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

Monday - Chicken and rice soup (Avgolemono). Been saving carcasses to make the stock tomorrow ready for Monday.
Tuesday - Beef shin chilli con carne loaded roast potatoes with all the sides/dips.
Wednesday - Just me at home and I'm thinking a really spicy daal and naan as I'm craving spicy food lately.
Thursday- Gammon, egg, chips and peas
Friday - Pasta of some kind, fancy trying something new so will have a look online.
Saturday- Just me again and I've got a little individual rack of lamb in the freezer which I'm going to do with a greek rub, salad and cous cous.
Sunday - Steak & sausage pie, mash and veg. Comfort food as DP will likely be nursing a hangover.

No idea what we're having today. I either need to go to a shop or it will be something eggy.

Then over the course of the week, in no particular order:

risotto primavera

penne alla vodka (with air fryer garlic bread - this was a hit in my tests!) and rocket salad

Trinidadian chickpea curry with parathas and jerk Quron fillets

Yasai itame again because it was so good last week

I've also ordered some veggie pies for the freezer, to have with mash at the weekend, and I'm wondering about having veggie 'breakfast for tea' at some point, but Sainsbury's stopped selling Staffordshire oatcakes, so it's no fun anymore.

Today - a leek, bean and sausage stew thing which was a recipe from Esther Walker’s Substack
M - chicken breast, spinach gratin, broccoli
T - lasagne, garlic bread, peas
W - quiche, jacket potato, salad
T - sausages and mash with some sort of green veg
F - pizza
Sat - macaroni cheese, peas

A very wintry menu. It’s got really cold here today.

Back from holiday, been to the supermarket and have made a big pot of vegetable soup for the next two days.

Monday and Tuesday: soup and apple/bramble crumble
Wednesday: sweet potato and mushroom curry
Thursday: a bean stew with roasted aubergine as seen on Instagram
Friday: spag bol from freezer
Saturday: Out for pub lunch. Maybe some picky bits later if needed
Sunday: Green leafy noodle soup and roast duck with pancakes

@HalloumiFries can you share the bean stew/aubergine link?

I can't cope with the chaos of ad hoc shopping. So trying to get properly back into 7 day planning and shopping. I still have a few things from the last five days but am out of so many basics I have to do another shop today. So... proper planning, hopeflly from today!

Today: Pork schnitzel, new potatoes, salad
Tomorrow: Fish from the box, with wedges and sauteed leeks cabbage and red onion
Wed: Spag bol
Thur: Not sure as I'm not sure who is here. I might get in a couple of emergency pizzas as I think it will be DH and DS here and me and DD out.
Fri: Baked chicken. With some kind of veggie rice.
Sat: Chicken ala king
Sun: Me and DD are out all day. So I'll do 6 day shoping and perhaps DH can pick up burgers or something on Sunday.

Sorry - just realised that the link takes you to an invitation to follow me on IG and that would out me here. Will try to find another way

So weird. If you tell me who posted it or their handle I can use that to look it up?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I just did itsu gyoza in air fryer. 8 minutes at 180. Lovely
.

@SpaceOP - It's a Mob recipe in collaboration with Sophie's Plant Kitchen. Moroccan-style aubergine with butter beans. Hope you find it.

Thanks. Will check it out! Love aubergine. Love butter beans.

It's basically:
Roast whole aubergine, tomatoes and garlic until soft and smoky
Fry red onions with paprika and cumin - add butter beans
Chop and mix the roasted veg until a sort-of chunky puree then mix through the beans, add lemon juice and parsley.
Finish with a drizzle of something creamy (the recipe calls for cashew cream as it's vegan - depends how strict you want to be, I'll probably just use yoghurt)

Ooh - now we’re talking!

The oven chips (Birds Eye) last night turned out really well. I normally hate oven chips and refuse to eat them, but these were really good. I think they’d be great with a Greek salad or Greek style haloumi kebabs.

To be fair, the main benefit was that I put them in and walked away. If I was in the kitchen doing a few bits anyway, I'd probably stick to my usual frying method. But great for a day liek today where I took the gap to hang up the washing! :) And also for DS as his frying skills are not quite up to this level of nuance yet!

And yeah, oven chips do work well. A friend adds extra oil to hers but we usually do fries so it's not necessary. I do do it sometimes if I've got bit fat ones - just the spray stuff.

So out of the loop on this thread, because I've been dieting and trying to avoid food talk but I am ready to make a comeback! So going to wade through all the pages I've missed for inspiration.

Sunday, I made bacon and mushroom pasta with pesto rossa.

Monday was frozen fillet of battered fish and oven chips. With lemon mayo (HM).

Tuesday was beef bourgigonne (sp?) courtesy of M&S, and mash. I have leftovers to repeat this tomorrow (after the pub).

Tonight I am out for a work function.

Tomorrow see last night.

Friday - will either involve dragging myself to the chipper in the local square, or being good and cooking a lamb steak. Or being too worn out and pulling a bag of chilli (choice of beef or veggie) from the freezer and boiling some rice.

