Menu plan 17/11/2012 to 23/11/2012

Once again I've managed to not find the time to post my menu plan for the last few weeks.  I figured while I had the computer on, checking the ingredients I need for my shopping list, I would make a quick update. 

Anyway, my menu plan for the 17th November to the 23rd November is as follows:-
Saturday dinner - Mince and onions (from the freezer), potatoes and baked beans
Sunday dinner - Salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel
Monday dinner - leftover salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel
Tuesday dinner - Chilli
Wednesday dinner - Chicken with creamy bacon penne
Thursday dinner - Fish, chips, peas and sweetcorn
Friday dinner - Roast ham, potatoes and veg

For lunches this week we will have sandwiches, leftover chilli and salads.

At the moment I am trying to run down my freezer again before Christmas as I'll probably have a lot of leftovers to freeze (my husband insists on getting a big turkey and freezing what we don't eat as we only ever have turkey once a year).  This week, all the meat I will be using is from the freezer, except for the salmon for tomorrow's dinner which is in the fridge.  This will allow me to gain a lot of space in the freezer, as well as saving a bit of money as I will not have to buy any meat.

My husband has classes on Tuesday evenings, so I will make the chilli ahead on Monday evening so that he can take some to work to eat before he heads to class.  Having the chilli ready ahead of time will also help save some time in the evening when I get home which will be handy as I will be trying to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible as well as trying to entertain the kids. 

When I make chilli there is usually leftovers, but rather than put them in the freezer, like I would normally do, I will use any leftovers for lunches.  There is nothing quite like a nice warm filling lunch at this time of year.  Unfortunately I am still trying to lose weight so I'll be having salads!

Menu planner for 13/10/2012 to 19/10/2012

Another week another menu plan!

Recently I decided to join Weight Watchers (again!) in order to lose the weight that I put on after having my second baby.  Better late than never I suppose!  Anyway, I have bought a couple of the WW magazines recently for some inspiration and have come across a couple of recipes that I want to try out.  I figured that this week is as good a week as any to start!  I'll be adding details of the recipe for each dish, so if you see something you like check back later in the week for more details and some feedback on the recipes.

My menu plan for Saturday 13th October to Friday 19th October is as follows:-
Saturday dinner - Pork fillet with roasted parsnips and carrots (Nov 2012) - 5 propoints per serve
Sunday dinner - Lemon roast chicken with barley (Oct 2012) - 11 propoints per serve
Monday dinner - Leftover roast chicken
Tuesday dinner - Spicy sausage casserole (Oct 2012) - 5 propoints per serve
Wednesday dinner - Leftover spicy sausage casserole
Thursday dinner - Beef and Guinness stew (Nov 2012) - 10 propoints per serve
Friday dinner - Chicken wraps

For lunches we will be having ham salad sandwiches, soup and leftovers where there are some.

The November 2012 WW magazine is currently available to buy in shops, so if you fancy having a look at some of the recipes for yourself you can pick up a copy.  Otherwise you can wait until I post about them!

Tut tut!

Well, August is almost over and this is my first post this month!  Tut tut me!  We were on holiday the first week of the month and I just never got a chance to post since we got back for one reason or another.  Anyway, now that I have a new laptop (grrrrrr - the things we could have used the money for) and a bit of time to myself I thought I best put a post together so that I can at least have one post in August!

So, it looks like this will be my only meal plan for August.  This week we will be eating;

Saturday lunch - chicken salad
Saturday dinner - Spring salmon with minty veg (yes - I know it's not Spring, but it ain't Summer either so I figured, why not!)
Sunday lunch - chicken salad wrap
Sunday dinner - roast beef dinner
Monday dinner - leftover roast beef dinner
Tuesday dinner - Chorizo, pepper and pasta
Wednesday dinner - Chicken and mushrooms in red wine sauce, potatoes and veg
Thursday dinner - Mussels, spaghetti and dill
Friday dinner - Wraps

Lunches will be sandwiches, soup and corn on the cob.

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.

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. 

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.

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!!

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.

July challenge starts now - the first menu plan of the month!

