Menu Plan Monday 25/02/13

This is £70 worth of meat to last the next 5 weeks. I've made a decision to only buy meat from a local family butcher. It is based on the recent horse meat fiasco and because I am loosing faith in supermarkets and would rather see my money go to a hard working husband & wife running a family butchers rather than give it to one of the big greedy supermarkets. They are more expensive than the supermarkets but I know they can produce paperwork documenting where all their meat is reared and slaughtered and another bonus is it is local meat.

I have worked out that I can get 20 x 4 portion meals from this meat which would work out at £3.50 per 4 portions. I most probably will get more meals than I've estimated so I'm going to keep a record of how many meals I get out of the meat over the next five weeks. Mince can be stretched by incorporating lots of veggies and lentils.  I will also be buying a couple of chickens from Aldi which I can stretch to make a couple of meals and a few chicken & mayo sandwiches. My menus are now going to incorporated 2 veggie and 1 fish meals per week. Lets see how it goes.

So the plan for this week is...

MONDAY - Stuffed pork fillet, roast potatoes & carrots, steamed veg, yorkshire puddings, gravy

TUESDAY - Roast chicken, jacket potatoes, homemade coleslaw & salad

WEDNESDAY - Pasta with mushrooms, homemade garlic bread

THURSDAY - Smoked fish, parsley sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots & peas

FRIDAY - Mushroom & chestnut cottage pie, broccoli

SATURDAY - Lamb burgers, chips & homemade coleslaw

SUNDAY - Leftover chicken & leek pie, mash and vegetables

Menu plan 18/02/13

MONDAY - Fragrant pork & rice one pot with homemade bread

TUESDAY - Fish pasta bake

WEDNESDAY - Roast chicken, roast potatoes, vegetables and yorkshire puddings with stuffing

THURSDAY - Starter-Wensleydale mushrooms. Chicken & chorizo risotto

FRIDAY - Leftover xmas turkey, casseroled, mash and vegetables

SATURDAY - Homemade pizza and chips

SUNDAY - Omelet, salad, homemade coleslaw and jacket potatoes

It's half term here in North Yorkshire and I've been busy with Daughter No3's 15th birthday which was on Sunday. It was an easy birthday this year to buy for as she requested money but I did buy her a book I knew she wanted and a cushion she spotted in Aldi she liked, so she had something to open on the day. She asked me to make her a chocolate cake for her birthday which I set about making Sunday lunchtime. Hubby came in the kitchen just as I was getting ingredients out and declared he would like to make the cake. Don't think he's made a cake before from what I can remember so I supervised him. I set about making a chocolate bow I had found on a google search. It was rather fiddly to make the bow but I think it will come a lot easier if I make it again; and a lot tidier : ) Daughter No2 wanted to make the cake filling and topping so she did that part of the cake. So it turned into a family made cake in the end.

The creation tasted nice but was rather difficult to cut into. Daughter enjoyed it along with her friends who slept over. All the girls took over the living room with airbeds and watched movies with a bag of treats. Kept us awake with chatting and giggling a lot of the night. When asked in the morning what time they went to sleep it turned out to be around 4.30am!!! I woke them at 9.15 as one of the girls had to be home by 10.00am so an early night was had by daughter last night.

It's a busy week of fitting lots of appointments in this week. Yesterday was a drive to York for Daughter No3 to visit the orthodontist. Both have opticians this week and Daughter No3 has a doctors appointment Thursday.

Think I shall go for a walk with the dog now and enjoy this beautiful sunny day. The living room is rather hot with the sun shining through the two windows. Enjoy your day x

Not a happy bunny

Set off to drive the 33 miles to work at 9pm last night. 45 minutes later I was on the phone to the RAC informing them of car problems. My car on three occasions seemed to lose its umph and was very sluggish and just had no get up and go.  Then I could smell like rubber burning! It was then I decided to to pull into a side street and see if I could spot what was happening with the car. One of alloys was red hot on the passenger side so I was worried brake disk had jammed or something. I know nothing at all about cars but knew something was not right. Rang hubby who said not to drive it and to ring the RAC.

image from google

Forty minutes later my knight in shining fluorescent arrived with lights blazing. Basically he said he was not happy for me to drive it as he found fluid sprayed all on the engine when he looked under the bonnet and was taking me and car back home. So me and my poorly car were driven back home arriving in our quiet street with lights a flashing and rather noisily in a recovery van. Lots of curtains twitching to see what all the racket was about. Don't think neighbours appreciated all the noise of a car being removed from a recovery truck at midnight. Ah well, I appreciated him. So glad I have breakdown cover with my car insurance. It's a god send when your a woman driver alone at night.

