2024 meal planning

[Lastqueenofscotland2]

Anyone else starting to think about getting their arses back in gear?!
Mine for the next week
Tomorrow: baked Camembert with nice bread (not quite over Christmas yet!)
Saturday: Thai green veggie curry
Sunday: NYE - will be sitting in with a dog terrified of fire works, might just order a pizza
Monday: Tuscan bean stew and sourdough
Tuesday: west African peanut stew
Wednesday: some sort of pie with all the leftover veg
Thursday: gochujang tofu

It's a mad week for us too but giving it a go-

F-stir fry with steak in teriyaki sauce

S- lunch out with friends so cheese and crackers for dinner

S- out again to a sports event all day

M-katsu chicken curry with rice and broccoli

T- out celebrating with the family for dd3 finishing her A levels .

W-tomato,garlic and chilli spaghetti

T- pizza and salad as our again early for a hobby event

All went to plan this week. I found the cheesy, broccoli gnocchi quite stodgy which maybe was an obvious outcome but not sure I'd do that again. The Tuscan beans were lovely though.

This week will involve a lot of using up of leftovers and fridge bits.

Tomorrow: Spicy chicken and chorizo rice
Sunday: Chicken legs with braised peas, pancetta and tarragon
Monday: Tagliatelle with kale and walnuts
Tuesday: Stir fried sweet chilli veg and noodles
Wednesday: Chicken kiev, roast sweet potatoes and veg
Thursday: Veggie chilli
Friday: Soy roasted portobello mushrooms with fried rice

@SpaceOP I find if I fritter beg, the kids will eat anything. Grate your veg, add some flour, egg, some gard cheese if she can tolerate that, or goats, and fry. Drizzle with honey and serve with a tzatiki style dip.

I also found roasting cauliflower abd broccoli gives a very different flavour. I also just serve the veg every time we eat. Eventually they try it and sometimes they like it. It helps to let them experiment in the kitchen too. Sometimes my kids make total disasters, some times they make some great combinations that I didn't think of.
I hope she becomes more adventurous.

Tonight - We had slow cooker Chinese beef and broccoli with rice and crispy sesame kale.
Tomorrow - Chicken tostada towers, guacamole, Pico de gallo, cowboy caviar , salad and sour cream.
Sunday- Roast chicken, stuffing, cheesy leeks, broccoli, peas, carrots and Yorkshire puddings.
Monday - Spaghetti & cheesy meatballs in a roasted pepper sauce with garlic bread.
Tuesday - Spicy Vegetable gyoza ramen.
Wednesday - Beef Arayes with roasted veg and olive cous cous, chilli and garlic yoghurt sauce
Thursday - Chinese chicken curry with rice and sesame roasted broccoli.
Friday - Fish and chips

I enviously follow this thread. My organisational skills aren't honed and rely on convenience more than we should.

Young kids (lower PS, nursery), working compressed FT hours at opposite ends of the week for childcare, clubs - it's just busy.

Can I ask how long you take preparing your evening meal most days?

Thanks.

Edited to add: kids do not have an adventurous palate so also avoiding cooking more than 1 meal.

Right I am ON IT this week:

Sunday/Monday - pasta bolognese possibly with garlic bread
Tuesday - quiche (shop bought not home made) with jacket potato and salad
Wednesday/Thursday - chicken satay curry with rice and naan
Friday - brinner - full English
Saturday - going out to an Italian for lunch so small dinner, something like scrambled eggs on toast

@Judystilldreamsofhorses could you share your satay curry recipe please, sounds delicious.

It’s really basic! I use one chicken breast per person - it’s just me and DP and it does two nights here, but you can fiddle around with it to suit.

Chop your chicken and brown it
Dice a red onion and add that
Chop a red pepper and add that too
Couple of cloves of garlic, crushed/finely chopped - in the pan
Add red Thai curry paste to suit - I tend to do a pudding spoon but DP doesn’t love hot food and I would go hotter if it was just me
Cook that down and then add two pudding spoons of crunchy peanut butter, stir well
Add in a tin of coconut milk
I tend to leave it to simmer for half an hour or so, then portion off. I add fresh chppped coriander at the end. If we have sad mushrooms or sugar snap peas knocking about I pop them in too. You could use smooth peanut butter and add cashew nuts or peanuts at the end too - my friend’s daughter can’t deal with the texture of nuts and she does this, she just serves hers up first.

Last night, I made a mac'n'cheese with bacon and mushrooms, and a second serving the freeze for an easy pasta bake another night.

Tonight, half a (large) duck breast pan-fried and roasted, with lemon pepper/garlic roast potatoes and garlic roasted green beans.

Tomorrow and Tuesday I'm away for work.

Wednesday I will use another korma sauce from the freezer, probably with chicken, and cook a double portion of rice.

Thursday, it's nasi goreng - stir fried leftover rice, tin tuna, tin corn, frozen prawns, lots of stir fry veg (including my mange tout from balcony) and curry powder.

Friday probably feta chicken or pasta and meatballs with Mediterranean vegetables sauce.

I'll worry about the weekend then as I need to do a restock of the fridge but also want to get rid of a little more from the freezer.

