Bringing in some order....

After throwing away a scary amount of food from my fridge on my return from holiday I have decided to become more organised and start planning meals.

I’ve always taken a bit of a slapdash approach to supermarket shopping with only a meal or two in mind and so I usually end up making several repeat trips during the week plus a night or two of “Ready Steady Cook” style invention to try to use up the random food items that caught my eye whilst shopping. No matter how inventive I am, I always end up with veggies that have to be thrown away which I hate.

After a diet consisting mainly of cake and cups of tea for the last fortnight, Mr Jen and I are determined to get healthy and have the added incentive of our nutritionist friend coming to stay which should inspire us to stick to the plan.

In terms of main meals I generally try to rotate on a Meat-Fish-Vegetarian cycle so we end up with at least two of each every week. I also aim for things that I can cook most of when the Monkey is on her lunchtime nap with only last minute preparation before dinner. Plus Mr Jen usually takes his lunch into work so leftover-friendly meals are also good.

A whole week in advance seems quite daunting so I first broke it down to type/cuisine – so 7 main meals can include: Curry, Pasta/Italian, Mexican, Asian, Slow cooked stew, 2 Main course salads (as its going to be warm on the weekend!)

Now to add the actual dishes:
Curry – Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry with Brown Rice and Green Salad
Pasta/Italian – Broccoli Pesto with Pasta
Mexican – Chicken Fajitas with Corn Tortillas
Asian – Green Thai Fish Curry (yes I snuck an extra curry in!) with Brown Basmati
Slow cooked – Morroccan Spiced Lamb Shoulder with Red Lentils
Salad – Grilled Trout with Guacamole and mixed salad
Salad 2 – Beef Thai Salad

Realistically we’re going to end up eating out and/or getting takeaway at some point so the seven meals can work for some weekend lunches too. For the spicier meals, I just take out a monkey-sized portion before I add the chilli element. All I need to do now is to write the shopping list. Will I manage to stick to it.....