I jumped in Hubby's car and headed back to Leeds AGAIN! and work were very good about it all. Not had much sleep today as had to get up early as boiler man is coming to service our boiler. Got a text when I woke up though from Hubby who has already booked my car into the village garage to be seen first thing tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed this won't skint me.

Bloody snowing now! Ah well, can't drive anywhere so might as well enjoy it : )

Menu plan Monday 11/02/13

MONDAY - Roast chicken, sage & onion stuffing, mashed potatoes, veg and yorkshire pudding

TUESDAY - Omelet, salad, jacket potatoes and homemade coleslaw. Pancakes

WEDNESDAY - Sausage & pepper casserole, sauteed potatoes

THURSDAY - Beef stew, mashed potatoes and yorkshire puddings

FRIDAY - Leftover chicken with ham in a sauce served on vegetable rice

SATURDAY - Homemade pizzas and wedges

SUNDAY - Spaghetti bolognese and homemade garlic bread

Wow, it's Monday again. Seems to arrive around too soon.  A whole week of no posts. Must admit it's been a bit hectic here at the moment. Had lots of online e-learning  to complete for work and as usual nothing goes right when trying to do these things on laptops at home. Anyway courses completed and me stressed to hell with all the technical side of it going wrong. Going to tackle another course tomorrow so wish me luck. It's not due until May but I'm going to get it done as I'm 2 hours short of a lieu night that I want to use before our new lot of annual leave is sorted for the 1st April. So a few hours of e-learning is worh it for a night off work.

Today I have posted my passport for renewal. It ran out the beginning of 2011 but we have not been abroad for a few years so have not bothered renewing until now. We are venturing abroad this summer so the deed had to be done. So I worked it out today how much this passport is costing: renewal £72.50. New photo £5.00. Postage £5.90. Total £83.40 x 2 (Hubby's to do his) =£166.80. Bloody hell! that's a lot of money for two passports. Thank god the girls don't need renewing until next year. Thankfully we have this budgeted for in the holiday fund. We have been saving since the middle of last year an amount each month for our holiday taking into account the cost of passport renewals. 

Belated Menu Plan Monday 04/02/13

MONDAY - Sausages, mashed potatoes, yorkshire puddings, carrots, cabbage, broccoli & sweetcorn

TUESDAY - Healthy fryup

WEDNESDAY - Bolognese on pasta and homemade garlic bread

THURSDAY - Fish pie, broccoli, carrots and peas

FRIDAY - Pork steaks, apple sauce, roasted potatoes & steamed vegetables

SATURDAY - Beef/ veggie burgers, chips and coleslaw all homemade

SUNDAY - Mushroom pasta and garlic bread

It's that time again to do a Nigel Slater dish  of the month. The challenge was created by Janice from Farmersgirl kitchen to create a dish each month from any of Nigel's recipes. Again, I shall be using a recipe from my book, The kitchen diaries. Again, I shall be making a soup. It's that time of year folks. I just have to have soup when it's cold and miserable. Saying that, sat her  typing,the sun is beaming through my window dazzling my eyes. Ah but it is bitterly cold out there! I know, I've been out walking the dog in it.  Back to soup making. I have chosen to make his White bean and tarragon soup.

Having no spring onions I decided to use a small onion and I had no fresh tarragon so used a teaspoon of dried tarragon instead. Good old Nige doesn't mind us swapping a few thing around, he encourages it. Use what you have.

Lunch today is a cup-a-soup of Nigels soup and a toastie to go with it. I decided to have it in a cup as the soup is a little thin for my liking but does taste good. Think more beans or a little less stock next time. A really cheap soup to make too.