When a few adjustments to the weekly menu plan are needed...

...don't be afraid to make them!

No sooner had a I returned from the grocery shop on Saturday evening than my husband suggested that perhaps we could have a BBQ for dinner instead of whatever I had planned to make.  I had nothing in for a BBQ!  After initially saying no, I ended up agreeing to a BBQ - after all, it was our one half decent Saturday this 'Summer' so far and for all I knew it might well be out last!!  This caused me a little menu plan dilemma. 

Firstly I had to go and get the meat required for the BBQ.  Unexpected additional grocery shopping, but as I've already said, it may just be the only Saturday we get to have a BBQ for a long time so I forgave myself for the extra spend.  We ditched the idea of soup as we had to go out to the butchers again and needed something that would be a little faster to make.  Queue sandwiches!

Secondly, I had already lifted the pork loins out of the freezer before I took off to get the grocery shopping so I had to decide what to do with them.  The reason why we were to have pork loins two nights in a row was because I had five frozen together.  I was going to cook two on the Saturday night for my husband and I, and three the next night to feed up as all.  I knew they'd still be fine to cook on the Sunday, but was a bit worried about cooking them on the Monday night as they were lifted out of the freezer on the Saturday morning (I really should read up about freezing/defrosting meat and how long it is 'ok' for after it has been defrosted).  As luck would have it my mum called to say that she and my dad would be visiting on Sunday, so I needed five pork loins for dinner after all!

After being invited to a birthday party on Sunday evening, we decided to have our main meal earlier in the day.  I made the Bacon and sweetcorn chowder at the same time as preparing Sundays dinner.  I initially intended for us to have this for lunch during the week, but we ended up having it for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow night we will have the soup again, then we will have the mixed bean chilli on Wednesday and Thursday night.  The only night this week that we will eat the dinner I intended will be on Friday night.

I guess you could say that things haven't exactly gone as planned!

The other thing about spending extra money on meat for a BBQ - I went slightly over my €50 budget for the week.  I'll write a bit more about this later this week as I intend to have a review of my July challenge to work out exactly how I did...

Menu planner from 21/7/2012 to 27/7/2012

On to week 4 and the final week of my July challenge, though I think I might keep it going for one a 5th week.  Once again I am working off a list of items that are in my freezer, fridge and cupboard to try and use what I have in already as far as possible in order to keep the cost of my groceries down.

So, my menu planner for 21st July to the 27th July is as follows;
Saturday lunch - Bacon and sweetcorn chowder
Saturday dinner - Braised chops with borlotti beans and wine and Boulangère potatoes
Sunday lunch - Leftover bacon and sweetcorn chowder
Sunday dinner - Braised pork chops with cider vinegar and prunes with leftover Boulangère potatoes
Monday dinner - Mixed bean chilli (my own recipe)
Tuesday dinner - Leftover mixed bean chilli
Wednesday dinner - Fish fingers, waffles, peas and sweetcorn
Thursday dinner - Smoky beef stew served with tortillas
Friday dinner - Pizza (for me and daughter), chicken breast and gravy with potatoes (for husband)and other freezer dinner for baby (using up odds and ends from the freezer here!)

For lunches during the week we will have ham sandwiches, tuna salad and any leftovers from dinner.

Last week I spent below my €50 budget once again by spending only €43.80 on my groceries for the week.  I am hoping that this week I manage to stick to my €50 budget once again.  If I do, that will mean that I will have managed to stay below €200 for the four full weeks in July, leaving €200 to go to our savings account.

Roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle

On Sunday evening I made the roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle from the September 2009 issue of Olive magazine.  It was really straightforward to make and tasted delicious (I think I need to find another adjective or two to describe recipes that turn out to be extremely tasty!!).

I found the recipe after doing a search for 'basil' and 'chicken' as I had both ingredients in the house.  The basil was purchased for summer chicken and basil stew that I made for dinner on Thursday night last week.  I had some leftover and didn't want to throw it out.  Obviously as I had made the summer chicken and basil stew the week before, I was keen to find something that would taste quite different from the stew as we'd had it two nights in a row and I didn't want to bore my family.  So, after looking through the search results I picked the roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle and I have to say - I'm glad I did!

