
Bolognese
Cottage/shepherds pie with veg
Stir fry veg and chicken
A home made soup ( leek and potato, pea and ham, chorizo and lentil etc)
Scratch made curry and rice/chips
Egg chips and beans
Sausage and beans on toast
Ploughman's type thing with home made sourdough and pate etc
Chilli with mince and Smokey bacon served with cheesy nachos
Scouse and home made sourdough
Carbonara
Roast dinner
Omelets with left overs in the fridge

But I also do mix ups like a shepherds pie but with chili , tons of veg and cheesy mash. Or carbonara but with extra stir fried veg. I tend to cook a lot of stir fried veg or oven roast it and and use it to pack out sandwiches/baguettes for DHs packed lunches. I like to use left overs as much as possible .

This weeks plan -

Mon - curry and naan
Tues - Homemade quiche and chips
Weds - cheesy chicken pasta
Thurs - jacket spuds
Fri - beige buffet (kids having a sleepover)
Sat - pork schnitzel
Sun - Seabass