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.
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