Meal Planning Monday | What We Eat

Monday is my day off, I use the word off lightly though and a more accurate description would be its my unpaid work day! Its the day that I make some attempt to keep things on track and organised for the upcoming week.
One of the main jobs is to ensure all meals and lunches are sorted for the week and to restock the fridge.
Everyone has their own way of doing this and some are happy to work it out as the week goes on. Unfortunately I’m not one of those people so Meal Planning Monday is a thing in our house.
Here’s how I go about getting food organised for us.

First job is to look in the fridge and see what’s in there, what needs to be used quickly and what ingredients I don’t need in this weeks shop.
I do the same for the freezer and look to see what batchcooked dinners are in there too.
I make a list of what we have and this is the starting point for my meal planning.

The following is a list of what we had in the fridge and freezer.

So this week what will we be eating?

Monday:
Bacon/baked ham with mashed potatoes, creamed leeks and courgette and tomato gratin. This gratin is just gorgeous and is from Delia Smiths Complete Cookbook, the kids aren’t mad about it but the grown ups are. Left over ham will be used for salads (for me) and school lunches during the week.

Tuesday:
Homemade burgers, chips, corn on the cob and coleslaw.
I use Jamie Oliver’s recipe for burgers and they are always a hit, Aldi have lovely brioche burger buns and our local shop makes the most gorgeous coleslaw

Wednesday:
Pasta with Pesto for the kids, this is our busiest day with afterschool activities so dinner is eaten straight after school and it needs to be quick.
Grown ups will be having Sumac Chicken and Chorizo Traybake, you can see the recipe here

Thursday:
Freezer dinner: Fruity chicken curry with Rice and Naan bread, the recipe for the curry is here

Friday:
Freezer dinner: Chilli con Carne, universal favourite in this house. The children love it in wraps with crème fraise and cheese, we also put a large dish of nachos topped with chilli in the centre of the table to fight over share!!

There will be two different soups in the fridge for hungry after-schoolers and some poached chicken also which is handy for wraps for school lunches and salads

I never really plan as far ahead as the weekend, its nice to go with the flow and see what happens

I love reading what others are eating as trying to think of new dishes is often mind boggling, hope this helps