Saturday, I go food shopping for the 1st time in 3.5 weeks. (I just bought milk here, and brought back ingredients from trip "home" rather than proper shopping). Need a full veggies restock, mozarella (have pizza base/sauce and pepperoni), milk, yoghurt etc.

I plan a lamb steak dinner either Friday or Saturday. Probably with roasted mushrooms and baby roast potatoes. And freeze the other one in the pack.

I may get a nice duck breast when shopping, and spinach.

Or else some feta and chicken thighs on the bone for feta chick and roasted Mediterranean veggies.

For next week, the rough plan is:
I intend to make a good chicken curry (possibly Vadagam) on Sunday for Monday and freezing.

Another night of chilli.

Salmon - I am thinking of something more interesting than plain grilled with spinach, but I may fall back on that.

Pepperoni pizza - possibly doing half mixed veggies, half pepperoni. I just need the cheese (and veggies).

And I might just do a large chicken Caesar salad for one day.

And I have 2 nice steaks, a bag of diced lamb and some proper sausages that I brought back and froze on Sunday (meat is so much better from "home" than here!). Sausages will mainly be sausage sandwiches at weekends, 2 good steak dinners and 1 more lamb steak dinner, and the diced lamb is for a rogan Josh (or maybe a stew but...).

Tomorrow: bbq jackfruit
Saturday: lentil spag bol
Sunday: mushroom fajitas
Monday: white bean stew
Tuesday: peanut tofu with stirfried veg
Wednesday:out
Thursday: dahl and naan

Aubergine and bean stew was really lovely last night. I was worried that DH would be unimpressed but he loved it.

Last week's mean plan included this weekend and nothing has changed there so, from Monday the plan is:

Monday: Some kind of basic pasta in tomato/veg sauce
Tuesday: Out at a work thing. DH going to in-laws
Wednesday: Sweet potato, mushroom and spinach curry (didn't have this this week as planned as ended up having an overpriced sausage at an impromptu christmas market outing)
Thursday: Mushroom and pesto quinotto
Friday: Black bean and cheese bake
Saturday: Out at rugby (probably another overpriced sausage or burger)
Sunday: Probably lasagne

I would love the recipe for the aubergine and bean stew .

Hi @BuddhaofSuburbia The recipe is upthread in a post to SpaceOP. I wasn't able to link the full thing but there is a description.

We have gone over our groceries budget this month, no idea how as we haven’t even been buying booze! We have a big thanksgiving dinner to host on Thursday but I have £85 in tesco vouchers I can use and the ridiculous thing is my cupboards are full of ingredients so have been going through them to meal plan with the intention of only having to buy fresh produce - I really should be using some of them anyway!

Today: roast butternut squash, pumpkin and carrot soup at lunch. My mum is putting on a birthday “tea” for the kids this afternoon so that will tide DH and I over and if DC are hungry when we get home then I can just make them some pasta or fish fingers

Sunday: out to a friends for a Sunday lunch

Monday: DD’s birthday and she wants to go to wagammamas

Tuesday: chicken noodle soup for DH and DD, curry from the freezer for DS and I

Wednesday: vegan chilli with soy beans

Thursday: Turkey/fable mushroom Wellington, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry stuffing, sweet potato casserole, balsamic roasted Brussel sprouts. Pecan pie, pumpkin pie. Need to decide on starters or nibble to go with bourbon slushies on arrival

Friday: Chinese silken tofu and rice with gyoza (breaded chicken for DD)

Saturday: DD’s birthday party and she wants all American food (burgers, pizza, fried chicken - not any of the stuff we actually ate when we lived in America!!!)

Ok, I got mozarella on Friday night and made the pepperoni pizza - so not as bad as I could have been.

I defrosted some chicken in piri piri seasoning and roasted that on a bed of diced peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic with a dash of paprika- the tomatoes and peppers really needed to be used and there's enough left to freeze for another night.

I did a basic supermarket shop yesterday, plenty of veggies, milk, some cheese, frozen chips and fish, cleaning supplies and a pack of chicken wings.

Plenty in the freeezer and cupboards to use up.

I got spinach to have with salmon.

Crème fraiche and an avocado to make guacamole, for a chilli and a fajita night.

I'll make chorizo potatoes another night (baby potatoes, chunks of chorizo and bacon lardons baked in a tomato and chilli sauce).

And some gotgonzola to cook with pumpkin to eat with pasta. (I am slightly winging that recipe).

And I got a nice cauliflower to bake in cheese sauce to have with lamb and roast potatoes next weekend.

Tonight is steak, with roasted pumpkin and fried onions. And maybe a couple of ptoatoes.

Not very exciting this week. Fed up of planning, shopping, cooking again... Think next week I'll try and cook some things I've never done before to get my mojo back.

Monday- Tandoori chicken bowls
Tuesday- Yalancı Mantı (seen a version of this trending online so want to give it a go)
Wednesday - Onion bhaji burgers, spiced wedges, salad and raita
Thursday-Swedish meatballs, mash and veg
Friday - Chicken ramen with gyoza
Saturday - Jambalaya
Sunday - Mississippi pot roast with mash and veg.