Two weeks ago I joined in with my first Meal Planning Monday, as part of my New Year’s resolution to eat more healthily. That week went really well – we stuck to my meal plan, and I was very pleased that it all worked out. A special mention must be given to the Beef and Guinness stew from the My Daddy Cooks book – the geekdaddy told me it was the best stew I have ever made!
Last week things went horribly wrong. I never quite caught up with myself, mostly due to coping with the outbreak of nits and very busy time at work, so my meal planning consisted of buying some random meat and vegetables in a frantic dash around Aldi and figuring out what to do with them on the fly. We managed better than I expected, but it was a bit hit and miss.
This week I’m back in control again, and I managed to find time over the weekend to produce a meal plan for the week AND do the shopping for it. Read on to find out more…
This week we’re again delving heavily in to My Daddy Cooks – I’ve owned the book for a while, but as I was still trying to follow the Slimming World diet when I got it and had no idea how to work out if any of the dishes were OK to eat or not. Now that I’ve changed the way I’m eating (there is a blog post coming about this soon, promise!), I’ve started working my way through the recipes, and I am really liking how easy they are to follow. So the plan for the week is as follows:
Meals for the geekdaddy and I (Monday – Thursday):
- Thai minced chicken with basil (My Daddy Cooks) – made with turkey instead of chicken as I couldn’t find minced chicken in our local supermarkets
- Minced lamb and pea curry (My Daddy Cooks)
- Chicken and chorizo pies (bought from Waitrose at the request of the geekdaddy)
Meals for the family (Friday – Sunday):
- Creamy pork and cider (My Daddy Cooks)
- Sausages, mash and beans (got to have some comfort food!)
- Something from the freezer (either stew or spaghetti bolognese, will decide nearer the time)
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I’ve only planned 3 meals for the geekdaddy and I to eat in four days. That’s because we have a friend coming to visit on Tuesday evening, and his arrival time is pretty vague, meaning I don’t know if he’ll be staying to eat or not. So we’ll have a takeaway that evening, probably Chinese. I’ve got to have the odd treat, right?
You can find more Meal Planning Monday posts over at At Home with Mrs M – they’re worth checking out as a great source of inspiration!
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Mince chicken is impossible to find in any supermarket, trust me I have tried! I end up at a decent butcher and asking them to mince some thighs. We also bought a hand mincer to do some at home, but it is hard going, I need one for the mixer.
My meal plan is over at http://www.frugaliciousfood.com/2012/01/menu-plan-monday-and-farmhouse.html, this is where I pop it each week
That’s useful to know. I think the recipe worked OK with turkey instead, but it was very coarse in texture, and I got the feeling it would have been better with the chicken.
Why not give chicken a quick pulse in the food processor? I’ve done this for making my own chicken dumplings, so long as it’s a quick whoosh and you don’t over do it it works fine. Or buy minced turkey which is much easier to find.
I used minced turkey, which seemed OK, but did result in a coarser texture than I think I’d have got with minced chicken.
Oooh sounds yummy! Do the geekson & geekdaughter fuss much about mealtimes? Im BIG on mealplanning and keen to know more about your new way of eating, Ive started My Fitness Pal (so calorie counting I guess?) for a week
The kids have their moments, but we have a pretty relaxed attitude to the whole thing – they either eat what’s put in front of them, or they get nothing until the next meal. Sometimes they eat, sometimes they don’t. They certainly don’t go hungry though 🙂
We do the same and often our 2 yr old goes only eats breakfast fruit and lunch at 12/1pm then nothing til the next day because he simply wont even taste dinner 🙁 its frustrating!!
By the way that chicken stuffed with boursin and wrapped in parma ham on this weeks menu sounded so devine I had to google a recipe!
Ooooh, if you’re going to try it it, this is the one I do – http://dinnerathome.co.uk/recipes/13-main-course/29-chicken-wrapped-with-parma-ham.html – and it is GORGEOUS 🙂