Meal Planning Monday - the dull mid-January edition!

Not much to say about this week - just another week marking off to January payday.

The plan has a lot of stuff I've already got in to keep food costs down.

Monday - Chicken, ham and mushroom pasta bake (based loosely on that dish)
Tuesday - Burgers
Wednesday - Roast parsnip and parmesan soup
Thursday- Cauliflower cheese
Friday - Gnocchi and sausage bake
Saturday - Quiche lorraine
Sunday - Roast or pie, whatever is on offer at the supermarket later.

Short and sweet this week. Don't forget to join in at Mrs M's

Meal Planning Monday - the last week of Spring term edition!

Yes, really. If you're not up on how this year is panning out schoolwise, a lot of areas finish this week and go back straight after Easter, due to it being so late this year. In fact, I can only think of one time when it was later as husband's 40th fell on Easter Sunday and his birthday is 24th April.

Added to that, I've got year end to contend with for the next month or so. So I'm busy at work and the end of term brings lots of things going on whilst gearing up for the holiday.

I'm late posting this but my plan came first and was all done and dusted in time for Mother's Day yesterday. This week, we're at a school event on Thursday night and I'm going to Manchester for The Cake and Bake Show on Saturday.

Without further ado, it's over to the plan.

Monday - Chicken, sweetcorn and mushroom tagliatelle
Tuesday - Slow cooker vegetable biryani
Wednesday - Pizza baked potatoes
Thursday - Sandwiches
Friday - Chicken and sweetcorn soup
Saturday - Fishfingers or pizza
Sunday - Salmon with new potatoes and green beans

More plans over at Mrs M's. (Badge above will take you there.)

Meal Planning Monday - the last leg (of January!) edition

It's finally here (well nearly) - the end of January and the nights are beginning to feel a little lighter. Hurrah, I say. Our usual busy week is ahead of us - children singing, dancing, swimming (thankfully not all at once) and a busy work week for me as a quarterly deadline approaches.

The week is made up of a soup to use up leftovers, an easy meal to cope with the fact that I am watching them sing in Asda on Tuesday after school, a slow cooker meal and some random other stuff chosen by me or Monkey. Nothing outrageous.

This is it then.

Monday - Chinese chicken and sweetcorn soup
Tuesday - Meatballs, mash and gravy
Wednesday - Lamb and lentil crumble
Thursday - Slow cooker Caribbean chicken with rice and peas
Friday - Chilli with cheesy cornbread
Saturday - Mushroom stroganoff
Sunday - keeping free for now

Enjoy your week. Don't forget to visit Mrs M's place by clicking the badge above and seeing what others are having this week.

Meal Planning Monday - the January back to work edition!

The day has arrived. I've been off work for 37 days which have actually passed in the blink of an eye but Christmas does that, doesn't it? Even last week flew by in a flurry of birthdays, a resumption of school activities and getting back into the exercise groove.

Thinking that this week will pass in a never ending battle against a mailbox full to the brim, I have planned early and even had a Sunday food delivery. Today is a leftovers recipe, and tomorrow's is a dish that is in the freezer. The rest is a mix of new things and old favourites - Missy Woo asked me to do the lamb pilau as both of them love it.

So, this is it.

Monday - Turkey and stuffing chelsea buns
Friday - Fish pie
Wednesday - Chilli with cornbread topping
Thursday - Chunky butternut squash mulligatawny
Friday - Cheese and lentil loaf
Saturday - Lamb, coconut and mango pilau
Sunday - Roast chicken

And now I'm starving just reading that lot, so that must be a good sign! Come back next week for more. And in the meantime, click the badge above to see more meal plans.

Meal Planning Monday - the December keeping it simple edition

Soon be Christmas. And I'm on holiday until mid-January. Don't all hate me. I need a break, after a week when my dishwasher and my boiler broke last week.

This week, I am keeping it simple so I can spend as much as possible on Christmas preparations and relaxation. The children have school performance two nights this week, plus choir. I'm going out, husband is going out, and Monkey is going to a friend's house to tea. And at the weekend, the children are going to stay with Granny and Granddad to go to the panto. A complex logistical week!

Monday - Burgers
Tuesday - Honey mustard pork
Wednesday - Cowboy corned beef n beans pie
Thursday - sandwiches
Friday - Lentil and bacon soup
Saturday - free
Sunday - Spicy lamb with chickpeas

That's it. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult or time consuming. Bung it cookery! What are you having this week? Go visit Mrs M's place (click the badge top right) to find out what others are eating this week.

Meal Planning Monday - the not cooking very much edition!