@Judystilldreamsofhorses thank you so much, I'll definitely try that 👍

Okay, I've not planned for the whole week but so far:

Monday: Grilled Peach, Chicken and Feta Salad
Tuesday: Gnocchi Alla Norma with garlic bread
Wednesday: Chicken Tandoori Shawarma with salad and flatbreads
Thursday: Cod & Chorizo Stew with veg (probably broccoli) and crusty bread

Thanks Seaside. She's not a big fan of fritters but she loves feta cheese so maybe that's an option. Courgette/butternut/corn all good options. Bolognaise last night had onions, leeks, lentils, carrots and celery!

@Oanyerselhen It depends what we're having but I'd say around 30 minutes on average but can be more or less depending on what I'm doing. I have a selection of meals I know I can make quickly or do prep in advance for when we need something fast. For example, tomorrow I only have about 35 minutess to get food on the table and eaten before we have to leave again for activities so that's the day we'll have our steak sandwichs on ciabatta. I'll shred the cabbage and pickle it at lunch time and fry the mushrooms at lunch too. So all I have to do is cook the steak and heat up the mushrooms when we come inside before heading out again.

@TheLadyIsAVamp your meals sound amazing, do you mind if I move in?

@Oanyerselhen I rarely spend more than 30 minutes cooking in the week. Some weekends I like to cook a few things, I might make soup, prepare a pasta sauce, make a roast and throw in potatoes for baked potatoes, extra veg for salads.

I made sweetcorn fritters on Saturday, served with little spiced new potatoes and lots of chilli sauce. Delicious.

Yesterday was bought pizzas but with a really nice Greek salad for lots of vitamins.

Tonight, DP has made a veggie sausage casserole and I've done hassle back potatoes to go with it.

For the rest of the week we've got:
paneer and kidney bean curry with chapatis and salad

a risotto to use a load of broad beans from a friend's allotment

veggie sausages with stilton mash and roasted red onions (It was very cold when I was doing my planning! :) )

out on Friday

@Seaside3 Yes - roasted broccoli (cut it very small and cover it in salt and oil) is delicious, and I say that as somebody who doesn't like the stuff much.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie any veg roasted with salt and oil is good in my books.

This week - Sunday was roasts, yorkshires with onions and gravy (daughters work freebies) with veg and beef pie (bought)

Monday freezer curries and rice

Currently making coconut rice pudding.

Tuesday a filo pastry/courgette thing i saw on insta, salad

Wednesday bbq pork belly, (freezer), corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, salad

Thursday veg pesto pasta with mozzarella

Friday, daughter having friends over, so pizza, chips n salad for them, not sure for us.

Saturday, out.

Yesterday was pulled pork/mushroom tacos, Mexican rice, salad.

Today - harissa salmon, rice and veg

Wednesday - jacket potatoes with sausages and beans or tuna and salad

Thursday - sausage pasta bake

Friday - breaded chicken pita, chips and veg

Saturday - pizza

Sunday - pulled pork/mushroom loaded wedges

I had expected to be doing lots of BBQs, salads and lighter meals by now, but the weather looks awful again for this week.
Yesterday - Roasted veg and hasselback halloumi traybake
Tonight - sweet potato peanut curry
Wed - falafel burgers
Thursday- spinach and ricotta baked pasta shells
Fri - sesame tofu and broccoli noodles
Sat - black bean tacos
Sun - pale ale macaroni cheese with green salad (for Father’s Day)

Quite enjoyed my week on high protein vegan meal plan mainly because it was nice to have everything written out for me! Not a fan of protein powder though and protein farting is a horrible side effect

took the weekend off with a marvellous vegan cream tea on Friday and aiming for high protein but not looking at calories. My dinner plan for the next few days is:

monday: seitan, barley and butternut squash bowl
Tuesday: lentil and tofu curry
Wednesday: tofu stuffed flatbreads
Thursday: chickpeas, sweet potato and green veg

Then American friends arrive for the weekend so I reckon either a curry or fish and chips for dinner, already booked in for a roast on Sunday and need to figure out Saturday….

Yeah, I'm not a massive fan of broccoli either but agree it's good roasted and a bit crunchy! Or smothered in cheese sauce which is my dad's preferred method....

@SpaceOP who doesn't love cheese sauce??

Tonight I made a version of this. I used half.an onion that was knocking around in my fridge, and some random goats cheese instead of feta. It was delicious.

Served it with a green salad, and the best version of the roast potatoes so far. I gently fried sliced garlic in the potato oil. Removed the garlic, turned up the heat. Chopped the roasted into chunks, fries in batches. Boiled ans podded broad beans from the freezer, which I fried too.

In a big bowl I tossed the potatoes, broad beans, some fresh thyme, lemon zest and the garlic. Oh boy, it was so good.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7mb28AI7Ky/?igsh=MXJkYXJneXlhamR3cA==

Busy weekend then back to normal (thank god)

Friday: out
Saturday: falafel salad with flatbreads and hummus
Sunday: Going to a pizza party at a friends for the football
Monday: jambalaya
Tuesday: kung pao tofu
Wednesday: white bean stew and sourdough
Thursday: dahl and naan

@Seaside3 the pie looks good. I like these sort of recipes that give you ideas. I think it's why I do so much Jamie Oliver - I find that when I watch his recipes on tv/online, it's more about the concepts and then I can adapt for myself.

@SpaceOP having dismisse djamoe for a long tome as he always had so many ingredients, I think he's simplifies things and I often save / make his recipes with adaptations for what I have kno king around.