pondering food planning
Life is ganging up on me, I keep getting prompts to plan our meals from lots of different sources. So here’s a sort of Home Economics Orgo-Planning type of mind dump…
Things we really like to eat regularly
Spanish Omlette and garlic bread - bit heavy on the cholesterol but at least it has lots of onion so it’s a rare vegetable portion for Duke! Goes down nicely cold the next day so is often our meal of choice for Friday as then Duke can take it with him on duty next day.
Corned beef pan-hash - not quite so heavy on the cholesterol! Also heavy on the onions! Nice heated up the next day too.
Pizza - a new addition to the repertoire, I make it without tomato paste so Duke will eat it, it’s cheap although it’s nicer if you use organic flour (I’m not normally snooty about brands etc but I was really surprised how much nicer bread made with the expensive Dove Farm flour is!) Aprilia has tonnes of sweetcorn on it usually and has agreed to try sliced tomatoes too this time, Duke has yet more onion 
and maybe some meat with the cheese, he has mushroom too sometimes, does that count as a veg?
Chicken strew - Duke makes a fab stew, in a huge stock pot, it feeds us 3 or 4 times which means I get at least 1 easy meal a week so long as I remember to hoik a tub of it out of the freezer.
Bacon butties - mine come with lettuce and tomato (and a lemon and olive oil dressing) but theirs are just straight.
Mince and tortillas - need to make up another vat of this! It’s something that will reliably get a few veg portions into Duke as he can’t see them so he can pretend they aren’t there. In case anyone doesn’t know, Duke is my husband not my son by the way…..
Roast dinner - will ALL the trimmings! Aparently veg "go" with a roast whereas they don’t "go" with most of our other meals…..
Sausage and mash
Scampi and chips
Fish and chips
So, not a lot of health foods going on there! And an awful lot of "oh, it’s Friday it must be tortilla" which doesn’t inspire me to enthusiasm in the kitchen (which goes back to me pondering attitudes to chores etc doesn’t it)
I need to do more vegetables by stealth for Duke (Aprilia munches on raw carrots, cucumber and fruit so probably gets her 5 a day) and remember to get the runner beans into pots in time this year so I can stock him up on a year’s worth of green veg during their season! I suppose I also need to pull out the myriad recipe books on my shelves, where, lets face it they don’t do a lot of good, and start picking out one or two to try a week (with an easy standby on hand in case of refusals) and get a bit more variety into our lives. Hmm, didn’t I say that me and Aprilia were doing cooking more this year, right then, I’d better keep my side of the deal!
So, if you had one fail safe recipe to suggest, what would it be?
Do you eat pasta? Spaghetti bolognese is a staple here - you can get a fair bit of veg into it too - I’ve been known to grate carrots and courgettes into it back in Violet’s fussier days
Also, can do in the slow cooker and works brilliantly for batch cooking.
(Easy standby in case of refusals = toast!)
If you don’t use google calendar, you can see my current plans here - http://tinyurl.com/97ou6s
Comment by Alison — January 14, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
We eat a lot of pasta - sausage pasta, tuna pasta, spag bol, creamy pasta with ham.
Otherwise sausage and mash, indian (homemade not just the bought in!). Roasts with all the trimmings.
I made Aga chips and chicken gougons in parmesan and breadcrumb coating last night. Healthy way of having chicken and chips.
Comment by michelle — January 15, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Aga chips are proper potatoes made into chips and done in the oven in some oil.
Comment by michelle — January 15, 2009 @ 9:03 am
What about cottage/sheppard pie? You can sneak some carrot and celery in that. Does he eat peas? They can go in as well. None of us are fussy eaters-but I feel the same way about needing a menu plan-I so lose any enthusiasim for cooking. I tend to do the same few things over and over!
Alison-how closely do you stick to your menu?
Comment by Elizabeth — January 15, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
Elizabeth, I stick to it pretty closely. Sometimes I swap things about if we fancy something different, or I’ve forgotten to get something out of the freezer! And sometimes we’ll go out one night which I didn’t know about 3 weeks in advance, so I’ll move that meal to a free slot. But I do my plan, and then do my shopping, so I don’t have anything else, and I’m certainly not inclined to think of *different* meals once I’ve come up 25 or so!
Comment by Alison — January 15, 2009 @ 5:28 pm
I suspect the recipe here that always goes down well here, dubbed ‘Ken hom’ as it came from one of his books is basically tofu and vegtables simmered in coconut milk and soy sauce. It’s quick to make and the kids love it.
Also a sausage and chilli bean bake (sausages - veg for us, in chunks, fried with slcied onion, with a couple of tins of chilli beans topped with sliced or mashed spuds and baked)
Comment by daddybean — January 17, 2009 @ 2:01 pm
yeah, the sausage one particularly easy! can substitue baked beans for those worried about the chilli beans, but def nicest with chili beans
Comment by HelenHaricot — January 17, 2009 @ 11:40 pm