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

The chicken/broccoli lasagna, made with a few tweaks due to my incompetence, was a raging success again. I think I might put it in my back pocket for next time we have family over for a meal. I could cook the chicken, onions, leeks etc in advance then it's just a case of simmering the sauce, adding cheese and sticking it under the grill.

I'm not feeling very inspired this week so:

Tonight - I'm roasting a whole chicken. Probably just serve with veggies and mashed potato
T: Lemon and chicken risotto with a side of greens
W: Tuna fish cakes, wedges, and... veg.
Th Chicken burrito bowl.
Fr: Spaghetti and meatballs

I simply didn't have the brain power to plan beyond that.

That chicken and broccoli lasagne does look yum - think it would be good to make with leftover roast chicken (Mumsnet stylee 😂)

I'm not too sure how successful this week's menu will be, might have been a bit over adventurous with two new dishes at the end of the week, but I have thrown in some ready meals for my son to save the thinking.

Sunday - shop bought chicken and leek pie, mash, purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, peas (I remembered that I could buy one big pie instead of three individual ones as we all like the same filling, so much cheaper than having to buy three individual ones)

Monday - Roasted squash, blue cheese and leek risotto with walnuts/pizza

Tuesday - Curried butter-baked cod with cauliflower and chickpeas, will do with some Indian spiced roast potatoes too.

Wednesday - Squash (I have a glut building up), rosemary and chilli pasta/freezer chilli

Thursday - Creamy polenta mash with salt and vinegar carlin peas and crispy kale (we'll see - the recipe says it's easy and I have bought jarred carlin peas, so maybe it will be ok!) /Ready meal

Friday - Creamy celeriac spaghetti/macaroni cheese - this might morph into Nigella's soupy celeriac rice with chestnuts if I can't face cooking something new on a Friday night, or might get pushed to the weekend.

In the end, I did a plain and badly cooked chicken meal on Saturday.

I had duck breast with cauliflower cheese and roasted chunks of potato last night.

I have a portion of coq au vin for tonight with creamy mash.

I plan a sausage ragu and pasta tomorrow night.

veggies pizza on Wednesday.

veggi chilli and rice, with guacamole and sour cream on Thursday.

And either a nasi goreng or chicken vadagam curry on Friday.

@DilkushaKitchen That risotto sounds gorgeous.

It's this one, if you haven't already found it, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/squash-leek-blue-cheese-risotto

Wonderful. Thank you. Do you think it would work with frozen squash? I value my fingers too much to cut a whole one.

I think so, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, it just gets stirred in at the end.

I know what you mean about your fingers, butternut isn't usually too bad, but we had crown prince squash the other week and the other half is going to go in the compost, I think, it's sooo dense and hard to peel and cut. It's also too wooly for my taste (though some people love it, apparently)

If you're roasting it, I'd recommend rather buying squash already prepared becuase doesn't it go a bit watery if frozen first?

I don't mind peeling and choppng the long bit of a butternut, but the round bit where you have to get the seeds out and it's all fiddly with the skin?! Given half the chance, I find some excuse to toss that bit or do something different with it - like leave the skin on (but DH genuinely gets indigestion if he eats butternut with the skin on. I've experimented by not teling him if I've left it on or not when making soup and there is a 100% correlation between him complaining of indigestion afterwards and me removing the skin. Bugger).

I’ve never used the frozen stuff, so don’t know what texture it is. If it’s being doused in a liquid risotto later anyway, it probably wouldn’t cause too much of an issue? Anyone used it?

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupieit is fine if you’re roasting it first or making a purée, probs wouldn’t just chuck it in with pasta without roasting as it’d just be a bit watery/nothingness.

Thanks. So does it roast okay, or does it just make mush? I’ve been put off trying it for fear of the latter tbh.

I’ve found it roasts ok, I’ve used it in soup roasted and it keeps its form until blended.

Thank you. I’ll give it a try in a soup first.

On frozen butternut squash - I find it can be a bit watery and mushy. I tend to chuck it into things like a vegetable curry in the slow cooker where the mushiness can be a sort of benefit - it breaks down and helps thicken the sauce. I just make sure to include a few crunchier vegetables like cauliflower so that the texture is varied.

Thanks @MotherofPearl

I’m having nightmare week so the plan has gone out the window for “grab the next pre-made meal from the freezer” instead. But that’s not dreadful at the moment so coq au vin Monday, proper spag Bol test, chicken vadagam curry tonight, I defrosted chicken gyros meat for today but as I am only home 5 mins that will be for tmrw (it’s after 9 here), I think. But I feel ok about wasting 1 small portion if I can’t face cooking.