All the family enjoyed this meal and my son devoured it.  As the alcohol in the wine evaporates when cooking, it was fine to serve this to him as well as to the rest of the family.  He really enjoyed picking up the bits of tagliatelle and feeding them to himself!

Alterations
When I said I had chicken in - I had chicken breasts in.  The recipe calls for chicken thighs.  So, once again I used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs.  As well as not having to buy chicken thighs for the meal, using the chicken breasts allowed me to reduce the roasting time as they didn't take as long to roast as the chicken thighs would have.

As I was only making this recipe for 2 adults and 2 kids, I only used 2 chicken breasts to keep the costs down a bit.  I stuck to the recipe with regards to the rest of the ingredients though as I fancied a lot of flavour and a bit more juices to tip into my tagliatelle than I would have had if I had halved all the other ingredients.

Cost
The chicken breasts cost €2, the basil was 50 cent, the lemons were 50 cent, the tagliatelle was around 80 cent and I have allowed 30 cent for the garlic and olive oil.  The wine I had in the house was bought on my last trip to my mothers house in Asda.  It was on offer 3 bottles for £10.  As the recipe only uses one glass I estimate that the wine cost around 80 cent.  This makes the total cost of the recipe €4.90.

Took this photo with my phone so it doesn't look great - sorry!

Tomato, lentil and lime soup - yummy!!

For lunch today we had tomato, lentil and lime soup.  The recipe is from the April 2012 issue of Olive magazine.  I found the recipe on the Good Food website by searching for lime soup.  There were a few lime left in my fruit bowl (they are starting to look a bit sad so I wanted to use them up) so I decided to see if there was a recipe that would allow me to use one of them for lunch.

One thing that I liked about this recipe (other than the fact that the soup was delicious) is that it uses both the zest and the juice of the lime, so there is no waste.  The recipe is easy to follow and quick to make.  I had a little bit more soup than what was needed to serve two people, so I have a portion left over for lunch tomorrow (there may well be a fight over who gets to take it to work!) as well as being able to feed two adults and a child lunch. 

I didn't give it to my son as I used a stock cube to make the vegetable stock.  To make the soup suitable for giving to a baby you need either make your own vegetable stock from scratch, omitting salt or use a low salt variety of stock cube (for example, Boots sell low salt stock cubes suitable for weaning in the baby food section of their shops).

Alterations
I made a few small alterations to the recipe.  I couldn't find my cumin seeds so I decided to use a little ground cumin instead of spending ages looking for the seeds.  I didn't have a large carrot, but had four small ones which I used instead.  Also, while the soup was simmering, the volume of the liquid decreased quite a bit, so I added some boiled water from the kettle to the pot. 

Cost
The onion for the soup cost 20 cent, the carrots were about 30 cent, the can of chopped tomatoes were 45 cent (from Lidl), the lime was 25 cent and I have allowed another 50 cent for the stock cube, ground cumin and puy lentils.  That makes the total cost of the soup €1.70 for three adult portions and a child's portion.  I think this would easily feed a family of four if the children are quite young.  If they are a bit older you might want to double to ingredients and have any leftovers you might have for lunch the next day.

If I had successfully grown my own carrots and onions this year (as I did last year) then the cost of the soup would have been €1.20 which is extremely cheap for lunch for the family.

Menu plan for 14/7/2012 to 20/7/2012

We're onto week 3 of my July challenge and so far things are going good.  Last week I managed to spend only €35.70 of my €50 budget for the week.  To say I am happy would be a bit of an understatement.  Although, in fairness I had one less day to feed the family last week and while this wouldn't have caused me to save the €14.30 that I didn't spend of my budget it certainly helped a bit.  Hopefully I'll be able to do as well with my budget this week as I did last week.

