Meal plans

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Anybody want to share? In no particular order:
Brazilian stew with palm hearts - recipe from Lad Iguanas
Cauliflower cheese and jacket spuds
Nigella's fish finger bhorta
Thai green curry with tofu
Shallot tart with rocket salad
Veggie chilli

@buckeejit

Placemarking as I'm usually rubbish at planning & now have to make meals for my parents at least once a week. They eat by 6 & I finish work about 5.30 but wfh so can easily put stuff in oven etc but nothing extravagant. Still working out the best way to take hot meals over-they're only 3 miles so should be ok but they're traditional eaters & can't do anything spicy!

Today-chicken schwarma king with rice & naan
Tues-prawn curry
Wed-(for parents too) - lemon chicken escalopes, baby spuds & veg
Thurs-homemade houmous & flatbread & nibbles
Fri-pizza

I'm here for any recs of good jars of sauce too & any fast meals. I'm loving the Aldi/Lidl curry sauces that have the little spice sections in top.

Staples for me are instantpot risotto, Instantpot brisket & Instantpot macaroni & cheese!

I did quite a fair bit of this sort of thing for SIL when she had her DC. Things that worked quite well for us were things that could be served warm and/or could be easily heated in a microwave or on the stove top:

eg I'd do a lamb stew and take a packet of ready-cooked rice so they just had to nuke the rice when ready to eat and, if necessary, reheat the casserole.

Lasagna (I'd do theirs in a separate tinfoil dish) - they can either put in the oven themselves or you put it in the oven and then take it over for the "resting" period (I'd never serve lasagna straight from the oven).

Roast chicken but served with new potatoes or mash rather than roasties. Then either a salad on the side or any vegetable. Again, I'd sometimes buy them a packet of pre-prepared veg that they just had to microwave when they were ready and take the whole chicken and potatoes over in tinfoil so they would keep warm.

SIL loves salad so I'd do a big chicken, avocado, feta salad with lots of crunchy things like pine nuts and peppers and cucumber.

Sausage casserole would have similar convenience as stew. With mashed potatoes perhaps? (wouldn't have done that for SIL - not sure a sausage has crossed her lips in 10 years! )

From memory, I did do the odd pasta sauce using penne (which I find works better if it needs to be eaten a bit later and/or reheated) but I can't remember what. Probably whatever pasta sauces I was a fan of at the time!

Cauliflower cheese (or combo cauliflower and broccoli cheese? or cauliflower and mac and cheese?)

Sausages and mash with onion gravy? A packet of peas for them to microwave or cook them lightly and leave in a sealed tub and let them steam a bit more on your way over to their house.

Already done next week because I was bored

Away camping Fri-Sun lunch time, sharing the catering between 3 couples.

Then from Sunday to Thursday
Chicken roast
Mushroom stroganoff
Lamb kofte
Chana masala
Chicken and apricot tagine

Next bit of meal planning starts from tomorrow and putting here as reference. It's not a v exciting week though.

Salmon with rice and veg
Chicken and chorizo paella
Roasted tomatoes with feta on spaghetti
spaghetti bolognaise.

Then we're away

Satay sweet potato curry
Cheese and tomato clafoutis
Chickpea pilaf
Macaroni cheese with courgette fritters
Tofu tagine
Veggie sausage traybake
Mozzarella and pesto panini melts

@Ricekrispie22 Do you have a recipe for the sweet potato curry? DS and DH are big peanut butter fans so I keep thinking they'd probably like satay but I've never made it.

I changed things for us this week when I realised we still had endless courgettes from a combination of our neighbour's glut and my veg box!

@SpaceOP www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/satay-sweet-potato-curry

Thanks @Ricekrispie22 That's actually quite similar to a butternut curry I do often so turning it into a satay version could be really good as DS likes it, but it's not his favourite. I'm a bit surprised by the onion but will give it a go.

Monday: koginut squash soup with crispy It’s Not Bacon
Tuesday: cauliflower katsu curry
Wednesday: shiitake, onion and potato stew
Thursday: date out at a new local vegan pasta place
Friday: pizza as per

Having been away, I need to do some new meal planning. One thing I've suddenlyy realised is that I've got this long list of meals we've eaten over the last year or so, mostly noted on my computer (and on here, of course). I think I'm going to create a definitive list and use that for inspiration because right now I can't think of ANYTHING to eat and yet I know we've had lots of good food.

I've managed to pick up some fishcakes for tonight and am going to try the satay curry recipe @Ricekrispie22 posted tomorrow (but with butternut) for tomorrow.

I’ve been away and have come back and lost all motivation
Friday: breakfast for dinner
Saturday: pasta of some design
Sunday: jambalaya
Monday: chickpea kofte with flatbread, hummus and salad
Tuesday: sweet n sour tofu and broccoli
Wednesday: dahl and naan
Thursday: DP

Sat - bhaji burgers and paneer skewers (on the bbq) served with pilau rice, spicy chickpea salad and grilled naans.
Sun - Italian stuffed aubergines (stuffed peppers for the kids) and garlic bread
Mon - mushroom shawarma (on the bbq) with pittas
Tue - courgette, feta and mint frittata
Wed - lentil ragu
Thur - jerk sweet potato and black bean curry
Fri - spinach and ricotta pie

Courgette, tomato and lemon linguine with feta and basil
Chicken pilaf
Roast chicken, cauli/broccoli cheese, green beans, carrots, roast potatoes, stuffing
Burnt aubergine chilli
BNS, mushroom and spinach lasagne

So... I did it. I put all the things on my meal plans for the last however many months into a spreadsheet! It came up with just under 60. Which is a lot but also seemed low. But there are things like stir fries, fajitas or pizza which are on the list once each but we have them in quite different formats / with different ingredients every time. Also, I didn't bother adding things like roast lamb or whatever on there.