So, this week will be the first week of my July challenge where I aim to limit my grocery spend to €50 per week.  I hate to admit it but I am actually quite excited by my July challenge.  I know, I know - this makes me sound extremely sad, but I think it will force me to exercise a bit of creativity to stay below the €50 each week.

Now, to be clear, this €50 will probably only be food shopping with the odd toiletery, pack of nappies or tub of formula thrown in.  I have quite a large stockpile of toileteries, nappies and formula built up at the moment from buying when they were on offer or from using my Boots Advantage card to buy them.  If I was to buy formula and nappies each week as well as the groceries, I think I would need to increase my shopping budget to €75 to accomodate this.  So if you have decided to give yourself a July challenge, remember to allow yourself some extra money to allow for expensives items like this or you will be setting yourself up for a fall!

This weekend I am up visiting my parents as it is my dads 50th birthday, so I won't need to worry about grocery shopping for dinner on Saturday or Sunday evening.  So, for this week my menu plan only needs to cover Monday to Friday.

So, my menu plan for the 2th July 2012 to 6th July 2012 is as follows:-
Monday dinner - Turkey meatballs in tomato and fennel sauce
Tuesday dinner - Leftovers
Wednesday dinner - Mushroom and rice one-pot
Thursday dinner - Better than baked beans and wedges
Friday dinner - Leftovers

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, leftover mushroom and rice one-pot and tuna salad.

Menu plan 25/6/2012 to 29/6/2012

I didn't get a chance to plan my menu over the weekend and just used whatever was in the freezer.  I needed to put a bit of thought into what I am planning for the next few days before heading off to the shops though, so I put together a menu plan for the next of the week.

So, my plan for the rest of the week is as follows:
Monday dinner - wraps
Tuesday dinner - Patatas bravas with chorizo
Wednesday dinner - Grilled pork loins, potatoes, peas and sweetcorn
Thursday dinner - Sweet and sour pork stir-fry
Friday dinner - Summer-in-winter chicken with olive oil baked potatoes

For lunches we will be having sandwiches, wraps, broccoli and almond soup and baked tomato and feta.

I'll be continuing my inventory this week in preparation for my July challenge.  I am hoping that by using a lot of the contents of my store cupboard and freezer contents that I will be able to limit my grocery spend to €50 per week.  I've also been reading through some of my recipe books and Good Food magazines to try and get a few ideas of recipes that won't cost the earth to make.

July challenge - €50 per week

So, as the title suggests I have set myself a bit of a challenge for July.  I intend to limit my grocery spend for each week in July to €50 per week.  I've recently re-done my monthly budget again and I've lowered my grocery budget down to €100 per week again, so if I manage to spend €50 per week throughout July I'll be able to save €200 which I'll put into my savings account. 

There are a few reasons why I've decided to do this.  Firstly, it'd be nice to put the extra money into my savings account as it'll come in handy come Christmas time.  Secondly, I am hoping to run down the contents of the freezer.  Thirdly, if I limit the amount I am spending each week to €50 then I'll be forced get creative with the contents of my store cupboard.

So, to help to try and complete this challenge I will be taking an inventory of my kitchen cupboards and freezer so that I have an accurate list of what I have in the house.  I'll then plan my weekly menu using this list, as well as considering what is on offer in the shops each week. 

Hopefully I'll be able to stick to it and still make some yummy meals for my family!

If anyone has any suggestions of cheap and cheerful, yet tasty meals then please leave a comment sharing your suggestions.

Menu plan 16/6/2012 to 22/6/2012

It's been a while since I put together a proper menu plan but I decided that I needed to take the time to put one together this evening for the next week.  So, my menu plan for the 16th June to the 22nd June is as follows:-

Saturday lunch - spring onion soup
Saturday dinner - Chorizo chicken
Sunday lunch  - leftover soup
Sunday dinner - Steak, mushrooms, onions, chips, sweetcorn and peas (Fathers day request)
Monday dinner - Tagliatelle, sunblush tomatoe and spinach
Tuesday dinner - Shepherds pie
Wednesday dinner - Leftover shepherds pie
Thursday dinner - Bacon and mushroom pasta
Friday dinner - Fish, chips and peas

For lunches through the week we will have ham sandwiches and tuna salad. 