This morning my husband cleaned out our fridge while giving me a bit of a lie in (I know - lucky me!) so it was possible to see at a glance what we had in our fridge.  Together we had another review of the contents of the freezer and made a list of what was in there just to update the list of what we had in already.  So, using the list of what we have in already I put together a menu plan for the week.  It is as follows:

Saturday dinner - Steak and sticky red wine shallots with potatoes
Sunday lunch - Tomato, lentil and lime soup (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Sunday dinner - Roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Monday dinner - Wraps
Tuesday dinner - Pizza
Wednesday dinner - Chorizo pilaf (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Thursday dinner - Leftover chorizo pilaf
Friday dinner - Fish fingers, chips, peas and sweetcorn

For lunches we will be having ham sandwiches, leftover tomato, lentil and lime soup and leftover roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle.

As you can see, I have selected three items for my menu for the week were I will not have to buy anything for the recipe as I already have all the ingredients in.  For the rest of the options I have selected I have most of the items in already apart from Tuesday evenings pizza.  I will be buying whatever frozen pizza is on offer for my daughters dinner on Tuesday evening as a special treat for her as my husband and I are off to a concert on Tuesday evening while she and her brother stay at home with a minder.  Picking recipes where I have most of the ingredients, if not all of them, in the house already has enabled me to keep my shopping list quite small for this week again.

Tip
To help select recipes using ingredients I already have in, I used the search function on the Good Food website to do this quickly.  I typed in a selection of the ingredients I have in already, for example 'chicken' and 'basil', and then went through the search results.  I then looked at the ingredients list for those that caught my eye, dismissing those that involved the purchasing of lots of items I don't have in the house at the moment. 

Sweet and sour pork stir fry

On Tuesday night we had some sweet and sour pork stir fry leftovers that I had frozen last week.  The recipe is for two, but I doubled up the ingredients so that I would have enough left to freeze for a dinner at a future date when I was scarce on time.  I served my sweet and sour pork with rice both times.  The recipe was easy to make and extremely quick to prepare and cook.

Although the recipe has ingredients that are high in salt/sugar - the tomato ketchup, brown sugar and soy sauce - which I wouldn't normally give to my baby, I decided to give some to my son the first night I made it.  He loved it!  Since then I have had him at the Dr with a rash that turns out to be a food allergy and have had to cut all fruit from his diet, re-introducing one fruit at a time, so I was unable to give it to him on Tuesday night due to the pineapple in it.

Alterations
The biggest alteration that I made to the recipe has already been mentioned - I doubled up the ingredients to make enough for the freezer.  With regards to the pork strips, I used pork loins instead.  I had several in my freezer, so I cut two up into small strips and used these instead of going and buying pork strips.  This saved me money on my grocery shopping.  I didn't bother with the garnish of shredded spring onions and added all the spring onions that I used to the pan instead.  I added a little water to the pan to make extra sauce.

Cost
The pork loins cost me €2.  I bought the pineapple on offer for €1 and had it in the cupboard.  I used two peppers which were on offer for 79 cent each, making them €1.58.  I used a bunch of spring onions which cost another 79 cent.  I have allowed 50 cent for the tomato ketchup, soy sauce, oil, sugar, white wine vinegar and cornflour, all of which were in my cupboard already.  This means that the total cost of the stir fry was € 5.87 (excluding the rice). 

This did two nights dinners for 2 adults and 1 child (the baby only ate it once) and we had an extra portion leftover for lunch one day as well.  So the actual cost for me per meal was probably more around the €3 mark including the rice.

Menu planner 8/7/2012 to 13/7/2012

I've been a little slow at getting my menu plan for this week up - sorry about that.  Anyway, I have finally got round to posting it.  This is week two of my July challenge, so I am attempting to keep the cost of the shopping down by using leftovers from the freezer and other items I have in already.  Another way that I will be able to keep costs down this week is by using some veg that my father-in-law grew and gave to me and by using some eggs that my brother-in-law gave to me.

