2025 Meal Planners!

[Citygirlrurallife]

Here it is - all welcome, long termers and newbies, I imagine this week is leftovers leftovers leftovers and kicking off from Thursday onwards.

ive gone back to Oddbox and our deliveries now come on Friday nights so I’m going to try to force my brain to meal plan Thursday-Thursday and have delivery on Thursdays to make it happen. Won’t happen this week but hopefully from next

Finally back to just the two of us at home after being away and then having all the adult kids home.

Thurs: Ratatouille with mackerel
Fri: Bean, kale, chorizo & red wine risotto
Sat: 'Nduja, ricotta & lemon stuffed chicken (we have friends over). May also make a rhubarb meringue cake
Sun: Jersey Royal, avocado & salmon salad
Mon: Ropa vieja with rice
Tue: Dinner at IKEA 😀
Wed: Korean style cauliflower & carrot rice

Pretty boring but I need to get back to meal planning as we've been eating terribly

Friday - Chicken tikka flatbread, raita and salad
Saturday - Chicken piccata spaghetti with tsb
Sunday - steak, fondant potatos, green beans and not sure yet either creamy garlic mushrooms or cheesy cabbage and leeks.
Monday- Chinese egg and tomato stir-fry (been craving it for weeks now)
Tuesday - Taco salad (mainly because I am obsessed with the m&s layer Mexican dip again)
Wednesday - Chinese beef curry & rice
Thursday - Soup & toasted sandwiches.. probably minestrone to empty the vegetable drawer.
I have loads of cheese that I need to use up too somehow 🙄.

Tonight - lentil moussaka
Tomorrow - veggie Swedish meatballs, mash and peas
M - chickpea biryani
T - tofu banh mi
W - Vietnamese rice noodle salad
T - halloumi gyros
F - jacket sweet potato and peri peri beans

@DiggoryVenn same for us - lots of nights just the two of us, but some where the DCs are home and suddenly we need lots more food on the table!!

Sun - homemade burgers
Mon - pasta with roast cherry tomatoes, spring onions, basil and pine nuts
Tues - cauliflower and potato curry
Weds - roast chicken with orzo
Thurs - traybake of courgettes, lemons, leeks and roasted ricotta
Fri - brothy beans with roast broccoli and garlic bread
Sat - honey mustard sausage traybake

Risotto with spring vegetables
Veggie sausages with something, poss just chips and beans
Salmon with tabbouleh and veg
Quiche and salad
Lemon and thyme halloumi with pitta and salad

I’m doing a bread theme for a few days:

open faced bagels with cream cheese and pickled cucumber, with sweet potato fries and roasted beetroot

blackbean quesadillas with a couple of homemade salsas

homemade baked beans on sourdough with mushrooms and maybe eggs

DP is making a veggie sausage casserole

Then either pasta or a curry with store cupboard stuff and whatever fresh vege looks nice in the greengrocer’s towards the end of the week

herb roast chicken and warm salad

tuna salad nicoise

pesto chicken orzo with roasted baby tomatoes and asparagus

steak in chimicurri sauce with salad and couscous

asian salad and chicken

charcuterie meats,falafel,houmous,salads and flatbread

@DaisyWells to be honest his brain just can't get around European languages whereas he's taken like a duck to water in Mandarin - go figure!

@Xiaoxiong would love to know more about your brothy beans please

Brothy beans! https://www.alisoneroman.com/recipes/brothy-beans

You can make a big pot and then freeze in portions.

She likes to eat them with a jammy egg which is delicious but I like to roast tenderstem or purple sprouting broccoli together with a frozen garlic baguette, while a portion of beans is defrosting in the microwave. Best 15 min dinner!

This week is:

Pineapple chicken; chicken, soy sauce, 5 spice, siracha sauce, garlic and tinned p pineapple - I did this x2 for a freezer dump bag
Lasagne - needed to restock the freezer
Chicken wraps - probably a chorizo/ peppers/ red onion thing x2
Roast Beef
Pizza
Chicken pasta x2 (just sauce)
Meatloaf x2

Does anyone know if diced potatoes cook well after being frozen? I was going to add some into a dump bag. (Really wish they had a nicer name but I am starting to love them!)

This week it's been

Sunday: Chicken caesar salad (I swear we have this once a week at the moment)
Monday: Gochujang chicken noodles
Tuesday: Strawberry, blue cheese and bacon salad
Wednesday: Home alone tonight so I am having fish finger wraps and I'm already thinking about them 😅
Thursday: Some sort of salad because it's going to be super hot - maybe nicoise but not thought about it yet
Friday: Got some curries from Asda in the fridge so not sure when we'll have those, maybe Friday or over the weekend, the Bom Bahia range is really good

Just finished mine for next week. Everything is quick and simple because it's going to be very hot.

Friday - Lemon chicken risotto
Saturday - Cajun pork belly with spicy grilled pineapple and cowboy caviar
Sunday- Beef & mushroom stroganoff, wild rice tsb
Monday - Bombay potato frittata and salad
Tuesday - Chicken ramen
Wednesday- Taco salad
Thursday - Chicken Caesar pasta salad

@Pamelaaaaarrr I was looking at those curries the other day, will check them out now on your recommendation 😃

@TheLadyIsAVamp I really like them! First tried them when we were away in a cottage for the weekend and needed something easy but they're really tasty. I've got their Royal Pilau Rice and Gunpowder Potatoes to go alongside!

Feeling a little more inspired this week

friday: spring veg risotto
saturday: lentil spag bol
Sunday: buritto bowls
Monday: pie, chips and peas
Tuesday: kimchi fried rice
Wednesday: friend is cooking
Thursday: Cajun red beans and rice

The veggie chilli has remained in the freezer for one more week. But definitely this week...