Spring onions (scallions) and mushrooms are on offer in Dunnes at the moment for 48 cent.  I picked up two bunches of scallions to make soup for lunch over the weekend and I picked up 3 packs of mushrooms for use in various dishes through the week.  Youngs frozen battered fish is on offer in Dunnes at the moment for €2 for 2 large fillets.  I picked up two boxes of these for the freezer and will use one of them on Friday.

Tip
There were quite a few offers on frozen products in Dunnes and I picked up several.  When I got home I discovered that I didn't have as much room in my freezer as I thought, so I removed the Youngs fish fillets from their packaging and put them in freezer bags to save space.  The box for the fish was quite large in comparison of the actual size of the fillets, so this saved a lot of space in the freezer.

Menu planner for 19/5/2012 to 25/5/2012

This week will be a busy week for us as we get ready for our daughters birthday party on Saturday.  To make sure we have plenty of time to get ready on Friday night I have opted to have leftovers from Thursday nights chilli.

My menu plan for the 19 May to the 25 May is as follows:-
Saturday dinner - Spiced salmon with lentils
Sunday lunch - soup (depending on what veg is on offer)
Sunday dinner - Ham, vegetables and Boulangère potatoes
Monday dinner - Leftovers from Sunday lunch
Tuesday dinner - Pizza
Wednesday dinner - Maple and pepper glazed chicken with roasted carrots and mash
Thursday dinner - Quick chilli (special request by my daughter for her birthday!)
Friday dinner - Leftover chilli

For lunches I will be making baked feta and tomato, scrambled eggs, tuna, red onion and white bean salad and sandwiches.

Several of the recipes I have picked this week are low GI recipes.  Food that has a low GI helps to keep your blood sugar level steady as the foods take longer to digest.  This helps make you feel fuller for longer.  I will be trying to incorporate more low GI foods into our diet over the next few weeks, paying special attention to lunches.

Tip - My shopping bill for this week will probably be slightly higher than previous weeks as I will be adding some items to it for my daughters birthday.  Next weekend we are planning on having a BBQ at our house, so rather than buy everything in one trip to the supermarket next week, I am hoping to pick up some things this weekend in order to spread the cost slightly.  Our butcher has offers on this weekend on pork loins which are lovely cooked on the BBQ, so I will pick up a few of these, marinade them and then freeze them so that they are ready to simply lift out of the freezer and cook next Saturday.  Doing this will save me time as well as money.

Menu planner for 12/5/2012 to 18/5/2012

So, it's that time of the week again - menu planning time!  This week I have quite a few leftover ingredients in the kitchen, so I have made a list of them so that I can pick recipes that will use them up and prevent waste.  Doing this will also keep my grocery spend for the week down, which is good as I need to buy some formula and nappies which takes a chunk out of my budget.

My meal plan for 12 May to 18 May 2012 is as follows:

Saturday lunch - Orange, carrot and mint soup
Saturday dinner - Smoky chicken and bean stew
Sunday lunch - leftover soup
Sunday dinner - Chicken wraps
Monday dinner - Shepherd's pie
Tuesday dinner - Leftover shepherd's pie
Wednesday dinner - Leek and mackerel penne bake
Thursday dinner - Spanish bean stew
Friday dinner - Leftover stew

For lunches during the week I will make puy lentil, spiced roast carrot and feta salad, some leftover chilli that is in the freezer, leftover shepherd's pie and sandwiches.

As you can see, this week I am making a couple of dishes that we can eat two nights.  This means that I will only have to cook from scratch three nights during the working week which will save time that I can spend doing other things.

Colcannon - abandoned :-(

You may have noted that according to my meal plan for the week that we were supposed to have black pudding and colcannon tonight.  We didn't have colcannon as we were a bit pressed for time and the recipe that I had picked was going to take too long to make.  Instead we had black pudding, mashed potatoes, and mashed carrot and turnip.

My husband had come across a different recipe for colcannon in a newspaper during the week and he wants to make it some night instead of the recipe that I found.  Hmmmm...I might just let him.  I've made a note of this recipe so that I can make it in the future when I have a bit more time.

