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Hello Dear Reader,
I will start by sharing the content of my supermarket trolley. We called into Aldi on our way home and this is what we bought for the week: chopped tomatoes, olive oil, Bramley apples, eating apples, carrots, little gem lettuce, bananas, leeks, onions, pears, chicken breast fillets, Danish blue cheese, savoy cabbage, mushrooms, red cabbage, cucumber, red lentils and mature Cheddar. Everything else is either in the freezer or the pantry. We buy the bulk of our meat monthly and go to the butchers on pay day. Who else loves Aldi's super six daily offers on vegetables?
Tonight we had slow cooker beef casserole with rice, Brussel sprouts, peas and green beans. Two portions also made their way to our lunch boxes for tomorrow. Nothing very exciting but a real stock favourite in the winter.
Here's my menu plan for this week.
Tuesday - Portobello mushrooms stuffed with wilted spinach and blue cheese - we'll eat this with a salad.
Wednesday - Roasted Butternut squash with feta, mint and chilli - we'll also eat this with salad.
Thursday - Pork shoulder steaks with braised red cabbage and leeky mash.(leeky mash is half leek and half potato, to cut down on the starch)
Friday - Meatballs in tomato sauce with green veg - ribbons of savoy with green beans (instead of pasta)
Saturday - Lentil Cottage pie with bubble and squeak topping.
Sunday - Honey and wholegrain mustard roast gammon with celeriac mash and green vegetables.
I will share the how to, the where to buy, photographs and the costs as I make these and eat them throughout the week. However, I might eat them in a different order depending on how I feel.
Now, over to you Dear Reader, what's home cooked on your table this week? There's loads of game around if you're a hunter.....who's eating pheasant or wild duck before the season ends? I used to 'beat' when I was young and was given lunch, a few quid and some birds to take home to mum's table. So, I love to hear from you all, what's gracing your tables this week? What ever it is, I'm sure it will be thrifty and homemade.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxx
I am not so organised this week. My son goes to college this week and one day he will stay with us and others not. I do have two chickens so one will be a roast with vegetables and the other may well be portioned and oven fried to eat with salad. Another night will involve meatballs with celeriac somehow. That is all for meat cookery. Then as we are small numbers most of the week I anticipate creative use of left overs, vegetables, salads and a stir fry. It would be wonderful to eat less meat but my mother is in frail health and has become a small and picky eater. So every meal has a small selection of a wide variety. Much cheaper than blood or iron transfusions etc.
ReplyDeleteWe had pheasant on Sunday and the rest went into the veg soup. We got them free from SIL.
ReplyDeleteMeat loaf and California rolls.
ReplyDeleteYou have given me a couple of useful ideas there, thank you
ReplyDeleteHi we are having pheasant this week, we were given them by a friend and we now have enough in the freezer for a week of pheasant if we wanted :-) can't beat free food! Tomorrow we are having diced lamb done in slow cooker which I picked up for 98p in reduced section, got to love a yellow sticker!
ReplyDeleteI love Aldi's offers on fresh fruit and veg. Love their salad items this week. I've blogged about tonight's dinner which was baked Bacon Roly Poly with mash and beans. The whole meal cost just 37p per person. Tomorrow will either be Vegetarian Hoppin' John with Chilli Cheese Cornbread if my vege daughter comes to dinner, or Lamb Mince with Lentils done in the slow cooker served with mash and dumplings. I have a loose menu plan for this week that's changeable depending on who is home for dinner and whether there are leftovers from one meal to be used up another day. All meals will be homemade and I'm aiming to use up a chunk of my Approved Foods stockpile and run down the freezer a bit during January, buying as little new food as possible. So far I'm doing well, I only spent £15 extra all last week for 5 people.
ReplyDeleteMonday sausage casserole, Tuesday quiche, Wednesday chicken curry, Thursday chilli, Friday Italian liver, Saturday lasagne, Sunday roast turkey (yes, we still have some from Christmas) all these meals are cooked from scratch. Home made soup and home made bread for lunches.
ReplyDeleteTonight's supper: pork chop stuffing bake, corn, roasted butternnut squash
ReplyDeleteTues: pate chinois (a French Canadian version of sheppard's pie with cream corn)
Wed: homemade chicken-vegetable-noodle soup
Thurs: dried tortellini in homemade chicken broth, herbed biscuits
Fri: homemade pizza
Sat: homemade clam chowder, saltines
Hi Froogs! I had fajitas tonight (using up an onion and remainder of frozen bell peppers). On the stove is chickpea curry and I need to make a pasta bake to use up some cheese. Oh and roasted cabbage too! Trying to avoid food shopping for as long as possible but fresh fruit is calling my name.
ReplyDelete~ Pru
With a week of over 40deg temps it is salad, salad & more salad! Yesterday we had a cooked chicken breast from the freezer. Then I have a tin of salmon & have cooked some eggs from a neighbour. The Silverbeet, tomatoes & zucchinis come from the garden. I have spent very little on food since Christmas.
ReplyDeletetoday we had a chicken rice soup--made from a chicken we grew, alaskan carrots, celery and potato (2 small leftovers) and some frozen corn--I made a double batch of stock by cooking the chicken with my bag of veggie ends and then straining off the first batch, picking off the meat and recooking the veg and carcass again. I'll freeze the extra stock, I also kept off the breasts for something later this week. 3-4 meals from one bird we grew feels pretty darn nice!
ReplyDeleteYou could take the stems from the mushrooms sautéed with a little olive oil and onion add in the lentils and some veggie broth, toss with the feta and use that to fill up the squash and finish baking off. We have a vegetarian who I make stuffed acorn squash for at thanksgiving. It's a meal in itself. (moose wood restaurant cookbook)
ReplyDeletePesto for us!