It was quite a useful exercise. Definitely have some ideas for things we haven't had in a while now.

Not sure of exact order as we have a few family things on but over the next week or so, we're having:

Bobotie
Courgettes on pasta
Arrabiata with aubergine
Tuna pasta salad (possibly lunch)
Fajitas with Chorizo
Steak with side dishes of all the veg in my veg box including beans, kale and potatoes

Sun. Steak salad. Got these lovely bavette steaks that you flash fry, rest well and slice finely.

Mon. Picnic lunch , fish stew with chorizo and hake for dinner

Tue. Leftover fish stew (if no leftovers I will use lasagna from freezer)

Wed. Birthday tea= 2x packs of Gressingham duck pancakes with a variety of supermarket chinese accompanying so Singapore noodles, spring roll, seaweed and gyoza + chocolate cake. Health nightmare

Thur. Taking dc out for KFC with friends as birthday treat

Fri. Tuna seared rare with green beans, tenderstem broccoli and new potatoes

Sat. Pork schnitzel greens and carrots

Sun. Lamb kebabs and salad

Not much cooking for me this week.

@Ricekrispie22 as ever I want to come to your house for dinner!

@SpaceOp that’s an interesting thing to do - we’re there surprise dishes you forgot about?

This is week is all about clearing out the freezer

Sunday: Spanish tapas (patatas bravas, garlicky mushrooms, spinach and pine nuts)
Monday: burritos with cauliflower rice, chipotle lentils, guac
Tuesday: Taiwanese scallion pancakes and veggie potstickers
Wednesday: I’m out for dinner so DH prob cooking meat for him and D.C.
Thursday: not sure yet, cobble something together from leftovers
Friday: picnic at an outdoor concert

@Kobanidaughters I wouldn't say complete surprise dishes, but yes, definitely a few things that I thought, "oh, hang on, we all loved that, why haven't we had it in ages?" eg DS absolutely loves mushrooms so why have I not done a mushroom "stroganoff" in months, especially as its easy and cheap? Or I was reminded of the corn chowder we ate a LOT at the beginning of lockdown and which I'd completely forgotten about.

I have, nerdily, also split it into meal types (eg stew/salad/soup/traybake) and also a second categorisation of lamb/beef/fish/vegetarian which was also quite useful. Particlarly for the vegetarian options because I tend to slip into doing the same 2 or 3 things every week, and it turned out we had loads of options.

I’m inspired @SpaceOp

Tofu fried rice
Chickpea goulash and herby dumplings
Veggie sausage rolls and salad
Enchiladas
Butternut pasta bake
Homity pie
Quorn meatball subs

I've just done my 2 week meal plan and trawled my recipe books to find some new inspiration!

Steak sandwiches in crusty bread
Roast chicken dinner
Leftover chicken in piri piri sauce, salad and 2 ingredient flatbreads
Lemon and thyme chicken thighs, sweet potato wedges and salad
Chunky beef chilli with spiced Cous Cous, tortilla wraps and salad
Thai red curry
Sausage and new potato traybake with red onion and peppers
Chicken and bacon burgers
Roast pork dinner
Chinese style fried rice with leftover pork and crispy salt and pepper kale
Turkey mince burritos, guacamole and salsa
Cottage pie with a herb rosti topping, green veg
Chicken tikka masala and brown rice

Roast chicken (Sunday roast)
King po cauliflower, egg fried rice, veg spring rolls
Burnt aubergine chilli (rolled over from last week)
Chickpea goulash and herb dumplings (thanks to recent poster!)
Lemon and thyme chicken thighs, sweet potato wedges and coleslaw

Back to the office full time this week

Sunday: chipotle tofu Fajitas
Monday: gnocchi and pesto
Tuesday: Singapore noodles
Wednesday: chickpea Schwarma (how the feck do you spell that actually) salad with bread and dips.
Thursday: DP can sort

Lemon and thyme chicken with sweet potato wedges and coleslaw.
Burnt aubergine chilli.
Chickpea goulash and herb dumplings.
Chicken roast dinner.
Kung po cauliflower, egg fried rice, veg spring rolls.
Chicken and bean enchiladas.
Something with trout, not decided what yet,

I double posted 🥴

@Ricekrispie22 can you give me your courgette, feta and mint frittata recipe? I attempted a courgette, feta and mint fritter the other day - DH and DS gamely ate them but they were insanely disappointing I thought. (they didn't make it onto my spreadsheet as a result!).

We did your satay version of curry and DS has declared I must ALWAYS add peanut butter to curry in future. Just need a new vegetable as the base as he appears to have gone off butternut. I wonder if he'd like sweet potato? sigh.