We were at a Christening on Saturday so my menu plan for this week only runs from Sunday 8th July to Friday 13th July.  It is as follows:

Sunday dinner - Leftover better-than-baked-beans and oven chips
Monday dinner - Letfover sweet and sour pork and rice
Tuesday dinner - Salmon, broccoli and new potatoes
Wednesday dinner - Summer chicken and basil stew
Thursday dinner - Leftover summer chicken and basil stew
Friday dinner - Fish, chips, peas and sweetcorn

For lunches we will be having soup, sandwiches and leftovers if there are any.

Turkey meatballs in tomato and fennel sauce

Last night I made turkey meatballs in tomato and fennel sauce for dinner and we had the leftovers for dinner tonight.  The recipe appeared in the March 2010 issue of Good Food magazine.  I decided to make it when I realised that I had all the ingredients in that were required

As with a lot of the Good Food recipes I have used recently, this was really quick and easy to make.  My husband, daughter and son loved it - my daughter informed us that she wanted a second bowl of it after her first forkful!  I liked it to, but I think the next time I make it I'll add something to the meatballs to give them a bit more flavour.  They definitely need some seasoning at the very least.

With regards to the leftovers, instead of heating up the whole dish, I had prepared all the meatballs on the first night, leaving half in the fridge for dinner tonight.  I cooked them while the pasta was boiling and then added them to the sauce that I had made the night before and reheated.  It worked out really well and dinner was on the table in the length of time it took for the spaghetti to be ready.

Alterations
When I was preparing the ingredients for the sauce I added two onions instead of one as the onions I had in were quite small.  I also added three carrots as my carrots were quite small as well.  I omitted the tomato puree simply because I forgot to add it!  Other than that I stuck to the recipe.

I think it would be easy to add additional veg to the sauce without altering the taste too much.  As the sauce is blended, it is a handy way of getting veg into kids without them realising it which can be helpful if you have fussy eaters.

Tip
To save time on a busy weeknight, you could prepare the meatballs the night before and keep them in the fridge until you are ready to cook them the next night.  In fact, you could even make the meatballs before freezing them so that all you had to do is lift them out of the freezer to defrost when you want to have them for dinner.  You could also make the sauce ahead of time and reheat it after the meatballs have been cooked while the pasta is boiling, saving more time.

Cost
This is another one that is difficult for me to work out the cost of as I got the turkey mince up north in Asda a while back and had it in my freezer.  The turkey mince was £1.98.  The can of chopped tomatoes cost 66 cent, the onions cost about 25 cent, the carrots were around 30 cent, the spaghetti that I served it with was about 80 cent (allowing for two nights) and I have allowed another 40 cent for the fennel seeds, breadcrumbs, oil and garlic.  In total I reckon that this dish cost me about €5 to make.  Considering that this did us for dinner for two nights that makes it about €2.50 per night to feed two adults, a four year old and an 11 month old baby.

Weekly shopping budget - slightly over in week 1

As you can see from the title I went slightly over the weekly shopping budget in week one.  To sum up my expenditure for the week - I spent €6.91 in Lidl, €45.82 in Dunnes and my husband spent €5.38 in Dunnes on Monday.  The means I spent a total of €58.11 which is €8.11 over my weekly shopping budget of €50 during each week in July.

So where did I go wrong?  Well, two things happened that I feel caused me to go over the limit.  Firstly, my disorganisation meant that my husband ended up buying some food on Monday in order for me to be able to put together a meal for Monday night.  So, lesson one is to be better prepared in future!

Secondly, in a rush of blood to the head I managed to miscalculate how much I spent on cartons of ready-made formula for the baby.  I had to buy a lot more of them than I anticipated as a trip to the Dr's on Tuesday resulted in me being told that the baby has a food allergy of some sort and in order to get to the bottom of it I have been told to cut out cows milk and all fruit from his diet to see if the rash clears.  This means that I need extra formula to send up to the creche for his cereal in the morning so that it can be used in place of the cows milk that he usually gets and I bought more than I had on my shopping list.  So, my second lesson is not to try to do maths in my head when I am shopping.  I should use the calculator on my mobile phone.  Of course, it generally helps if the mobile phone is in your handbag when you go shopping in the first instance!

