2023 meal planning thread

[Lastqueenofscotland2]

Very much looking forward to getting back on the bandwagon and not eating another Pringle for 11 months.

Tomorrow: Tuscan gnocchi
Saturday: pizza take out
Sunday: enchilada bake
Monday: Jambalaya
Tuesday: Thai peanut noodles
Wednesday: friend is cooking
Thursday: mushroom stroganoff

Bit meat heavy this week!
S Lamb Kleftiko, lemony potatoes, greek salad
M Leek & almond tabbouleh, leftover lamb
T Sweet potato & black bean Enchiladas
W Spice Island Coconut Fish Curry
T Pork in almonds, fried potatoes, green beans
F Pasta alfredo
S Samosa tart
S Slow roast pork
M Fried Halloumi Wara Wagashi
T Swede fritters
W Poulet Yassa

100% adherence last week. This week will be a little more flexible:

Tomorrow: hotpot with l/o lamb from today
Tues: jackets topped with veggie chilli
Wed: chorizo broccoli pasta
Thurs: something fishy as DH is out
Fri: out for dinner
Sat: PiLs for dinner
Sun: cold roast chicken, green salad and potato salad.

Mine for the next week
Friday: asparagus and mushroom pasta
Saturday: out for a pizza
Sunday: We’ve so much veg to use up so a veg stirfry of some concoction
Monday: cowboy beans with tortilla chips and guac
Tuesday: Thai basil lentils and sticky rice
Wednesday: Chana masala
Thursday: Grilled veg, pesto and mozarella paninis with chips and salad

We’ve eaten out a lot because of the holidays, so I need to plan a healthy week for next week!

All I’ve got so far is a sweetcorn chowder.

I’m fancying pickled baby gherkins and cocktail onions for some reason, so maybe bean burgers and salad for another meal.

@myrtleWilson I was perusing this thread for dinner ideas and I made the ottolenghi aubergine, paneer, dhal dish. It was delicious. Because I couldn't get mature spinach I wrapped the aubergine rolls in wild garlic leaves which was an inspired idea (not modest!)

Thank you for the inspo!!

Oh @Spirini I made it last night and really loved it - wild garlic is a fab substitution! I've just posted about it on the weekly new recipe thread as it happens!

@myrtleWilson lovely to read your review; I used Geeta's premium mango chutney as it was all I had in and it added a lovely sweet/spiciness to it. how did you find the lentil quantities? My dhal was quite thin and I ended up adding nearly the same amount again.

Today-
Thai lettuce cups with noodles and courgettes

Monday-
Steak pie , mash and kale

Tuesday
Tomato and Basil pasta

Wednesday
Garlic and herb chicken with hot potato and broad bean salad

Thursday
Battered cod , chips and peas

Friday
Burgers,sweet potato wedges ,corn and salads

Saturday
Asian salmon,rice and stir fry veggies

Sunday
Pizza ,salad and garlic dough balls

Desperately need to meal plan. I need to clear the freezer of all its crap and start cooking properly again. All 5 of us home this week as DP is working from home (FROM FECKING HOME 😭) instead of away this week so I get to look at his delightful face all day every day for the next 5..... Anyway as of today:
S - BBQ pork, chips, green beans and corn on the cob with salad
M - Bacon, cabbage, mash and parsley sauce
T - Smoked salmon fillets with chips, cauliflower and broccoli cheese
W - Gnocchi with broccoli and chorizo
T - Chorizo, Chicken and potato bake
F - Chicken stir fry with noodles
Cant decide on the weekend in case I need an alibi or still like him enough to go out for dinner together and leave the kids home. TBA.

Updating my plan for this week as it's all gone to pot already. New plan started yesterday and is:

Sunday - chicken kebabs, greek salad and halloumi
Monday - crustless cheese and onion quiche, salad
Tuesday - at a gig, will get food while out
Wednesday - Greek salad pasta
Thursday - Halloumi curry
Friday - baked gnocchi with roasted veg

I've done the shop so it's all done and dusted but just realised how cheese-heavy the week is. This was an attempt at redressing last week's meat heavy menu. I need dinner ideas which are lighter and not meat or cheese focused.

