Saturday: We’ll have the defrosted moussaka that never got eaten on Wednesday. Greek potatoes as a side. I’m quite looking forward to this!
Sunday: I let David pick the Sunday Roast and he opted for beef, so I have some brisket coming. There is still some broccoli left from last week’s grocery order so we’ll have that steamed and tossed with a bit of garlic salt (I love garlic salt). Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and gravy. Because I still have a small piece of brisket frozen, I’m probably going to put all the leftovers from this batch towards making cottage pie, as that turns into meals for another two weeks.
Monday: It’s time to polish off the last batch of frozen meatballs – a nice easy supper. Spaghetti, garlic bread, and a spicy sauce.
Tuesday: We bought a package of “mussel meat” for our Seinfeld Pizza Night, but only needed a few mussels for the pizza. I froze the rest and figure it’s time to put them to good use. I have a recipe folder in my email, where I keep all the recipes that are emailed to me (I’ve signed up to a few lists and friends send some, or I find them when I’m searching the web). When I need to use up an ingredient, I just run a search through the folder and see what comes up. The search for “mussel” brought up, among other things, a recipe for Mussel & Fennel Bisque, so that’s what we’re going to try.
Wednesday: Sainsbury’s has been doing a lot of 2-for-3 sales on its Mexican products, so I have an old can of refried beans hanging out from the last time I made bean quesadillas. It’s time for them again! I’m hoping to find some not-horribly-overpriced corn on the cob at Tesco as a treat to go with.
Thursday: I’m wanting to restock the freezer so when David suggested lasagne as an option this week it seemed like a great idea. When he first moved away from home, his mum made him a cookbook with all his favourite dishes (I’m so doing this for our kids when they move out! I did similar for my brother as well, although I just sent him a computer file of my favourite easy recipes). Her meatsauce & lasagne recipes are in it so I’m going to give them a whirl. It sounds like the meat sauce should make enough for a lasagne and for freezing, but even if it doesn’t we’ll get two meals from the lasagne.
Friday: Pizza Night! It never changes. It even has its own theme song (which I won’t be sharing, because some things are just family things).
Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:
Saturday was not a good day, for various reasons, so I’m really glad I’d planned such an easy supper. The spice really helped David’s cold and the easy, comforting dinner really helped my mood.
A rarity – I actually managed to get the whole Sunday Roast done at a reasonable time and with minimal fussing. I guess it’s because I skipped an afternoon nap. I’m really enjoying the Sainsbury’s Basics chickens – they are nice and plump, with a good amount of fat which keeps the meat moist and the gravies delicious. I know that free range corn fed is the posh thing to eat right now, but the ones we’ve gotten recently have been really dry and short on meat. No point in paying for a poorer quality bird!
Monday’s quesadillas were delicious – I added a little red onion this time around and I think we’ve about reached perfection level with this recipe. They were so good that I’m trying to get my brother on board, as he is all grown up now and does his own cooking, although he informs me that our mum cooked so many meals for him last time she came to visit that he’s managed to live on them for most of his semester.
I did a bit of a switch on Tuesday and made the marrow stuffed with kidney beans. It was really good – interesting to have kidney beans in a non-‘mexican’ dish (the flavourings were more Greek). It was our first time trying marrow, which seems to be the love child of a courgette & a spaghetti squash, or something. I made a parsley sauce to go with it, but next time I’m going to do a cheese sauce instead as I kept feeling that the dish wanted cheese. Walter ate his portion with a lot of “mmmm, mmmmmmMMMMMMMmmm” so it was a hit all ‘round.
David felt like he was getting a cold again, and I’d had a long exhausting day, so we opted to pick up an Indian box from Tesco on Wednesday as he felt the hit of heat would do him good. I’m reading Kim and it’s put me in a craving for Indian food anyway. It was a nice break from cooking.
On Thursday I had to make the chicken wellington, even tho’ I wanted to do something that was less work, because I was worried about the ingredients going off. I messed up the pastry again (I hate pastry! So much!) but everything tasted delicious, so that’s two relatively successful attempts at this with great results, meaning the recipe is a definite keeper.
We switched our pizza to lunchtime on Friday and had an elegant but light supper when David got back from a book event – smoked salmon & cream cheese on multiseed bagels and Covent Garden’s maris piper potato & leek soup. It was delicious and just the right amount of richness for a late evening meal.
