This is a time for a confession. I do not plan my weekly menus. I am very envious of those who do. I have many times planned menus but I never stick to my plan!
What I do plan is meals. When I create a shopping list I have in mind something I want to cook and I order the ingredients accordingly. Today I have made six portions of cottage pie. I ate one for lunch and I have no idea when the remaining five will be eaten but I know they will be eaten and I will enjoy them. On Sunday I knew I had cooked too many vegetables but I had in mind various meals I could cook with the leftovers.
Because I plan meals I knew I had everything I need to make my cottage pies. There was a bag of frozen lean mince, a couple of onions, and carrots. I'd got the food processor out for something else so I grated the carrot and onions which was very successful and I shall do that in future rather than chop them. I had a brainwave and added a portion of very thick butternut squash soup along with the gravy to increase the vegetable content. I had a bag of frozen mashed potato and I used that for the topping. It was one of the best cottage pies I have ever made and probably one of the healthiest.
I also have to confess to ordering a new vegetable peeling knife. Mine has disappeared from the face of the earth or more likely it went in the bin with vegetable peelings at the weekend. That is not a frugal way of being! I paid for it with my Amazon vouchers.
I have 4 vegetable peeling knives and do you think I can find one when I need it.
ReplyDeleteThe cottage pie sound heavenly. Adding the butternut squash soup was an excellent idea.
God bless.
I can't get on with a vegetable peeler at all and use a small sharp knife. The cottage pie sounds delicious with the addition of the butternut squash.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same as you, I get ingredients for meals without planning what we will eat on what day. We always cook from scratch, so most of the items in our larder and freezer can be used in many ways. Even when we defrost our main meat, it's not until later we decide what we fancy to eat.
ReplyDeleteI fail miserably at meal planning. I shop like my mother did. She would buy meat for a week, enough veg for the week, including salads stuff and fruit, and have a starch for each dinner. We would eat leftovers for lunch or sandwiches. That is how I shop to this day and it works ok for me. I mean, if I plan for taco Tuesday, I might not feel like tacos on Tuesday and that might mess me up for the week so I just wing it.
ReplyDeleteI plan to have food each week and do! If I bake chicken breasts, I have the meat cooked for sandwiches, meat for dinner, chicken parmesan, bbq chicken. All sorts of vegetables go with chicken. I freeze some. After three days, I might switch to beef. All the planning some people do is just so unnecessary for me.
ReplyDeleteI only use a vegetable peeler for carrots. I use a paring knife for everything else. Well, I do have a longer knife if I need to slice a butternut squash in half.
I do not like shopping so when I go once every six weeks I make sure I have planned out what meals I am getting ingredients for. Then I decide every second day what we will eat - I cook enough for four so it does the two of us for two days. Seems to work well. At present my garden supplies my vegetables and I get fruit at the local greengrocer (or from kind friends at church who have fruit trees)
ReplyDelete