menu planning #4

I wrote a menu plan, ordered all the food and was raring to go when William got a fever and generally felt horrendous with a mixture of a horrible cough, 2 teeth cutting through and conjuctivitis.  Needless to say my weekend didn’t go to plan.  Then late on Sunday night I got hit by a sickness bug and what followed was the total wiped out of all my plans and good intentions for the week!

So here is the menu plan that we totally didn’t follow…

Sunday:  chicken gyros
Monday:  omelette {with ham, peas, onion and cheese?}
Tuesday:  lasagne
Wednesday:  sausage and mash
Thursday: thai chicken curry
Friday: fish and chips
Saturday:  meatballs and pasta

Menu planning #3

Sorry for the delay but this week I just really struggled to get my head around menu planning.  I was going to force myself into it last night but unfortunately heard the sad news that a twitter friend’s little girl had passed away, she was a few weeks younger than William.  It totally shook me and so I can only imagine the pain and hurt that the family must be feeling.  If you pray, meditate or anything similar please hold them, and Matilda Mae, in your thoughts and hearts, at what must be the most awful of times.

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Here are a few eats from this week.  I am particularly proud of the roast chicken, it feels like a grown-up thing to be able to cook!  As well as the fact that I’m amazed I managed it as I have a fear of birds and can be funny about cooking meat.

Despite avoiding menu planning and being totally unable to get my head around it, I think we’ve got a rough plan.  The upside to having a well stocked freezer is that we can get away with planning at least a few meals the night before.  However, I still did a quick online shop ordering in the things we need to make what have become our staples.  Overnight oat and yoghurt jars, vegan muffins, salad for crudités and some fruit which normally starts at a place of pink lady apples and bananas.

This week

Breakfasts: I sound like a broken record but oat and yoghurt jars, banana and nut butter wraps and porridge sometimes at the weekend with William are really the foundation of my morning.  Alongside coffee obviously.  The protein pancake I tried didn’t work out so well, I think it was the protein powder I used so I might try tweaking that at the weekend.

Snacks: again the frozen protein bars and protein brownies along with the vegan muffins I now religiously make every Sunday night are key.  Not having to think about it and automatically thinking ‘it’s 3pm = snacktime’ takes away any choosing or thinking about less nutritious options.

Dinners:

1. mince with savoury scones {a Granny freezer meal}
2. pasta with pesto, smoked bacon and veggies
3. fish with mash, carrots and broccoli {we keep avoiding this meal, not big fish fans}
4. thai chicken curry
5. chicken noodle soup
6. chicken gyros

I also want to start substituting white rice for brown where possible
but it never seems to be cooked enough.  Any tips?

love Amy x

Menu planning #2

The first week was a success!  It went really well and prevented me from constantly trying to decide what we should eat at 6:30pm having no idea what we’d got to choose from!

{I made these vegan muffins and they were a major hit!}

{Had a go at making bircher muesli based loosely on this recipe.
William absolutely loved it and I used an old peanut butter jar
to take a serving into work each morning for my breakfast.}

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A few people asked me what Gyros’ are.  Stupidly I didn’t photograph them.
Tho mainly because Mark and I were too busy sticking our faces into them.
They were so good!!!
Here is the recipe we used.

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Something I didn’t really mention last week is that I am particularly interested in monitoring our food waste.  Previously I have felt like we threw away a lot of fresh food that had gone unnoticed and spoiled.  This week we have had to throw away some almond milk {trying, and failing, to get used to it in my coffee}, 2 mini pots of hummus {why are there so many ways to spell this simple chickpea delight!?!} and possibly a packet of fresh coriander but I’m hoping it might last until Tuesday to use in the chicken noodle soup.

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This week

Breakfast

1. bircher muesli
2. wrap
3. porridge
4. green smoothie

Snack

1. protein chocolate
2. crudites and hummus
3. muffin
4. rice crackers, nut butter and fruit

Dinner

1. fish, mash potato, peas and carrots
2. bacon and creamy avocado pasta
3. burgers, chips and salad
4. chicken noodle soup {trying this recipe}
5. poached egg, ham and toast
6. jacket potato with cheese, beans and sausages
7. shepherd’s pie {last night, a freezer meal courtesy of my Gran!}

love Amy x

a whole lotta geeky!

Wondering what all this #projectsparkle stuff is about?  Click here for the details!

