Meal Planning Monday - a week of My Daddy Cooks meals!

If you read this feature weekly, you'll know that last week, I used the Sainsbury's Feed your Family for £50 meal plan after they kindly sent me a week's shopping to test out the meal plan. It went pretty well, although we didn't use all the lunch stuff, partly due to the others going camping. The meals were pretty good on the whole - some could have done with a little more flavour, but the frittata and "carbonara" were gorgeous. The sweet and sour was the only dish that was not nice at all - but it used a jar of cooking sauce and I'm never a big fan of those. The breakfasts were a bit basic in the week, but I found that using yogurt with the muesli, for example, made it more palatable. Some of the portion sizes were HUGE - the tuna pasta bake, for example, was enough for 8 meals, not 4!

We did film ourselves cooking and the children appeared in an advert! It was on Wednesday night during Britain's Got Talent. I would have missed it were it not for Twitter as I got a few "was that your children?" tweets. Thanks to ITV+1 and Sky+, I managed to record it for the children, who were, of course, away camping at the time. You could also see my hands and hear Missy Woo saying "It's a bit gooey" as we rolled sausages into meatballs. So thanks very much to Sainsbury's for giving us the opportunity to try out the meal plan - and for turning my children into stars for 5 seconds.

So, onto this week and again, I'm doing something different. You see, I've been inspired. The other day, I received a copy of My Daddy Cooks by Nick Coffer. Nick is a Twitter friend whose blog - also called My Daddy Cooks - became a runaway success when he started it in late 2009. Nick films his son Archie and himself cooking in their kitchen. Nick's recipes are always easy to follow, great family food and accessible to cook with children around - exactly what I like. And now he's written a book containing 100 recipes.

Photo - Veronique Leplat

When the book arrived, I had a quick flick through and I loved the layout and style of the book - easy to read and follow, with some nice pictures, both of the dishes and of Nick and Archie going. Then I sat down and read through the book - and I read and read and kept reading! I started to make a list of all the recipes that I must cook as soon as possible - and the list ran over two pages. So then, I had an idea to plan my week's meals around recipes from the book. To be honest, I could be planning meals from the book for weeks given the length of the list - this doesn't even scratch the surface of it. Needless to say, I loved the book - it's full of great family recipes that you'll enjoy cooking, with children or without. I cannot wait to try this week's recipes.

So, here we go. This week's meals are going to be:

Monday - Minty lamb and butternut squash tagine
Tuesday - No fry Singapore noodles
Wednesday - Turkey and cranberry meatloaf
Thursday - Chickpea and chorizo soup
Friday -  Burgers and chips
Saturday - Lentil curry with cauliflower
Sunday - Family party so no cooking for me!

And I shall report back next week on how it all went.

Why not pop over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning entries?

( Sainsbury's sent me a week's shopping so I could try out their £50 weekly meal plan and a camera so I could film making one of the meals. I was also sent, separately, a copy of My Daddy Cooks to review and keep. I have not received any other compensation in either case; I have not been told what to write and all opinions are my own.)