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.

Menu planner for 14/4/2012 - 21/4/2012

Last weekend I was away at a wedding which meant that I wasn't as well organised as I could have been with regards to the shopping and my meal planning.  On Monday I picked up some shopping and spent just under €60.  For dinner on Monday night I did squash and chorizo stew, Tuesday and Wednesday was chilli, Thursday we had Salmon, baby boiled potatoes and green beans and tonight we had chicken stir fry.  I had no choice but to make chilli as my daughter requested it every night the previous week, so to make her happy I promised to make it for her.

My meal plan for this next week is as follows:-
Saturday lunch - Leek and potato soup
Saturday dinner - Beef in black bean sauce
Sunday lunch - Leftover soup
Sunday dinner - Roast beef (eye of the round), roasted potatoes and vegetables
Monday dinner - Leftovers from Sundays dinner
Tuesday dinner - soup (depending what veg is on offer)
Wednesday dinner - Skinny Irish Stew
Thursday dinner - Quick chicken chasseur
Friday dinner - Herb and lemon pork chops, mash and vegetables

For lunches this week we will have sandwiches, tuna salad and soup.  The dinners that I am making will make use of meat that we have in the freezer - chicken, lamb and bacon and quite a few of the leftover ingredients in my fridge.

My shopping list for the week includes:-

1. Milk - 2 litres full fat
2. Milk - slimline 1 litre x 3
3. Yoghurt's
4. Cheese - babybel
5. Bread
6. Streaky bacon - I have bacon in the freezer.  It isn't streaky bacon but it will be fine for the chicken chasseur.
7. Beef - eye of the round
8. Beef fillet
9. Ham
10. Lettuce - I checked this fridge and I have these in already!
11. Cucumber
12. Cherry tomatoes
13. Red onion
14. Mushrooms
15. Baby carrots
16. Baby potatoes
17. Parsnips - I checked the fridge and I have these in already!
18. Leeks - I checked the fridge and I have these in already!
19. Parsley
20. Oranges
21. Eggs
22. Bananas
23. Custard - pots of custard to go with some stewed ruhbarb that I will make with some ruhbarb I have in.
24. Weetabix - I don't really need these, but having checked the internet I know they are on offer in Lidl this week, 72 bisks for €4.39 which is 50% extra free so I am going to get some while the offer is on

This week I have a voucher from Dunnes that will give me €8 off my shopping if I spend €80.  I would like to use this voucher, but looking at my list I doubt that my spend will get me near the €80 at the moment.  I am adding a note to the bottom of my shopping list of some store cupboard items that I could do with stocking up in.  I will pick up some of these to take my shopping to €80 so that I can use the voucher.  Although this means I will be spending more money than I intended too, I think it is smart to do this as these are items I will eventually have to buy, so I may as well buy them now and get €8 worth of them for free.  The items I am adding to the bottom of my shopping list are:-

• cans chopped tomatoes
• cans of bean - cannellini, flageolet, kidney etc.
• cans of sweetcorn
• cans of peas
• teabags
• coffee
• formula
• pepper
• stock cubes (though I need to check which flavour I need most before I go)
• toilet roll
• kitchen roll

TIPS - if like me you have a voucher to use there are a few things you can do to make sure that you get the best use out of the voucher.  In this case my voucher is for money off is I spend a certain amount.  To make sure that I spend enough to be able to use the voucher I will use a calculator to tot up my spend as I go around the store.  As well as making sure I spend enough, this will also allow me to make sure that I do not go too far over the amount I need to spend to use the voucher. 

Making a list before you go of store cupboard items that you need means that you can be sure that you are spending your money on items that are off use to you rather than just blindly picking up items to increase your total spend. 

Another good tip is to have a look at the promotions on in store and pick up any of the store cupboard items that are on offer first.  If there is a particularly good promotion I will pick up a few more of these items than I will of the others.

Another lesson!

