Meal Planning Monday - the February trying to keep it healthy edition!

Yay, it's really February now. The nights are getting lighter. It's slightly warmer (although I've just noticed snow is forecast for later, joy). And I'm still trying to be healthy. If you picked up this month's Good Food (which is actually the March edition, go figure), you'd be forgiven for thinking that people only eat interesting healthy food in January, because a lot of the recipes are quite fattening, starting with the recipe that is 1,100 calories per adult portion. Stuff that - that's for Christmas!

So I've had to hunt around to pad out my plan for the week.

What's going on this week? Well, parents evening is on Wednesday and so sandwiches are the order of the day then. Apart from that, not masses is going on other than the usual routine. Husband is working his weekend off, but in advance of taking two weekends off for half term, which is the third week of February.

This is what I have planned for us foodwise this week.

Monday -  Southwestern black bean casserole
Tuesday - Slow cooker turkey stroganoff
Wednesday - Sandwiches
Thursday - Spiced parsnip and cauliflower soup
Friday - Pork taco mix probably done as fajitas
Saturday - Smoked salmon spaghetti
Sunday - Chorizo and pepper lasagne

How do you like my menu? What's on yours this week? Toddle on over to Mrs M's place if you want more Meal Planning Monday action. 

Meal Planning Monday - the 5 for £20 edition!

Time for a different style of post this week again. I'm testing out one of Sainsbury's 5 for £20 meal plans this week. The idea is that the meal plans will provide 5 family meals (for 4) for just £20. Seems amazing in the times we're living in, doesn't it In order to prove it, Sainsbury's have sent me a £20 gift card to give it a go and see how I get on.

A round up of thank yous

I've had a few things sent to me in the last few weeks so it's high time I said thanks for them. Where are my manners?

Firstly, Robinsons sent me a skills kit to try out so the children can practice and become a Champion of the Playground. Children can win their own kit by entering codes from special  bottles of Fruit Shoot at fruitshoot.com. The kit contains a drawstring bag (always handy), a skipping rope with digital counter, a hacky-sack, also with counter and a webcam. The counters rack up points the more you play with them and generate a code you enter on the website to progress through a game. The webcam is there to allow you to play some interactive games on the website but unfortunately, I couldn't get the webcam to work on my laptop so we never got to try it but the children had fun doing keepy-uppies with the hacky-sack. We were given a leaderboard to have a champion of the household but the children commandeered it and made up their own scoring system. I'm not sure who won but we also had a crown and it's been worn a few times, mostly by Missy Woo who thinks she is a princess. Thanks to Robinsons - who actually sent us two kits, one of which we donated to the children's school.