I know quite a few areas are off this week but we have another week of school before half term. But it's a busy one - Valentine's disco at school, Monkey is going to a friend's for tea (again!) and we're going away at the weekend. As a result, there isn't a great deal of cooking to be done and so you won't find any culinary wonders. We're having sausages because there were some in the freezer, I got a pizza reduced from the supermarket to have on Shrove Tuesday so pancakes can be made,  and Missy Woo chose the soup (because she thought that Monkey would like it), then it's no cooking for the weekend.

So, here is the official plan.

Monday - Sausages with onion gravy (incidentally, the most read post on this blog!)
Tuesday - Pizza (not homemade) followed by pancakes!
Wednesday - out for tea
Thursday - Creamy chicken and sweetcorn soup
Friday - away
Saturday - away
Sunday - away

Don't get over-excited now! Normalish service will be back next week, even though that is half term. Hopefully, the other meal plans over at Mrs M's will be more interesting than this one.

Meal Planning Monday - the no snow edition!

(OK, so the weather forecast decided to make a fool of me. I wrote this late last night and overnight, we unexpectedly got 2-3 ins of snow and it's kept snowing today. Still, school is open so it is not a snow day officially here, just snow-y. )

Yes, what seems like everyone is going on about snow. We, on the other hand, have very little. It snowed on Friday, true, but not a massive amount. Where we live, we seemed to have more than the rest of the local area because we are that bit higher up and exposed but down at school there was much less so that remained open, and as you head to Preston, the snow all but dies out. I really don't mind - the children had enough snow to play in for a while, but everything continued to function. And it's been cold but not too bad - really, Friday was the worst day and on Saturday, I didn't even have to turn the heating up or back on.

It's a bit odd, really. I know it's going to continue to be cold this week so I have tried to keep warming stuff on the menu. I've just realised that I'm meant to be going out for lunch on Thursday so have done a quick last minute reshuffle so I'm not cooking lots in the afternoon and this now means a full week of meals. We have nothing special this week - no parties, events or anything. Sounds boring but it's nice to have a quietish week from time to time. A couple of these recipes, I have snaffled from reading other people's meal plans last week. If that's you, then thanks for the idea. I have a few more lined up for future weeks as I couldn't fit it all in.

Our week looks very much like this.

Monday -  Carrot sesame and chickpea burgers
Tuesday - Lamb meatball and pea pilaf
Wednesday -  One pot prawn pilau
Thursday - Potato and parmesan soup
Friday - Root veg and pancetta toad in the hole with gravy
Saturday - Cheesy chicken pot pie
Sunday - Sausage cassoulet

What about yours? Mrs M is the place to go if you want more Meal Planning Monday magic. 

Meal Planning Monday - the busy nearly Christmas week edition

Well, that's the only way I can think of to describe it. It's not quite Christmas but there are plenty of Christmas things going on. The children have their school show this week on Tuesday and Wednesday, we're going in to hear Monkey's class play their ukuleles (yes, really!) on Wednesday morning, the children are off to have a sleepover at Granny and Granddad's and going to a pantomime (oh no they're not!), leaving us to have some child free time, possibly to go to Manchester for the Christmas markets. Oh, and the husband has an appointment to be Father Christmas for a group of babies and small children.

It's nothing special - easy or quick things mostly. Still using some things from the freezer, trying to keep some things lighter in advance of the rich food that is to come in the weeks to come.

Here, then, is our week.

Monday - Bean chilli with baked sweet potatoes
Tuesday - Sausage and bean cobbler (from the freezer!)
Wednesday - Cauliflower cheese soup
Thursday - Honey and lemon chicken
Friday - Pizza? Or maybe fishfingers?
Saturday - not cooking
Sunday - Greek lamb and macaroni bake

So that's us, what about you? Do you like my meal plan? What are you having this week? Mrs M host the linky with all the other Meal Planning Monday entries. Don't forget to check them out!

Corned beef and lentil soup

This recipe (see also Cowboy corned beef 'n' beans pie for details) takes a lentil and bacon/pea and ham soup and gives it a twist. Instead of using cured pork products, I'm using beef instead! I figured it would work well. If you happen to Google corned beef soup, you get a lot of American recipes using the fresh cured product so this product is made for the tinned version instead. It has a slight spice kick to it, but not too hot that the children will turn their noses up to it. Mine won't anyway. Anyway, this is another really easy store cupboard recipe that will fill you up and warm you up on a cold winter's day. No need for tinned stuff.

Corned beef and lentil soup
Serves 6

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
About half a 340g tin corned beef, cut into 1cm cubes
2 carrots, chopped quite small
4 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mild chilli powder (or hot if you dare or 1 fresh chilli, chopped and deseeded)
2 litres beef stock
500g split red lentils, rinsed and picked over

1. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large saucepan, and add the onion and carrots, cooking for 5 minutes to soften over a medium heat, then adding half of the corned beef cubes to the pan. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring as little as possible so that the corned beef gets some crisp and colour.

