Meal Planning Monday - the February at last edition!

You know I thought January went on forever. I won't go on about it anymore except to say "February, yay!" I don't know why I am saying that because this week appears to be stupidly busy. Tonight, the children are taking part in a Young Voices concert in Manchester so are going on a coach there at lunchtime with the rest of the school choir, rehearsing then staying for the concert. We're going of course, then going home and picking them up. It will be a late night for them and then Missy goes on a school trip to Salford on Tuesday. And to top it all off,  Monkey starts back at cricket nets on Tuesday evening. Eventually, life returns to normal somewhere around Wednesday (ish) and I think hoping for a fast arrival of the weekend. I don't usually wish the week away but tired children usually equals grumpy children in our house.

This is what we are having this week.

Monday - bacon butties for the grown ups, kids are taking a packed tea with them
Tuesday - Cauliflower cheese and jackets
Wednesday - Chilli and cornbread (held over from last week)
Thursday - Roasted butternut squash and carrot soup
Friday - Bhaji frittata
Saturday - Salmon, dill and mushroom lasagne
Sunday - Roast dinner (not sure which yet, we went shopping in Waitrose and I can't afford 90% of their joints)

Mrs M's is open for business (or should be soon) and you can see lots and lots other interesting meal plans. Click on the badge above to discover lots of meal planning loveliness.

Meal Planning Monday - the Good Food edition

Something a little different from me this week. I noticed in my latest edition of Good Food that they had a week (that's Monday to Friday) of family meals for £22. So, I thought I'd give them a go and see how they measured up to the other weekly meal plans I've done. I'm doing this of my own choice - no-one has asked me to do it, I am just trying it out for myself. I've already done the shopping  - well, I have ordered it online to arrive today - but as I used Ocado, the ingredients came to a little over £22 - partly because some of the things I was buying were on those multi-buy offers so I bought extra to go in the freezer. I've jiggled the order around a little, as they had soup on Monday, which is usually my standard choice for Thursday so swapped them around.

Here's the plan for this week.

Monday - Spiced carrot, chickpea and almond pilaf
Tuesday - Tomato and onion bake with goat's cheese
Wednesday - Potato pepper and chorizo stew with fried eggs
Thursday - Creamy lentil and spinach soup with bacon
Friday - Jerk beefburger with pineapple relish and chips
Saturday - keeping free (possibly risotto, the kids are eating at a party)
Sunday - Gammon cooked in the slow cooker

Quite a nice mix of meals, although the week is light on meat content. Two meals are fully vegetarian, the soup could be made without the meat, and the chorizo dish doesn't have a huge amount in it, leaving only the beefburger as a big meaty meal. We are fine with that but I suspect some people wouldn't be.

And given that it is Shrove Tuesday this week, we will be having pancakes for pudding after the tomato and onion bake, with either lemon and sugar, or nutella.

I'll try and photograph all the finished dishes and tweet them so you can see what they're like made by a real person.

And remember, Mrs M hosts the Meal Planning Monday linky, where you can find more lovely meal plans. But before you do, why not tell me what you've got planned for this week?