So, as you can see I've been very good planning my meals and getting back on track last week with my shopping and everything only to be hindered with the break down of my Internet!  Last week I forgot to make a copy of my weekly planner or note down the recipes I needed in order to follow it, which meant I had to wing it through the week when it came to cooking!  When I finally got Internet access again I could see that I hadn't exactly stuck to my meal planner much (leaving me to question the ability of my memory now!!).  I think from now on I'll be writing my meal planner out and sticking it to the fridge in case we have another incident with our Internet access.

As a result of not sticking to my meal planner through the week I have some ingredients that I need to use this week so you may notice that I am using some of the same meals for my planner this week as I did last week.

Here is my meal planner for the next week:-
Saturday dinner -  Crab linguine with chilli and parsley
Sunday lunch - Crab and sweetcorn chowder
Sunday dinner -  Chicken breast with mushrooms and red wine sauce, broccoli and boiled potatoes
Monday dinner -  Mackerel, baked potatoes and salad
Tuesday dinner -  Herb and lemon pork chops (from freezer) with mash and vegetables
Wednesday dinner -  Mince and onions (from freezer), mash and vegetables
Thursday dinner - Wraps
Friday dinner -  Salmon, broccoli and mash

For lunches during the week we will have spring onion (scallion) soup, ham sandwiches and leek, potato and bacon soup.

I make the chicken breast with mushrooms and red wine sauce from memory now and couldn't remember where I came across the recipe - I should have known it was from the Goodfood magazine!  Thankfully I was able to find it to provide a link.

TIP  The herb and lemon chops have been prepared in advance and frozen before cooking so that all I need to do is to lift them out the night before, defrost them and cook them on Tuesday evening for dinner.  I decided to do the prep work in advance before freezing the chops for two reason - to save time when making the dinner during the week and to make sure that the parsley and lemon get used.

The disorganisation continues...but not for long!

So my excuse for this past week?  Well, my husband took me to Paris for the weekend so all good intentions of sorting out a meal plan for the week promptly went out the window.  Good excuse really, but there will be no more trips anywhere if I don't get my act together and start planning my meals for the week and sticking to a shopping list again!
So, to refresh myself my shopping budget for the week is €130.  This is to include formula and nappies for the baby.  I recently stocked up on nappies and formula, so I shouldn't have to buy either of them for a while so hopefully I'll be under budget.  I've decided that any money that I 'save' from the budget each week will go into our savings account.  Hopefully it will start to accumulate quickly!!

So to kick myself back into kitchen control action, here is my meal planner for next week:-

Saturday lunch - sandwiches
Saturday dinner - Lentils with chorizo and red wine
Sunday lunch - Crab and sweetcorn chowder
Sunday dinner -  Herb and lemon pock chops, baby potatoes and green beans
Monday dinner - Crab linguine with chilli and parsley
Tuesday dinner - Oven-baked leek and bacon risotto
Wednesday dinner - Chicken wraps
Thursday dinner - Sausages with creamy lentils
Friday dinner - Mince and onions (from freezer) with mash potato

I have my shopping list done, ready for me to go and pick up the ingredients I need tomorrow night. 

Grocery shopping - meal planner 4/2/2012 to 10/2/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 4th February to Friday 10th February is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Chicken fajitas
Sunday dinner - chunky chicken and ham chowder
Monday dinner - Shepherd's pie
Tuesday dinner - leftover shepherd's pie
Wednesday dinner - Herb and lemon pork chops
Thursday dinner - Ham, parsnip mash with apple, cider-braised cabbage and leek
Friday dinner  - Haggis, carrot and turnip mash, mashed potatoes

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, Spiced root vegetable soup and tuna salad.  The baby will eat some of the meals I prepared earlier in the week and froze as well as having a try of the food we are eating, where suitable.  He is getting very hungry during the day, so I'm going to get some yogurts for him to have as a snack as well as his three meals and

Tonight's dinner was made with food I already had in.  I have to go and do my grocery shop tomorrow so will post the total cost of my weeks shopping then.

