Meal planning Monday – 17 February 2014

ImageJust came across this meal planning Monday blog with Mrs M and it appealed to my list-making nature. Of course, I have been known to plan meals for an entire month (oh, the joy of all those lovely lists), but I’ll restrict myself to just one week here.

I am still feeling the need for simple food after our two weeks in Sri Lanka, and so this week’s menu is nothing exciting, but it is nutritious and tasty.

As usual, weekday breakfasts will be porridge, and for lunches this week I used ham stock and the veg left at the bottom of the fridge to make vegetable soup. Dinners are:

  • Monday – boiled ham (hence the stock) cooked with carrots, leeks and new potatoes
  • Tuesday – beef shin stew with dumplings
  • Wednesday – chicken breast stirfry with brown rice
  • Thursday – prawn and chilli pasta
  • Friday – looks like we are meeting up with friends so I won’t be cooking tonight …
  • Saturday – chicken kiev, jacket potato, mushy peas
  • Sunday – Andrew’s mum is visiting and so I’m waiting to find out if we will go out for Sunday lunch or if she will come to us for food

The boiled bacon tonight was fantastic – if you haven’t made it before then here’s how it goes …

20140217-210329.jpgBoiled bacon stew – serves 3 plus extra stock for soup

1 small bacon / gammon joint (I always use smoked), 2 onions, 2 leeks, 2 carrots, several new potatoes, 10 pink peppercorns, 1 star anise, water

Slice the vegetables and sit the bacon joint on top in a saucepan. Fill the pan with water to cover the bacon and add the peppercorns and star anise. Bring to the boil and then gently simmer for as long as the cooking instructions for the bacon joint say (80 minutes for mine).

I always allow the bacon to cool in the liquor then remove the majority of the stock to use to make soup (for mine this week: a swede, 2 onions, a couple of carrots and leeks and a potato cooked until soft in the stock and then blitzed). You can reheat the veg and meat in the remaining stock when you are ready to eat it (I think the whole thing tastes even better the next day).

You can find out more about meal planning At Home with Mrs M.

2 Replies to “Meal planning Monday – 17 February 2014”

  1. Ive never used my bacon/gammon juice to make soup….what a numpty! lol…will definitely do that in the future lol

    xx

    1. It’s really nice to do it – makes your soup much tastier and more filling as well!

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