Still, I am pleased with the €58.11 and won't be too hard on myself for going over.  I did acknowledge that if I was intending to buy nappies and formula that I would need a slightly higher budget than the €50 I had set for my July challenge, but I really didn't think I would need to buy anymore of either this month. 

I wonder if next week I might be able to limit my spend to €41.89 to make up for my overspend this week.  That might be too much of an ask.  You know what they say though - it won't hurt to try!!

Summer-in-winter chicken

Last week I made the summer-in-winter chicken as part of my menu plan for the week, took photos of the dish and didn't get a chance to write up about it so am doing it now.  This recipe was an ideal one for making on a busy evening after work.  There was minimum prep work involved - in fact I think the only prep work was to wash the tomatoes and cut them in half.  The rest of the recipe basically involved adding ingredients to a pan and leaving it to cook.  My kind of recipe!!

Personally I thought it was very tasty.  My mum and dad, who also had it, loved it.  My husband was not as fussed on it as the rest of us were though.  He basically said it was nice enough, that he'd eat it again if it was set in front of him, but that he wouldn't be begging me to make it.  I think I will make it again, but perhaps when he is away with work or something as I don't like the thought of him eating something that he isn't dying about.

In my menu plan I indicated that I was going to serve this with olive oil baked potatoes but I decided to serve it with rice instead as it was quicker.  I used half-fat crème fraîche as the recipe suggests to lower the fat content.

Alterations
As I made if for extra adults, I used 5 chicken breasts instead of the suggested 4.  I doubled up on the amount of pesto, crème fraîche, tomatoes and basil I used as my mum likes a lot of sauce with her dinner and I wanted to make sure that there was enough to go around. 

Cost
I am not able to work out the cost of this one as my mum supplied most of the ingredients and couldn't recall what exactly she paid for them.  Sorry!

Not exactly going to plan...

So, day one of my July challenge hasn't exactly gone to plan as I ended up not being able to do my grocery shopping as yet for a number of reasons.  Instead of having the turkey meatballs that we were supposed to have this evening, we ended up having fish, chips, peas and sweetcorn.  There was fish in the freezer and I used tins of peas and sweetcorn, so all that needed to be bought were the chips which my husband picked up on his way home from work, along with some bread and bananas.  He spent €5.38 in total leaving me with €44.62 for the groceries for the rest of the week.

As we didn't have the turkey meatballs this evening, I am going to make them for dinner tomorrow night instead.  I'll just bump my entire menu plan along one day, freezing the leftover better-than-baked-beans instead of having it the following evening for dinner.  I could just stick to the recipe and make enough to serve dinner for one night, but it is such a simple recipe to double up and save the leftovers for another night that it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to save time another evening.

I am hoping to get my groceries tomorrow so I've done my shopping list in preparation for going.  It is REALLY short this week so I know that I am definitely going to stay within my budget.  It is as follows:

1. Red Pepper (on offer for 79cent in Dunnes at the moment)
2. Mushrooms x 2 punnets (on offer in Lidl for 69 cent per 250g at the moment)
3. Milk - slim line x 2 litres
4. Milk - full fat x 2 litres
5. Cheese - babybel
6. Ham
7. Bacon medallions (on offer in Lidl for €1.69)
8. Cartons of ready made formula x 15 (10% back in Dunnes on baby products ending on the 3rd July)
9. Toilet cleaner

A very short shopping list.  I have decided to split the shop over two stores as there is so little I will easily be able to walk from one shop to the other carrying whatever I have bought.  I don't go in for driving to different shops on a weekly basis as I reckon that any savings that would be made would be swallowed up by the fuel costs in getting between all the different shops.  However, if I can see that I will make decent savings, I will walk between Lidl and Dunnes as they are not too far away from each other, so it is worth my while to park between the two and do this.

I am actually quite excited to see what my food shop comes to for the week.  I think I'll put whatever extra I save, on top of the €50 that I am aiming to save, into our savings account as well.