2. Add the garlic, cumin, turmeric and chilli powder, and cook for another 2 minutes until you can smell the spices. Pour in the stock and add the lentils. Cover and bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer for about 20 minutes. The lentils will lose their shape and look pale yellow when properly cooked.

3. While the soup is cooking, heat the rest of the oil in a small frying pan and cook the rest of cubed corned beef until crispy. Serve the soup sprinkled with the cubes of corned beef sprinkled on top and with some nice crusty bread.

(I was asked by Princes to develop some recipes using corned beef and they sent me 6 tins and an apron for this purpose.)

Meal Planning Monday - the distinctly Autumn edition!

Yep, definitely Autumn out there even though we have had a, few nice days recently. I've just looked at the meal plan and the food reflects the season - cobbler and soup to name but two. The ham hock from last week never got made, partly because I didn't manage to get hold of a ham hock. I need to go to a proper butcher's to buy one, I think.

Apart from the fact that I am out most of Friday and therefore not cooking because I won't be home until nearly 7pm, it's a pretty uneventful week for us.

Eyes down, here we go.


Monday - Sausage and bean cobbler
Tuesday-  Turkey tortilla pie
Wednesday - Low fat chicken biryani
Thursday - Curried root vegetable soup
Friday - keeping free
Saturday - Ham hock with pinto beans
Sunday - keeping free

(There's no links because most of the recipes are from this month's BBC Good Food and they take a little time to get them onto their website.)

Is your menu feeling distinctly autumnal? Tell me what is on your plan this week and then head over to Mrs M's to find more MPM entries.

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?

Meal Planning Monday - the not cooking much and we're going away edition

I think the title says it all today. We're going away this weekend (which you'll be able to read about after we get back), and so I won't be cooking Friday to Sunday. Also, because we'll be away and spending money, I want to keep the food bill down and nothing be too much trouble as we have a busy week with Christmas plays at school and that sort of stuff that goes with the last but one week of term before Christmas. I went on a bit of a rummage (it certainly wasn't a forage) and dug out from my cupboard and the depths of my freezer stuff I can turn into family meals with minimum effort.

Prepare to be underwhelmed by this week's meal plan.

Monday - Salmon and butterbean mash (an old favourite I can make in ten minutes)
Tuesday - Chicken fajitas (using the smokey BBQ fajita kit I got in my goody bag from Sainsbury's last week)
Wednesday - Jacket potatoes (which is fast becoming a top favourite with the children)
Thursday - Fridge bottom vegetable soup and sandwiches (to use up what's left in the fridge)
Friday - away
Saturday - away
Sunday - away

I bet you cannot wait now, can you? I can't - my shopping list this week is very short indeed!

So, are you having anything more exciting than I am rustling up this week? Share your menus with me, and when you're done, visit At Home with Mrs M to find links to more meal plans, hopefully a bit more exciting than mine!

Meal Planning Monday

Well, it's time to plan another week's meals. This week is an odd one for me as I'm going to be on my own with the children from Thursday until Monday. Husband is off running the Druid Challenge, the length of the Ridgeway Path from Buckinghamshire to Wiltshire over the course of three days. No, I don't know either but he likes to do these mad things occasionally and he's using it to raise funds for the school's PTFA. (So, if you want to sponsor him, do get in touch!) Some of the early part of the week is therefore given over to pasta and rice dishes, hence the re-appearance of one dish from last week.

It's also Nearly New Sale weekend. We have two a year in our branch and I have volunteered to help every time. I'm not sure yet how much time I can give on Saturday because of possibly not having anyone to look after the children, but I will be there at some point. I spent a good chunk of Sunday labelling up unwanted toys to sell as well so it's in my interest for it to be a successful. The tradition for us is to have Chinese after a sale but with there only being 3 of us, I don't know if we will as the children prefer fish and chips. Handily, the local takeaway does both!

How to Make Monster Soup - by Monkey (aged 5 3/4)

This is a "guest post" by Monkey. He wrote it this morning completely off his own back and brought it to me. I think it's fab so I thought I'd share it with you. I'll use his words and spellings first and provide a translation - as he read it out to me - underneath. 

Over to Monkey..... 

How to make Monstar Monster SoPe

1 Fiei put a Man into the Pan.

2 next put a plug into the Pan.

3 Atht that put a slug into the Pan.

4 put a meeaacat into the Pan.

5 put so slim into the Pan.

6 put a telaviin into the Pan.

Photo credit: siulesoj

7 put a Powd into the Pan.

8 put so culud Powd into the pan

9 put so Iic Crim.

