Meal Planning Monday - the reality bites edition

So, my birthday has been and gone, the kids are back at school and reality hits home. It's January and I want to eat as healthily as I can. The month feels like it goes on for ever too so let's hope this one passes quickly.  The healthy eating well explain why there are three dishes containing poultry on the menu this week. Again, all the recipes (apart from the risotto, which is just made up) are from BBC Good Food this month but none of them have reached their website. And excuse the chicken pies - they are in my freezer and I've actually checked, they're not too bad in the calorie department. 

Here is next week then. Nothing out of the way, I'm leaving Saturday free because I am not currently sure what we are doing. 

Monday - Chicken risotto

Tuesday - Baked turkey meatballs with crispy potatoes and broccoli

Wednesday - Mushroom stroganoff with rice

Thursday - Chunky pea soup with bread

Friday - Chicken pies, mash and mixed veg

Saturday - left free

Sunday - Salmon and broccoli cakes with salad. 

Are you planning your meals this year? What are you planning to eat this week? Tell me, and then visit Mrs M's  place to visit the other entries in this week's linky. 

Meal Planning Monday - the reverse engineered edition and OMG, it's Christmas!

So, what do you know? It's Christmas week. Obviously, you know what Sunday will mean, but maybe I'll do a separate post about that but we're largely traditional. And actually, I love doing it.

What about the rest of the week? Well, I only have five days to plan. We kind of started a little "tradition" a few years ago in that we have Chinese on Christmas Eve. It's a nice difference to what is to come and it does mean I don't have lots of cooking to do. I always forget and start to ponder what to cook until my husband reminds me. So we'll have that again and I can concentrate on all the prep to make Christmas Day as easy as possible.

So, why is it reverse engineered? The answer to that is the little email that popped into my inbox on Friday, offering 20% on my food shop. So, hurriedly, I put together an order, just chucked in what I needed and perhaps a few things extra without a thought to a plan. I nearly got scuppered when my mother rang me near the end of my hour but I remembered in time and got it in. And because I was pretty busy, I never got time to go back and add anything, let alone plan this week's meals. Hence, reverse engineered - I'm planning the meals from what I know I have and hopefully, I'll plan it so I don't really have to go back to the supermarket much.

Here's the plan:

Monday - Sundried tomato and chicken pilaf (in the slow cooker)
Tuesday - Mushroom risotto
Wednesday - Keema curry
Thursday - Cheesy broccoli pasta bake
Friday - Honey mustard pork (yes, again. Monkey asked...)
Saturday - Chinese!
Sunday - Christmas dinner - turkey et al.