Tomorrow: Spaghetti carbonara
Sunday: Lemon and rosemary roast chicken traybake with asparagus and new potatoes
Monday: Shaksuka
Tuesday: Veggie chilli
Wednesday: Cheese and onion quiche with new potatoes and salad
Thursday: Mushroom curry
Friday: Pasta with leeks, walnuts and goats cheese.

That pasta sounds delicious

I've not made it before but was searching for something (non-cake) to do with walnuts. I often make a tagliatelle with kale, chilli and walnuts but it seemed a bit autumnal and at odds with the current weather. Will report back on this one.

Dd has been given some local honey to help with hay fever and I’ve been inspired to include it in a few meals this week.
Tonight - halloumi schnitzel with salad and hot honey dressing
Tomorrow - tagine
M - butterbean jambalaya
T - aloo gobi traybake
W - crispy honey soy tofu with sesame noodles
Th - red pepper and ricotta linguine
F - vegeree

That butterbean jambalaya sounds good! I am trying to have at least one meal with beans or pulses per week. I will put it on my "to try" list 😊 (I have loads of celery)

This week, trying to be a bit more realistic and do more familiar recipes, but have still got a couple of new ones

Tonight - Roasted Carrot, Courgette and Bulgur with Pistachio and Mint, shop bought fishcakes with carrots and peas for my son who doesn't like courgettes

Tomorrow - Cardamom chicken braised with sweet onions, chickpeas and saffron, from Guardian Feast last week

Monday - Minced beef curry with fenugreek and spinach, Steve's spiced lentils (enough to freeze for another day)

Tuesday - Green bean and herb pasta

Wednesday - Tuna nicoise ish salad with white beans of some sort for me before I go out, tuna pasta bake for the others to make themselves

Thursday - Chestnut, hazelnut &
summer greens pasta, ready meal for my son who doesn't like chestnuts

Friday - Cassoulet-ish, but not quite like my mum used to make it as the supermarket didn't sell garlic sausage.

I’ve finally managed to track down wide rice noodles, so I’m going to do the drunken noodles from’Dinner’ but substitute radicchio with Chinese leaf.

Our sandwich and chips meal was a big success last week, so we’re doing that again. The other 2 are having smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye; I haven’t yet decided on mine.

Some sort of Korean fried rice thing - I need to look at recipe inspiration.

Not sure what else. I’m going to browse some recipes.

This may sound like a really dim question, but...

I'm starting to meal plan a bit better, but I really struggle with organising myself in terms of buying the correct ingredients and using them at the right times (before they go out of date ) - for example, I go through cookbooks and write down what I'd like to make and which ingredients I need, but then by the time I've had chance to go shopping/ get it delivered I've either forgotten what goes with what, or I don't get round to actually cooking the recipes in the time I need to!

Could anyone share any tips of how they do this? Or do I just need to up my organising game?! I have two small DC, work almost full time and spend most evenings taking them to activities - plus DP works long hours and isn't home till almost 8pm most nights - is there any way I can find cooking actually enjoyable and not just a means to an end of getting everyone fed?!

I have loads of recipe books (physical and on Kindle) but lack the planning/ shopping/ prep time...

If anyone has any ideas that would be much appreciated - at the moment I'm tending towards writing everything in a notebook rather than keeping it as notes on my phone/ laptop, but maybe a spreadsheet would be better? I really don't know! Ideally I'd like lists of recipes to try very soon - with notes once I'd cooked them - and another list of recipes to try 'at some point'.

For now, I'm watching 'Eat Well for Less - New Zealand' (via Prime Video) which is very useful and has some great sounding recipes such as Salmon Gravadlax - hoping to try out some of those soon!

@DaisyWells Not ignoring you, but can't really help.

My method is generally:
1: decide that all I want to eat is tofu, beetroot and tzatziki.
2: have a row with dp who always wants jacket potatoes or cheese and potato pie or pie and chips
3: ask ds who always wants noodles
4: panic
5: try to find a compromise that involves not too much work or thinking
6: I only ever order 4 meals at a time plus either a couple of pizzas or some freezer bits/wherewithal to make store cupboard pasta or risotto with some fresh veggies bought on that day) because my brain can't work beyond that

We've ended up with:

drunken noodles (tofu and tender stem broccoli and Chinese leaf and a shed load of chilli)

bibimbap (tofu, carrots and cucumber quick pickle, kimchi, eggs)

sandwich and chips (I've opted for cream cheese and quick cucumber pickle on German rye)

new potatoes and green beans with fish cakes for dp and ds and a little Higgidy quiche for me

spicy tomato pasta

@DaisyWells I am using the Umami app and loving it! I am slowly adding alll my recipes to it. My planning is a bit easier because I get a veg box every week, it's seasonal, so I don't choose what's in it and I get variety without having to be imaginative myself. I then base my menu around the veg I have got - I can filter on ingredients in the app. There is a meal planner on it too so I fill that in when I've finished my paper plan and can generate a shopping list from it.

I am doing Zoe so I try to have at least one meal with fish and one with beans/pulses planned, and to limit the days I eat meat. I find that helps me structure what meals I choose.

One thing I am learning is to be mroe realsitic about what I will feel like cooking after work. I do all the cooking as I am better at it and hate washing up!

Once I've done a shop, I can check dates on the fish and meat against my plan and freeze for a couple of days, if necessary. I put all my fridge veg in the green Stay Fresh bags from Lakeland and that helps it last much longer.