My shopping list for this week is:-

1. Leeks x 4
2. Potatoes
3. Carrots
4. Sweet potato x 2
5. Onion x 2
6. red chilli
7. celery
8. parsnips
9. parsley
10. lettuce
11. scallions
12. cherry tomatoe
13. cucumber
14. oranges
15. bananas
16. apples
17. slimline milk x 2 1litres
18. full fat milk 2 litres
19. glenisk yogurts (for the baby)
20. ham
21. earl grey teabags
22. frozen sweetcorn
23. formula

Grocery shopping - meal planner 21/1/2012 - 27/1/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 21st to Friday 27th January is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Oven baked chicken with tomatoes and baby potatoes
Sunday dinner - Coddle
Monday dinner - Coddle
Tuesday dinner - Chorizo and peppers with pasta
Wednesday dinner - Ham, white cabbage and baby potatoes
Thursday dinner - Chicken stew (from freezer) and baby potatoes
Friday dinner - Chicken fajitas

For lunches I will be making black bean and chorizo soup, cream of spring onion soup, ham sandwiches and scrambled eggs.

My shopping for this week cost me €29.22 which I was extremely pleased about!  I need to pick up some white cabbage and single cream, so my spend will be just over €30 for the week.  I was able to do this by planning my meals around the offers in the shops this week and by using meat from my freezer.  The pork chops that I'll use in the coddle and chicken I'll be using in the other recipes is meat that I bought last week from the butchers and froze.  The chorizo was bought a while ago when it was on offer in Dunnes.

For €29.22 I bought the following:
2 litres full fat milk
2 x 1litre of slimlne milk
bunch of scallions x 3 (on offer for 45cent per bunch)
philadelphia x 2 (on offer 2 for €2.50)
Ham - slices for sandwiches
Mini babybel cheese
Peppers x 9 (on offer for 45cent each)
Radish
Lime
Apples
Baby potatoes 1kg x 2 (on offer for 45 cent each)
Mushrooms
Cherry tomatoes
Swede
Bananas
Buttermilk soda (half price - 79 cent)
Carrots
Free range eggs (9 for the price of 6)
Wholegrain pan loaf

Grocery shopping - meal planner 7/1/2012 to 13/1/2012

Each week before I do my shopping I plan the meals for the following week and then write a list of the groceries I need to make these meals.  My meal planner for Saturday 7th until Friday 13th January is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Chicken stew (recipe after the method)

Sunday dinner - Potato and Savoy cabbage soup

Monday dinner - left over potato and savoy cabbage soup

Tuesday dinner - roasted red pepper risotto

Wednesday dinner - braised peas with bacon, lentils and sea bass (recipe has cod, but I will use sea bass)

Thursday dinner - chilli

Friday dinner - left over chilli

Saturday lunch - chorizo and chickpea soup

I've lunch for Saturday 14th as well as I have will have everything in I need to make it after this week’s shop.  For lunches we will have ham sandwiches as there is ham in the fridge and left over red pepper risotto on Wednesday and Thursday.  For weaning the baby I will get a parsnip and sweet potato and introduce these to him this week, along with potato, apple and banana.

My shopping list for the week is as follows:-

• bag of onions (on offer in lidl)
• Savoy cabbage (on offer in lidl)
• Irish bacon medallions x 2 (on offer in lidl)
• parsnip x1
• sweet potato x 1
• red pepper x 2
• parsley
• lemons x 2
• mint
• mushrooms
• bananas
• oranges
• apples
• slim line milk x 2
• 2 litres full fat milk
• butter
• loaf of bread
• chorizo x 2 (on offer in Dunnes)

My shopping budget at the moment is € 80.  This week’s shopping should be considerably less than this so I will get some extras in for my store cupboard depending what is on offer. 

Once I have got my shopping I shall post a comment updating what extras I bought together with the exact amount spent.