We are heading away this weekend, so my menu for next week is only going to run from Monday to Friday night.  I intend to plan it and do my shopping list before I head away, but I wont know what offers will be on in Dunnes,Lidl or Aldi so I intend to be a bit more flexible than I normally would be when doing my shopping.

Irish coddled pork with cider..again!

Back in January I made this Irish coddled pork with cider recipe from the GoodFood magazine and it went down a treat.  I decided to make it for dinner today when I saw that both cabbage and turnip were on offer in Dunnes yesterday for 29 cent each.  There we pork loins in our freezer and we got some bulmers when we were in Asda last week (note - we bought 'Magners' not the English Bulmers), so I didn't need to buy them which made this recipe a cheap enough option for me this week allowing me to stay well within my grocery budget.

The cabbage on offer in Dunnes was a quarter of a white cabbage for 29 cent, so I only used a quarter of cabbage this time round.  There was still more than enough to go around.

I wouldn't normally post about a recipe I've made previously, but I wanted to show how tailoring your menu to suit what the stores have on offer on any given week can reduce the overall cost of your menu for that week by comparing the how much it cost me to make the coddled pork this week to when I made it back in January.

Cost - As I said I had Pork Loins in the freezer.  They were recently on offer in our butchers at 5 pork loins for €5.  This recipe used 2 so this it cost €2.  The turnip was 15 cent, the cabbage was 29 cent, the carrots were 25 cent, the bacon was €1, potatoes were 60 cent (I used 4 instead of two) and the bulmers was 25 cent (the offer I bought them on was not as good as the one I got before Christmas making this ingredient slightly more expensive.  This makes the total cost of the meal €4.54. 

I saved 46 cent on this recipe this week when compared with how much it cost when I made it in January.  I used an extra potato but less cabbage.  Even if I had bought an extra quarter of white cabbage, I would still have saved money on the recipe as this would only have cost another 29 cent.

A saving of 46 cent doesn't really seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but if I saved this much in every meal I made in the week I'd have an extra €3.22 at the end of the week.  Considering that I have some recipes on here that cost less than €3 to make, this extra money means that I could feed the family for an extra day on what I had saved.  Something to think about I guess.

Marinated lamb steaks with barley salad

So, tonight after the kids went to bed I made the marinated lamb steaks with barley salad from the June 2010 issue of the GoodFood magazine.  It was, quite frankly, delicious!  My taste buds are still in heaven!  This recipe is definitely going on the list of dinners that we will be having again (and again and again and again!!).

After trying it my husband confessed that he was a bit dubious about the barely salad but that it tasted much better than he expected.  As well as making a nice change from potatoes as a side, the barley salad is has a low GI, meaning that you'll feel fuller for longer.  According to the GoodFood magazine the salad gives 2 of your 5-a-day, making it a healthy choice for dinner.

I made a few alterations to the recipe as I was going along.  The first change was forced upon me when I went to by the meat.  My butcher didn't have any lamb steaks, but he did have some lovely looking boneless lamb chops which looked quite thick so I decided that they would do the trick.  The second change was when I was making the marinade - it called for a pinch of dried chilli and I added a bit more than a pinch as we like our food spicy. 

The biggest changes I made were to the barley salad.  When I did the grocery shopping earlier today there were no frozen broad beans in Dunnes, so I bought soya beans and used these instead.  Red onions were on my shopping list but I decided not to bother buying them as 1kg of onions was 29c in Dunnes and I didn't really fancy having a kg of red onions AND and kg of ordinary onions in the house.  Although the red onions were on offer in Lidl this weekend, I decided that it was a bit excessive to buy a kg of them just for one recipe.  I meant to buy a single red onion, but forgot and only realised when I started making the dinner.  So instead of red onion I used two scallions (spring onions).  The red onion wasn't to be cooked and I didn't think that a raw onion would taste nice in the salad, whereas I was confident that the scallions would be fine.

The recipe suggests marinating the lamb for up to two hours if you have the time.  My lamb was marinated for 40 minutes and tasted fine. 

