Meal Planning Monday - the winter blues edition!

So I had a week off last week but didn't stop. When I wasn't doing things out of the house, I was trying to sort out the spare room and spent most of the week shredding, it seemed. It's done now but I didn't get half of the things I wanted to get done in order to get ready for Christmas.

I have a stack of things to do and so I'm a bit dreading this week. Christmas prep, work, baking and so it goes on. I feel like I have a dose of the winter blues. I seriously need to give myself a kick.

Anyway, I have made a plan but it's taken me hours. So I'd better share it with you, hadn't I?

Monday - Slow cooker hutspot with Swedish meatballs
Tuesday - Lamb, coconut and mango pilau
Wednesday - Mushroom soup
Thursday - Slow cooker butter chicken
Friday - Keeping free (school Christmas fair)
Saturday - Meatball pasta bake (Monkey is allegedly cooking this)
Sunday - Winging it.

Hopefully, next week will be calmer. Some hope, I feel.

Don't forget - Mrs M host the linky where you can find a myriad of meal plans.

A foodie round up

People like to send me stuff from time to time and y'know, it's quite nice. I like trying out new foods and all that. But really, quite often there is not a lot you can say about them so I tend to save them all up for posts such as this.

First off, the lovely people at Bear Nibbles who celebrated their 3rd birthday by launching a new YoYo snack in mango flavour. Now, I actually didn't get to try this because the children snaffled it up before I had the chance to do anything, but they assure me it was "yummy". They were also rather taken with the lunchbox they sent us.

Next, Waitrose invited me to an event trying out drinks for that time of year that is coming up. As I couldn't go, they sent me this little lot.

Hubby tried the Jaipur IPA and said it was nice if you like that sort of thing. The bottle with the label is Heston's Earl Grey and Lemon Gin which was quite nice with the tonic water although I am not a huge gin fan. The popcorn was very popular with the children, unsurprisingly. However, I cannot bring myself to try the Bloodshot which I think is vodka or a liqueur infused with Bloody Mary flavours. Ew..

Then, PeerIndex sent me a little perk just because. It was some Cravendale Epic Straws and vouchers for a month's supply of Cravendale, which actually turned into two weeks' worth as we use so much milk in this house! The straws are like those Connecta Straws that were all the rage in my childhood and the kids had a blast building with them. I don't think they have actually used them as they were intended - for drinking but they can make some very long straws!

Finally, Kellogg's sent me a couple of boxes of Special K Cracker Crisps to try. A bag of these crisps - or 21 if you buy the bigger boxes - is just 95 calories and only 3% fat. I am usually a bit dubious about diet food because they usually replace one lot of rubbish with another. However, I did like these - I was sent the sweet chilli and sour cream & chive flavours to try, and much preferred the sweet chilli flavour. They are quite moreish but what crisps aren't? I didn't like that they were potato and wheat based because those with wheat or gluten intolerances couldn't have them but they were and are a decent option if you need to have a low fat snack (although you are only saving yourself about 35 calories compared to having a packet of regular crisps, so it's your decision whether you think it is worth it or not!).

I think that's it for now! Thank you to all the above companies for sending us such lovely treats.

Meal Planning Monday - the nearly March edition

You may remember last week, I tried out the BBC Good Food weekly meal plan for £22. Quite frankly, I was rubbish at remembering to take photos of everything. In fact, I remembered a sum total of once. And that was the recipe on the first day when I managed to do everything wrong, including opening a tin of cannellini beans instead of chickpeas so ended up with both in it, burned flaked almonds whilst toasting them once and coming close a second time, then dolloping yogurt on the top which turned out to be mouldy. Luckily, it made industrial quantities, so I could start again with fresh yogurt and the children loved their new meals. Husband was not so keen on that one but he loved the onion and tomato bake, which I must admit was easy and tasty. We also loved the potato, pepper and chorizo stew with fried eggs. The soup was OK but turned out a bit salty for me, and the jerk beefburgers were good but the relish was too much really. It was quite nice but honestly? I could have done without it and just put cheese on top instead. But overall, for a week's worth of meals, they were pretty good. Five inexpensive meals from fresh ingredients is pretty good going. 

A special week this week as we have a whole extra day to enjoy! And of course, the start of March, which in this house, will mean one thing. Monkey's birthday. But more of that next week. 

The meals this week again come from Good Food - as I was looking through, I spotted several recipes I wanted to try and as I was doing an Ocado order last week which had to be a larger minimum spend, I added in extra items so most of it was bought and frozen then. I did a quickish shop yesterday to pick up the fresh stuff I needed so I'm completely organised and and ready to start my week. Today's was going to be herby lamb burgers but Monkey has been asking to have the lamb pilau again, so I'm going to do it using lamb mince. 

Here are the meals, with links

Monday - Lamb, coconut and mango pilau (possibly done slow cooker style)

Tuesday - Springtime spaghetti and meatballs

Wednesday - Leek, cheese and potato pasties

Thursday - sandwiches again

Friday - Better than baked beans with spicy wedges

Saturday - Crispy topped Cumberland pie

Sunday - keeping free

That's our menu this week, what is yours? And don't forget, Mrs M hosts the linky on her blog, so do take a look at all the other meal planning entries.