Tuesday 17 December 2013

Menu Plan Monday: 14/12 - 20/12




Linking up with Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com

Saturday: Quesadilla night – beef. And hopefully corn on the cob. And really hopefully—watching an old timey Christmas movie with dinner. And mince pies & cocoa for dessert.

Sunday: The other day I was in a book/convenience store and noticed that they already had the Easter candy out for sale. Fitting with that spirit, Tesco has already been marking down its “Christmas roast” joints of pork to half price. So we’re having a pre-stuffed crackling pork roast, with potatoes & brussel sprouts.

Monday: Going the easy route with leftover mussel & fennel bisque. To make it super easy, and because I’m sick of homemade biscuits (damn do I miss cornmeal – it’s so hard to find here) I’m going to heat up the last of the white bread rolls that are currently chillin’ in the freezer.

Tuesday: I’m going into Cambridge for the day, so supper needs to be really easy as we likely won’t be home until 4 or 5. Leftover cottage pie, with yorkshire pudding, should do the ticket as I make pudding so frequently that I can do it in my sleep.

Wednesday: Time to start using up my bags of dried beans. I’m going to make Rose Elliot's bean & winter vegetable gratin, which I’ll serve with rice. The real question is whether or not I’ll remember to soak the beans the night before.

Thursday: The bolognese sauce recipe from last week’s lasagne made enough for a few meals, so we’ll have spaghetti bolognese this evening and the last of the parmesan.

Friday: Pizza Night!

Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:

On Saturday, David suggested that I give myself a break and we order Thai. But I held fast to my resolution of not spending any money that day and so we had our quesadillas. And they were delicious and totally worth staying in for. We watched Meet Me in St Louis and finished our evening off with mince pies, roast chestnuts, and cocoa.

Sunday Roast was a sacrifice this week as I was not in the mood to cook a big dinner. But I did, and it was tasty, and there are enough leftovers for two more meals. We put our Christmas tree so ended the night with the tradition of Christmas goodies & chocolat chaud (laced with brandy).

Monday’s French-inspired menu was only so-so. British smoked bacon tends to be super salty, and the onions on the tart never really caramelized, and the salad, although tasty, seemed to be missing some ingredients (supposed to serve four and we could barely stretch it to two. Worth a try, but not worth trying again.

On Tuesday, I reheated the stuffed marrow I’d made a couple of weeks ago. As I expected, it wasn’t great for freezing, because the thaw made it rather soggy, but a little careful reheating in the oven helped. I made cheese sauce, instead of parsley, and it was perfect to accompany.

Wednesday’s Cottage Pie was to die for. I tweaked the recipe a little – I left the salt out of the mashed potatoes, only seasoning with cheese & sour cream. Instead of regular salt, I used garlic salt to season the beef mixture. And since I never have the required “three cups diced beef”, I bulked up a bit with extra veg. With a nice eggy Yorkshire pudding it was perfect.

Thursday’s chicken wellington was just the easy meal I needed after a trying day with the kids. I love having all these frozen leftovers to help make the week easier.

Friday was a very trying day. It was so nice to relax with hot, delicious pizza at the end of it. We watched Go, which is a very alternative Christmas-timed movie. If you like Super Troopers and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas you’ll probably like Go, although it was rather disconcerting for this Road to Avonlea fan to see Sarah Polley in a much more adult role.

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