Sunday: I let David pick the Sunday Roast and he opted for beef, so I have some brisket coming. There is still some broccoli left from last week’s grocery order so we’ll have that steamed and tossed with a bit of garlic salt (I love garlic salt). Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and gravy. Because I still have a small piece of brisket frozen, I’m probably going to put all the leftovers from this batch towards making cottage pie, as that turns into meals for another two weeks.
Monday: It’s time to polish off the last batch of frozen meatballs – a nice easy supper. Spaghetti, garlic bread, and a spicy sauce.
Tuesday: We bought a package of “mussel meat” for our Seinfeld Pizza Night, but only needed a few mussels for the pizza. I froze the rest and figure it’s time to put them to good use. I have a recipe folder in my email, where I keep all the recipes that are emailed to me (I’ve signed up to a few lists and friends send some, or I find them when I’m searching the web). When I need to use up an ingredient, I just run a search through the folder and see what comes up. The search for “mussel” brought up, among other things, a recipe for Mussel & Fennel Bisque, so that’s what we’re going to try.
Wednesday: Sainsbury’s has been doing a lot of 2-for-3 sales on its Mexican products, so I have an old can of refried beans hanging out from the last time I made bean quesadillas. It’s time for them again! I’m hoping to find some not-horribly-overpriced corn on the cob at Tesco as a treat to go with.
Thursday: I’m wanting to restock the freezer so when David suggested lasagne as an option this week it seemed like a great idea. When he first moved away from home, his mum made him a cookbook with all his favourite dishes (I’m so doing this for our kids when they move out! I did similar for my brother as well, although I just sent him a computer file of my favourite easy recipes). Her meatsauce & lasagne recipes are in it so I’m going to give them a whirl. It sounds like the meat sauce should make enough for a lasagne and for freezing, but even if it doesn’t we’ll get two meals from the lasagne.
Friday: Pizza Night! It never changes. It even has its own theme song (which I won’t be sharing, because some things are just family things).
Now a look at last week’s plan in practice:
Saturday was not a good day, for various reasons, so I’m really glad I’d planned such an easy supper. The spice really helped David’s cold and the easy, comforting dinner really helped my mood.
A rarity – I actually managed to get the whole Sunday Roast done at a reasonable time and with minimal fussing. I guess it’s because I skipped an afternoon nap. I’m really enjoying the Sainsbury’s Basics chickens – they are nice and plump, with a good amount of fat which keeps the meat moist and the gravies delicious. I know that free range corn fed is the posh thing to eat right now, but the ones we’ve gotten recently have been really dry and short on meat. No point in paying for a poorer quality bird!
Monday’s quesadillas were delicious – I added a little red onion this time around and I think we’ve about reached perfection level with this recipe. They were so good that I’m trying to get my brother on board, as he is all grown up now and does his own cooking, although he informs me that our mum cooked so many meals for him last time she came to visit that he’s managed to live on them for most of his semester.
I did a bit of a switch on Tuesday and made the marrow stuffed with kidney beans. It was really good – interesting to have kidney beans in a non-‘mexican’ dish (the flavourings were more Greek). It was our first time trying marrow, which seems to be the love child of a courgette & a spaghetti squash, or something. I made a parsley sauce to go with it, but next time I’m going to do a cheese sauce instead as I kept feeling that the dish wanted cheese. Walter ate his portion with a lot of “mmmm, mmmmmmMMMMMMMmmm” so it was a hit all ‘round.
David felt like he was getting a cold again, and I’d had a long exhausting day, so we opted to pick up an Indian box from Tesco on Wednesday as he felt the hit of heat would do him good. I’m reading Kim and it’s put me in a craving for Indian food anyway. It was a nice break from cooking.
On Thursday I had to make the chicken wellington, even tho’ I wanted to do something that was less work, because I was worried about the ingredients going off. I messed up the pastry again (I hate pastry! So much!) but everything tasted delicious, so that’s two relatively successful attempts at this with great results, meaning the recipe is a definite keeper.
We switched our pizza to lunchtime on Friday and had an elegant but light supper when David got back from a book event – smoked salmon & cream cheese on multiseed bagels and Covent Garden’s maris piper potato & leek soup. It was delicious and just the right amount of richness for a late evening meal.