14. start menu planning

You might have read my blogpost over the weekend with details of my first week’s menu plan.  I have to admit I really enjoyed the process and am excited to see how this week pans out.  I thought you might like a bit of waffle about how I approached it.

Book a date with yourself

I looked at my schedule and decided when I could do this on a regular basis so it becomes a habit I can keep up.  For me I realised I could have a quick look through the cupboards and freezer on a Thursday {a work from home day} which would give me chance to do some planning that evening and on my commute on Friday morning then pull together an online shop during my lunch break.

Make it an occasion

Ok so hear me out, if you don’t have much ‘free’ time which I guess includes me given I’m working full-time, have William, am trying to get back into running and generally keep the house ticking over, then any time you get to sit down quietly for half an hour is a time to treasure!  So I made myself a hot drink, lit my favourite candle and popped a bit of music on.

What is your style?

Some people plan breakfast, lunch and dinner, others just plan dinner.  A lot of people seem to assign meals to specific days and so I assumed that was how it had to be.  Honestly, I think it is one of the major reasons menu planning hasn’t worked for me in the past.  We often are like ‘oh I really fancy xxx tomorrow’.  Which made me realise that a better plan for us is to choose the dishes and shop for them but assign which day is what on Sunday night/as we go.  As I’m trying to get a bit healthier and back to being dairy free {it just doesn’t agree with me} I decided to focus on breakfast, snack {for the 3pm slump} and dinner.

The nitty gritty what went down during my candlelit quiet time?

First up I opened up a double pager in my new notebook.  The left page was for menu planning and notes, with the right page being for a shopping list.  I thought of a few recipes I had seen recently that I fancied trying or a favourite dish and popped them down on the planner.  Then I made a detailed shopping list, don’t try to skip any of this otherwise you will go wrong in the week.  Go and double check whether you have enough mixed herbs, is your cinnamon still in date and do you have plain or self-raising flour in the cupboard!  I also took a moment to look at the list as a whole and check there was a good balance of quick and easy vs. prep ahead of time options, are there a range of proteins and carbs or is it all pasta?

Don’t forget to add in any non-food items that you need to your shopping list or the everyday bits like butter, milk and bread, washing tablets, toilet rolls and teabags!

For added geeky points…

Then I took it to a whole new level of geeky and decided to do a freezer inventory!  Our freezer is actually in the garage as we have the tiniest galley kitchen ever.  Like ever ever!  The problem with this is that I often forget what is in there but regularly pick-up reduced meat etc and pop it in on the way home {we use the back entrance, infact the frontdoor is rarely opened.  Random but true!}.  So the freezer gets fuller and fuller and is an untapped resource.

It only took a few minutes to go through each drawer and note down what is there and how many portions.  Then I wrote it up neatly in my trusty menu planning notebook!  I popped the items under the categories Meat, Fish, Vegetables and Other.  The plan is that as we use things I can cross them off the list and equally as I buy things pop them down on the list.  Hopefully this will mean next week when I menu plan I can use what we already have in the freezer as a base to work from to help keeps costs down.

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Reading that back it sounds quite long winded but it really wasn’t, I promise!  Having the detailed shopping list was brilliant as I always normally forget things which means I end up wasting time doing multiple trips.  I have planned around 2 weeks worth of breakfasts and snacks so I can make some things up and freeze them in preparation for lazy days or ‘running low’ ends of weeks.

love Amy x

Menu planning #1

Morning everyone!  Happy Saturday!  Hope you’re having a nice weekend and enjoying some time with family and friends despite of the snow.

With going back to work full-time the only way we won’t end up surviving on takeaway or cereal is a little bit of organisation and planning.  I don’t like menu planning to be too prescriptive and I don’t want to be constrained by what the menu plan says we’re meant to eat.  So instead I want to plan ~4 breakfasts and snacks and 5-6 dinners.  Eventually I want to add in lunch but where I work it’s quite easy to get a good lunch.  However, breakfasts are potential danger zones, it is too easy to grab a latte and a pastry!

Breakfast:

1. nut butter and fruit wrap
2. muffin and fruit
3. oats in a jar
4. porridge

Snacks:

1. protein bars
2. brownies
3. rice crackers with nut butter and fruit
4. crudités and hummus

Dinner:

1. chicken noodle soup
2. gyros and wedges
3. avocado pasta with smoked bacon
4. chilli and rice
5. fish fingers and waffles

love Amy x