Crazy pre holiday work and kids, then a holiday with waaaaay too much food and drink, I came back determined for a better balanced diet. Started with a lovely, low fat, veggie meal on Saturday... and was promptly sick! Argh.

This week:

Steak, new potatoes, salad
Leek and pancetta tart, salad
Pork fajitas
Halloumi and chargrilled greens in pita breads
Something vegetarian for Friday - TBC.

Yesterday was a sweetcorn chowder from 15 Minute Vegan - delicious.

Today is a bastardised version of Carluccio's courgette pasta.

Tomorrow = jacket spuds and salad/coleslaw

Weds = a kind of Ploughman's lunch

Thurs = spinach and feta pie with gigantes beans/tsatziki and salad

With a name like @HalloumiFries it will be hard to skip cheese altogether, but your menu seems fairly low carb (where you have the halloumi)?

My favourite joke: what did the cheese say to itself in the mirror?
Halloumi 😏

Honeyed roast carrot and feta pilaf
Spring veg lasagne
Asparagus shakshuka
Peanut tofu traybake
Halloumi frittata
Creamy green gnocchi
Mixed bean goulash

I have just mastered honeyed roast carrots in the air fryer and DH and I had them with couscous yesterday for lunch... I was thinking that feta could be nice with it. I will still the carrot and feta pilaf idea! Thank you!

@SpaceOP This is the recipe https://www.abelandcole.co.uk/recipes/honeyed-roast-carrot-feta-pilaf

Thanks! I'll try a version of that. I want more veggie meals again - we've slipped out of them a bit as DD doesn't do veggie as she likes plain meat, veg and potatoes but the rest of us do, and definitely want the nutrition and balance! :)

This week is slightly chaotic for lack of work/life balance reasons.

Saturday, we had mussels that needed to be used so I planned a pasta dish, but they ended up as a starter to a steak dinner that DH bought.
Sunday was bacon, mash and carrots.
Mom was pasta with cheese sauce, mushrooms and leftover bacon.
Last night was chicken jalfrezi (from jar) with rice and some naan from freezer. I thought it was using thighs but dd had left chicken go to use by date so we had that and will use thighs later in the week.

DH is doing lamb chops tonight, I suspect they'll be thrown in the oven with baby potatoes (as we're about out of proper spuds) and chopped med veg I have frozen.

I have a vague thought about chicken fajitas with the thighs. Or maybe a slow cooker stew (possibly a tagline served with couscous).
There's a chicken and leek pie frozen but I will need to buy potatoes.

Or some kind of pasta thing again.

We're terribly adventurous this week...

@SpaceOP I am veggie but my family eat meat. This week has been:

Grilled Halloumi (just slices marinaded in oil, lemon zest and thyme) with vegetable rice (microwave Tesco golden veg rice) with grilled med veg (peppers, red onions, courgettes and cherry tomatoes). We like to drizzle put yoghurt and mint sauce over it and a dash of chilli sauce.

Amatricana pasta - so easy!

Midweek roast - roast baby potatoes, chicken joint from freezer/veggie sausage for me, brocolli, roasted carrots and cauliflower cheese. Gravy, obviously.

Gnocchi bake - peppers, courgettes, onions all roasted up then a blitzed sauce of sun dried tomatoes and chopped tomatoes with herbs, add the cooked gnocchi, cover in mozerella and bake.

Pizza - homemade dough and everyone chooses their toppings

Meatballs and spaghetti - quorn balls for me.

We have 2 freezers full of stuff too which we are chipping away at so one night is always a freezer pick. Generally this is something I've homemade and batch cooked.

Thanks @primroseknows Your menus sound quite similar to ours! We used to eat vegetarian at least half the time, but that meant completely separate meals for DD more than half the time - all the veggie nights plus nights we ate meat in a form she doesn't like - so it sort of slid off a bit as I got tired of the effort of it. But vegetarian or meals with a high percentage of vegetables, is something I really want to get back into more often and if that means thinking differently for DD, so be it.