Tomorrow: chilli nachos
saturday: pasta alla norma
Sunday: Bean, olive and tomato stew on sourdough
Monday: Sweet n sour veg stirfry
Tuesday: Veggie meatball sub
Wednesday: freezer special
Thursday: jerk tofu with rice and peas

Forcing ahead with my salady-type weekend meals, much to DH's horror when he saw the shopping list this morning 😂. In fairness I have so many frozen pittas, flatbreads and pierlini shells in the freezer and really need to make space for christmas stuff.

So that's:

Tomorrow: Mushroom and bacon pierlini with green salad
Sunday: Chicken kebabs in pitta with Greek salad, tzatziki and halloumi
Monday: Butter halloumi curry
Tuesday: Shakshouka
Wednesday: Falafel wraps with sweet potato wedges
Thursday: Spaghetti with roasted peppers, red pesto and feta
Friday: Going away for a couple of nights, haven't yet decided if having quick dinner first on Friday or waiting until we arrive.
Saturday: Away
Sunday: Roasted vegetable and gnocchi bake.

Just done our plan for the next 7 days, seem to have gotten into a bit of a rut eating very similar things every week. I'm so bored of it so think after this week I'm going to challenge myself to a week of brand new recipes, will be taking inspiration from you all but definitely think I'll be trying the chicken and broccoli lasagne.

Today- Brothy rice bowls again. This time a gochujang and coconut broth topped with loads of veggies and chicken marinated in gochujang and honey.
Saturday - Spicy Meatball pasta bake.
Sunday - Pork chops in a creamy mustard sauce with veg and mini roast potatoes.
Monday- Cauliflower daal with mini naan bread
Tuesday - Gammon, creamy cabbage and leeks, peas and new potatoes. I have a huge joint in the freezer so going to put it in the slow cooker to free up some space and spread it over a few days.
Wednesday - Leftover gammon egg fried rice with mini spring rolls from the freezer
Thursday - Pea and ham soup with the rest of the gammon (stock from cooking the gammon).

M: Paella
T: hamburgers with tomato and spinach sauce
W: pork stroganoff
Th: kebabs (skewer type) from the air fryer and mash (DD)
F: fish and green beans
S: Birthday dinner (rehearsal for Christmas) either salmon en croute or roast gammon. Sacher.
Su: probably pizza or leftovers as we’re going out for lunch.

Sort of sorted: the order might change

tomorrow - Greek salad for lunch and probably omelettes for dinner

Sunday- pie, sweet potato mash, savoy cabbage, carrots

Monday- gigantes beans, tzatziki, pitta, baked feta

Tuesday- dhal, paratha, bhajis, onion/cucumber salad

Weds - Higgidy quiche and salad

Thursday- bibimbap

A friend has purchased the Chicken and Broccoli lasagne book for me while on a trip to Australia (it's £35 to buy on Amazon here). I will report back on other similarly great recipes when I get it - seeing her in a couple of weeks! I'm definitely going to make it over the christmas madness on one of the days we have family over.

Tonight - harissa halloumi stew
Tomorrow - root veg and haricot bean crumble
M - masala omelette
T - tomato and pesto orzotto
W - chilli stuffed butternut
Th - fish fingers tacos
F - jerk black bean burgers

I ended up doing a pasta with mushrooms and bacon, sort of carbonara style, on Thursday and chucking out the defrosted gyros meat (too much work on Thursday to face). I defrosted chicken thighs to roast last night, except they were still frozen so I bought a chicken escalope with “ham” inside to roast with the potatoes I had prepped. It was fuel.

So tonight I have my chicken thighs which I will choose between doing feta and thyme under the skin and serving with roast potatoes and roasted Mediterranean veggies — or plain chicken with roasties and cauliflower cheese. I might do the first and then cauliflower cheese with roasties tomorrow and a pork chop on the bone (depending on supermarket finds).

Monday will be chicken and mushrooms on rice.
Tuesday will be proper chicken fajitas with HM guacamole.
Wednesday sausage ragu and pasta (I could be quite late from work so need easy).
Thursday I am flying home so I need to raid DH’s shopping (I.e. probably get a takeaway or go shopping when I land at 7:30pm). And that will dictate the rest of the weekend too.

Sunday: cottage pie, cabbage, peas
Monday: soy and ginger salmon
Tuesday: Swedish meatballs
Wednesday:bibimbap
Thursday:Tofu stirfry
Friday: pizza and salad
Saturday: Goan fish curry