10 Put so Dogs into the Pan.

11 boil for 99 minits

(Translation How to make Monster Soup

1. First, put a man into the pan.

2. Next, put a plug into the pan.

3. After that, put a slug into the pan.

4. Put a meerkat into the pan.

5. Put some slime into the pan.

6. Put a television into the pan.

7. Put some powder into the pan.

8. Put some coloured powder into the pan.

9. Put some ice cream (into the pan). 

10. Put some dogs into the pan. 

11. Boil for 99 minutes. 

Apparently, this feeds 80 monsters. Bon appetit!)

A soupcon of something

At this time of year, as the temperature starts to drop along with the leaves on the trees, soup becomes the perfect lunch. It's warming, and generally a healthy option. It's quick to heat up, and even if you don't have access to a microwave or cooker, you can take it in a flask.

I have a serious soup habit and am quite fussy. Only fresh soups will do for me these days. They are expensive, so I often make my own to save money. Making soup is the easiest thing in the world if you have a blender. A hand blender is best as you can blend in the pan, making less mess.

I do, however, get in a bit of a soup rut. I often end up just making soup from the leftover veg at the end of the week. This means that most end up tasting quite similar and looking distinctly orange from all the carrots and swedes that dominate this time of year.

So, I'm starting another meme. A soup recipe meme. The idea is we all share a recipe for a soup. It can be anything - a new recipe you've discovered or designed yourself, your ultimate recipe for a particular soup, an unusual soup or just an old favourite. It just has to be soup. I've designed a badge and everything. And yes, I know that soupcon has a fancy cedilla thingy under the c, but the application I used to make the badge wouldn't allow me to enter fancy schmancy characters. I'm hoping we've all got different favourites and we'll be able to discover new soups to keep us warm in the colder months.

So, the guidelines for this meme are as follows:

1. Write your post including recipe and add my spectacular badge.
2. Mention this post so your readers can find other blogger recipes for some fab soups.
3. Tag some other bloggers to join in and share their favourite soup recipes.
4. Once you have published, come back and add a link to your recipe below. The Linky tool is set up to stay open all Winter so there is no rush, but please let me know if it's not working properly.

My soup is an unusual one.  In the mid 90s, I went to work for a company that ran a chain of American themed diners and nightclub, looking after their IT. I would visit venues who had problems I couldn't solve over the phone, or to install new equipment and software. One day, I was called to Basingstoke to fix a major problem. Whenever you turned up to fix the computers at a venue, nothing would be too much trouble. The staff would offer you drinks or food if the kitchen was open and bring it up to the office. On this occasion, they offered to get me some lunch. I asked what their soup was and was intrigued by the answer. It sounded odd but I decided to try it.

The soup was peanut butter and pumpkin. You're probably pulling faces right but trust me. It was so good that I remember that soup to this day and wanted to recreate it. After a quick Google , I found a few recipes and decided to have a go. All the recipes give measurements in cups so I've adapted it for UK foodies with the help of the good folk of Twitter pointing me at great resource like this. This soup is easiest if you can get canned pumpkin, but it's not widely available in the UK. It's not that hard to cook the puree, it just takes a bit longer. Use peanut butter that doesn't have added sugar.

Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Soup
Serves 6

Ingredients
25g butter, unsalted best
900g canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin (not a carving one), peeled, deseeded and cut into cubes
400g sweet potato, peeled and cut into cubes
250g smooth peanut butter
1.4l chicken or vegetable stock
Ground black pepper
Snipped chives
Sour cream or low fat natural greek yogurt, to garnish

1. First, make your puree. Put the pumpkin (if you don't have canned) and sweet potato cubes into a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the cubes are soft. Drain, then whizz to a puree with a hand blender or place in a blender.

2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Stir in the puree, the canned pumpkin if using, and the peanut butter. Add the stock, and season with pepper. It should not need salt! Stir well until smooth. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

3. Serve, garnished with the sour cream or yogurt and the chives.

This soup tastes better the day after it's made so it's worth making in advance. When I made it, I had to use butternut squash as Asda didn't have any pumpkins - a shocking state of affairs for mid-October! It was pretty much as I remember it and unless you really hate one of the ingredients, I recommend you give it a try. And yes, I realise it is another orange soup - but it is definitely not run of the mill.

So, now I must tag some lovely bloggers to carry forward my newly birthed meme. They are:

Cass at The Diary of a Frugal Family
Kerry at And Then All I Thought About Was You
Nic at Nic's Notebook
Kirsty at Imperfect Pages

If you're not tagged, either ask one of these lovely ladies to tag you, or just blog and add your own link here. All contributions are more than welcome.

Don't forget to check back here for links to other great recipes here soon!