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...