TIP - If I was to decide to make this recipe mid-week I would probably buy the meat at the weekend, make up the marinade, rub into the meat and freeze.  Then I would lift it out the night before making the meal and leave it to defrost and marinate in the fridge.  Alternatively I would make up the marinade the night before or in the morning, but for me the first option would save the most time on meal preparation during the week.

Cost - This was a bit more expensive than some meals that I make.  The lamb chops that I bought were €5.  The soya beans were €1.50, the peas were 50 cent (estimate), the pearl barley was 75 cent, the mint was 50 cent, the lemon was 25 cent and I have allowed 40 cent for the scallions, dried chilli and olive oil.  This makes the total €8.90 which makes this my most expensive meal to date. 

I would not normally spend so much on one meal for two of us, but a lot of couples spend much more than this on a meal in the restaurant on a Saturday night, so as a one off I don't think it's that bad.  In fact, we'd spend more on a takeaway if we were to get one and probably not enjoy it half as much!

Grocery shopping - menu planner for 28/4/2012 to 4/5/2012

So, it's Friday night and it's time to sort out my meal plan for the next week and write my grocery shopping list ready for my trip to get the groceries tomorrow.  Is it sad that I actually enjoy doing this on a Friday night...possibly, but I'm not afraid to admit that I enjoy having a trawl of recipe books and magazines on a Friday night and putting together a meal plan for the week.

Anyway, I digress!  My menu plan for the 28th April to the 4th May is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Marinated lamb steaks with barley salad
Sunday dinner - Irish Coddled pork with cider
Monday dinner - Very quick chicken stew (I am planning on making this with chicken breasts)
Tuesday dinner - Leftovers from Mondays dinner
Wednesday dinner - Sticky gammon steaks with steamed greens and rice
Thursday dinner - Black pudding and colcannon
Friday dinner - Sticky pan-roasted sausages with grapes and leftover colcannon

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, quinoa tabbouleh and scrambled eggs.

Shopping list for the week:-

1. Chicken breasts (usually 10 for 10 at my local butchers)
2. Gammon steaks x 2
3. Lamb steaks x 2
4. Smoked bacon
5. Black pudding
6. Good quality pork sausages (my butcher does some thick sausages that will be suitable)
7. Potatoes
8. Pak Choi
9. Shallots
10. Scallions (spring onions)
11. Cucumber
12. Red chilli
13. Parsley
14. Carrots
15. Swede (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
16. Cabbage (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
17. Baby potatoes
18. Grapes
19. Oranges
20. Apples
21. Bananas
22. Pears (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
23. Mint
24. Red onion (39c for 1 kg in Lidl)
25. Frozen broad beans
26. Eggs
27. Ham
28. Full fat milk - 2 litre
29. Skimmed milk - 3 litres
30. Bread
31. Yoghurt's
32. Cheese
33. Rice Krispies (to make rice krispie buns with the remaining Easter eggs!)

Hmmm...starving now after putting that together. 

TIP - I have to confess that I often find more recipes to try than there are days in my menu planner and often find it difficult choosing between them.  To help me decide I look at the ingredients to work out which recipes I have a few of the ingredients in for already which will make my grocery shop for the week a bit cheaper.  Then I look at the time it takes to prepare and cook to work out if it is feasible for me to attempt to make the recipe mid-week when time is of the essence!  By doing both these things I usually manage to narrow down the list, but if I don't I'll make a note of the recipe for another week.

Meal planner for 23/4/2012 to 27/4/2012

My meal plan for this week is only covering Monday to Friday as I was visiting my parents this weekend so didn't need to worry about my menu for Saturday and Sunday.  This means that my grocery spend for this week should be well within budget. 

So, the menu plan is as follows:-
Monday dinner - Turkey, thyme and leek meatloaf, baby boiled potatoes and green beans
Tuesday dinner - Leftovers
Wednesday dinner - Chicken stir fry
Thursday dinner - Cannellini bean salad with roast cherry tomatoes and chorizo and jacket potatoes
Friday dinner - Spag bol

Lunches for the week will be tuna salads, sandwiches and soup.