I can’t believe my (almost) week off work is over, and I’m back to the office today. It’s gone too fast – I suppose I always knew it would. The good news is that I managed to achieve a lot of what I wanted, and I’m returning to work today feeling refreshed and ready for anything!
With the help of my Mum I sorted out loads of the old baby clothes, and I’m down to two black sacks full of decent stuff for eBaying, with my Mum taking about six black sacks of stuff to donate to the charity shop. I dug out the next size vests for the geekson, as his 12-18 month ones are getting a little tight now, and vests are about the only thing I can re-use from the geekdaughter. We made great progress in tidying the kitchen, which has been a complete tip for months, and I actually have a couple of clear surfaces now. I had a great day with my Mum and the kids at Trentham Gardens, despite it being so early in the season that several of the attractions that we wanted to see (the maze, the barefoot walk and the monkey forest) were all closed. However both kids still had a great time running around, and the geekdaughter had a great time in the playground. A really good day out, and we’ll definitely be going back later in the year.
My meal plan for last week mostly worked, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly our internet shopping delivery on Monday night was at the later end of our two-hour delivery window, and as we were getting hungry we ended up with a takeaway instead, and the fish pie we were supposed to have had that night went into the freezer, and will be dragged out this week instead!
The plan also failed on Friday – after the geekson’s swimming lesson I took both kids to get their hair cut, and therefore didn’t have time to prepare something from scratch for us all, so we ended up with fish and chips (in my defence, the hairdresser did tell us it was national fish and chips day, so I kind of felt obligated…!)
So I’m going into this week with a resolution of sticking to the plan of cooking from scratch for the whole week, and, with that in mind, here’s our meal plan:
Meals for the geekdaddy and me (Monday – Thursday):
- Chicken en croute with pak choi and a mango and chilli sauce (sounds posh doesn’t it? It’s from the freezer section in Aldi!)
- Beef stir fry
- Minced Lamb and Pea Curry (from My Daddy Cooks)
- Fish pie (bought, not made – the one we should have eaten last week)
Meals for the family (Friday – Sunday):
- Easy chicken and apricot casserole (from My Daddy Cooks)
- Sausages, beans and mash
- Rich pork ragu with pasta
You can find more Meal Planning Monday posts over at At Home with Mrs M - why not head over there and see what other people are eating this week?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I almost always find that my weekly menu plan never survives in its original form beyond Monday! For example, last week the dishes got swapped around from Tuesday onwards as I’d forgotten it was Shrove Tuesday.
Alex has swimming on Fridays so we never get home before 6pm and have to have a very quick (half hour max. prep) meal ready to go which basically means stirfry or something from the freezer like bolognese, stroganoff etc which can be defrosted in roughly the same time it takes to cook the rice or pasta. Having some batch cooks in the freezer I also find very useful when I just don’t feel in the mood to cook whatever I’d planned. Of coourse we’re running out of the last lot I did before C. was born and haven’t had the chance to spend an afternoon doing another lot…
Btw, have you go a copy of the Kitchen Revolution? I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but I find it useful to dip into from time to time when we’ve either got into a rut with meals or I need inspiration for seasonal ingredients. Plus their storecupboard meals are great as they aren’t of the pasta with tin of tomatoes variety.
Mmmmmmm sausages, beans and mash. One of the most superior dinners EVER. I had it last week, it’s one of my favs!