ReplyDeleteHave bought lots of Aldis veg deals. Have been fairly organised this week. Bought a bacon joint and slow cooked it with onion,celery,carrot left it on low and used the liquid for a tasty split pea soup. Made two pastry cases (which looked awful but tasted very good) for quiche and a bakewell. From the Aldi pears I cooked them in a bit of left over mulled wine, and made a chocolate sponge to cover them. All filling things for winter.
ReplyDeleteI got a 3 kilo ham that was reduced to a fiver and cooked it in coke then glazed it with mustard and brown sugar to serve with braised red cabbage as a celebration dinner for a couple of good friends over the weekend. I've got so much left over! Enough cabbage for 3 meals has been portioned up and frozen and the left over ham is enough for some sandwiches for my best beloved's lunches, some to go in a couple of quiches (one to eat now, one to freeze) and some left to go in the black bean soup I made from the ham/coke stock (excellent Nigella recipe!). I love the challenge of making things stretch in the most delicious way possible.
ReplyDeleteCan I come round to your house for dinner please? I really love spinach and apart from Saag aloo, I don't know what to do with it. Went to Aldi at the weekend and did a huge stock up, including their Super 6 (our nearest Aldi is half an hour away so we don't go every week). My grandparents lived in the countryside and were always getting free pheasants. They used to hang them upside down behind doors, scaring the living daylights out of us kids when we were little! You'd go in a room, close the door and aaargh!! But they tasted delicious. Haven't had any in years. Still on the Christmas turkey (think it's multiplying in the freezer!!). So far had another couple of roasts, 2 stir fries, risotto, turkey and cranberry sandwiches and pitta, tonight turkey, new pots, salad (super 6) and home made coleslaw (cabbage on super 6). Would love some spinach ideas x
ReplyDeleteSpinach-you can sautee in olive oil and garlic,make pahkoras(veg fritters and can add potatoes and onions too to besan gram flour in Indian stores),jumbo shells stuffed with ricotta and spinach,lasagna with spinach,add to minestrone,fajioli,bean soups,omelets(I add mushrooms,onions too),add to Knorr's veg dip for a dip for breads or tortilla chips,add to artichoke dips(warmed up-if you want I can give you a great recipe),add to pastas,over Eng muffin with poached or fried egg on top and hollandaise sauce,frittatas,quiche,etc.
DeleteTurkey-I combine the stuffing,green bean casserole,butternut squash or whatever veg you have and it makes a great stew/soup. The stuffing is esp good in this! Make Monte Cristo sandwiches,turkey with stuffing/cranberry sauce sandwiches,add to stirfries,pot pies,Thai peanut butter noodles(I add paper thin sliced at a diagonal carrots,celery and cabbage and make the sauce with hot water and peanut butter and garlic powder to coat the spaghetti noodles-add fresh peanuts and green onions-yum! You can add leftover ham too!). Add shredded turkey to noodles(chow mein, wide egg noodle casserole,etc),lettuce wraps(like McDonald snack wraps or Chinese lettuce wraps with minced turkey),add to salads(i.e. Cobb salad,Caesar or Chinese Turkey salad). Substitute whatever you make chicken with! So many things you can do!
Just got back from Aldi. Spent £10.32 on bits n bobs to see me through until pay day (24th) yogurts, diet cola, rice etc. I should only need to top up on milk and bread. Thanks for the inspiring ideas as always. Meatballs and pasta tonight for us.x
ReplyDeleteI freeze all my vegetable peelings, cabbage cores, outter leaves etc in a zip lock bag. When the bag is full I use the to make vegetable stock. I also use the cores and peels from apples to make homemade apple cider vinegar.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriends work collegue came over on sunday and have is a pumpkin from his garden. I will make something tasty with that. Otherwise I have quinoa salads for lunch, with wariations in the veg/cheese I put in there, or a ww sandwich if I make bread. For dinner it's a little soup when I come home late, and usually a birchermüesli in the morning, with seeds, nuts, fruit.. Lately I'm weak and want to buy chocolate bars, so I try to make sugarfree healtier muffins to take to work. Today I resisted the snack-machine!! I am proud..
ReplyDeleteI have a brace of pheasant in the freezer but wonder how to best cook them. I was thinking pot roast to keep them moist. Any ideas?
ReplyDeletei slow cook them, pick the meat off and make game pie. I get them free so only use the breast, I don't pluck them, just cut the skin back and cut the breast meat off and pan fry it in garlic butter and serve with mash and greens
DeleteA leg of lamb deboned and cooked on the barbie on Sunday, with salad. This feeds four of us, then last night I made a rice pilaf with leftover cooked lamb mixed in at the end, eaten again with salad. The leg cost me $20, and I fed four people meat for two nights, which is a bit of a bargain around here. And the dog got bones for three days.
ReplyDeleteWe've been to Aldi today, Mr Twigs is doing a leek and sausage pie for dinner - yum!!
ReplyDeleteTwiggy
We too are converts to the church of aldi!
ReplyDeleteMonday spag vol, any leftovers used for another meal
Tuesday chicken stew made with chicken from Sunday roast, potatoes, mushrooms etc
Weds baked pots (Aldi!), sausages and used up some leftover broccoli, baked beans
Thursday homemade pizza (dough made in breadmaker), passata from of cse aldi, any veg you have and mozzarella cheese (on offer)
Friday homemade fishcakes, I guess you only need a couple of pieces of fish for four people so it's pretty frugal
Saturday homemade curry (bought spices from Indian supermarket in Portsmouth, much cheaper than buying from western supermarket). Massive bag of rice from lidl, it's loads cheaper!
Sunday probably a roast
Yum! I make spinach and feta pasties with bought puff pastry, they are delish! Xxx