Because I am a overweight and insulin resistant, and DS is a huge eater, although very active, but also tends to get heavier too easily, we try to avoid things like pizza/pasta more than once a week at most and when we do, we have big chunky sauces/toppings. I do have our favourite spinach, onion and taleggio pizza (made with ciabatta) on the "possible" menu for next week and although we haven't had pasta this week, we'll most likely have our favourite tomato, aubergine and chilli one next week! And I'll probably do meatballs over the weekend as it's something everyone eats!

I need to work around the most ridiculous sporting/activity schedule next week, with DH barely here in the evenings. I'll be calling in every favour I have I suspect. Meals need to be 10 iminutes or prepared at lunch and heated up. Also no pasta as DS has "Very Important Trials" for his sport and wants filling, high protein food that doesn't make him feel too full (seriously!?)

Friday: meatballs and spaghetti
Saturday: out
Sunday: Roast lamb for belated easter lunch with family
Monday: Honey roasted carrots and feta pilaf (thanks @5moreminutes)
Tuesday; "Asia" mince and rice noodles
Wednesday: Steak, new potatoes, salad
Thursday: Spinach, garlic and taleggio pizza

Trying to use up what we have in the fridge / freezer so plan for the next week or 2 is

• pulled pork, wedges, coleslaw
• asparagus & chicken pasta / risotto?
• purple sprouting broccoli pad thai
• berbere meatballs, braised greens, pasta or roasted new potatoes
• green beans & paneer, swede fritters, chapati / flatbread
• roast rainbow halloumi, grain salad & any leftover flatbread
• roast cabbage & apricot glazed fish
• sausage casserole
• cheesy aubergines & salad
• chorizo & leek pasta
• quiche & salad
• dhal with flatbread (& any leftover veg)
• sausage lasagne

I will make a batch of leek & almond tabbouleh & chicken shawarma to take for lunch & maybe some pasties. Crumble to use up some rhubarb & might do an extra one for the freezer. And maybe an apple cake as have quite a few apples starting to go soft in the fruit bowl.

@AiryFairy1 😂. My cheese addiction is fairly legendary and getting out of control. I also like a good cheese joke.

How do you approach an angry Welsh cheese?
Caerphilly.

Anyway, onto this week:

Today - spaghetti carbonara
Tomorrow - Greek yoghurt marinated chicken thighs with pourgouri, tomato salad, bean salad and tzatziki.
Monday - at PiLs
Tuesday - falafel with leftover salads from Sunday (falafel might be in a pitta - depends on amount of leftover pourgouri)
Wednesday - pasta with tomato and courgette sauce
Thursday- shasuka
Friday - lamb pilaf
Saturday- out at a gig, will eat out
Sunday- Jambalaya

I'm wowed here, i bulk cook so it's three days of say shepherd's pie, 3 days curry! Loads of ideas here though!!

This week has been a combination of using up from the freezer and refilling it with batch cooked bits.

DH was away overnight on Friday so I made myself a mushroom risotto with chick stock from freezer and dried mushrooms.

Sat we had lamb koftas in flatbreads with some early garden salad (and I made enough koftas to freeze a 2nd meals worth).

Sun I made a big chicken vadagam, served with pulao rice (it's just basmati rice with some cardamom, peppercorns and cloves thrown in) and frozen naan. 3 single portions leftover and frozen.

Yesterday, I took Italian sausages (local butcher makes them) and a carton of HM tomato sauce both from freezer, threw them together with fresh tagliatelle.

Today, we're having a beef pie from M&S that I got at the weekend and probably baked potatoes.

Tomorrow, it's chicken tenders and wedges (swooped today/tomorrow due to a funeral and not knowing how things will go).

Thursday is now up in the air - as I had planned leftover lamb that I originally was going to roast Wednesday before I had the pie. But I suspect I will get out salmon from freezer instead.

Then have the lamb on Friday night as an end of week treat. And stadium burgers at Bruce Springsteen on Saturday. And perhaps HM pizzas on the bbq on Sunday