Food planning, budgeting, shopping and cooking....

....is one of those boring sounding things that, again, just becomes obsessive and addictive!

Trying to come up with alternative meals, batch cooking, using leftovers...planning your menu so that you use all that you buy.

We love food, my husband loves cooking, I love baking (there is a closet WI member lurking inside me!).......

We fancy trying related hobbies like wine making and growing our fruit and veg.  In fact my top gift of the moment would be a foraging course!

There are two elements to what we decided to do about this.

* Cooking to a budget so that we know what we need to live on when we retire (part of our future planning)

* Planning meals for now and making the most of our shopping to reduce waste (that's where you may as well open your purse and shake the money into the bin!)

First we know we can cook, but how much can we cook?  How much can we cut back on pre-made items such as pasta sauce and jam.....not cut out of our diet....but maybe make instead of buy....!?

Where would we get the ingredients....shop, grow or forage?

How would we plan our menu?

The menu planning was easy, we've been doing it for years and have a broad formula of hints for each day of the week.....Sunday is Roast Dinner, Monday is pasta....midweek its usually Baked Potatoes with salad and various fillings, a slow cooker (crockpot) meal and around the world (the kids chose this name for their curry, fajita, stir fry night).  We have take-in (not take away, although it sometimes is!) on Saturday.  Friday night is now mine and hubbys date night (little one eats a hot meal at school and older daughter often cooks for herself), we generally cook together whilst getting slowly drunk enjoying wine or cocktails.....lovely end to the week.

So this is the formula that works for us.  I must also say that we do love vegetarian food, so meat and fish is not a daily occurrence here....

At the moment I tend to go shopping on a Monday.  Over the weekend I like to clean the fridge so I can see what needs using up and from that plan some meals that will use this.  Then once we have a menu, we put together a shopping list of what we need.

So as an example, I'll show you this weeks plan....not really a good example as we have some stuff to use, but you'll get the idea.....and I might do it again another week so you can see a more expensive shop.

We had some tomatoes and lettuce leftover, but needed more, we had some cold chicken and stuffing left from Sundays roast.  We had veg left from Sundays roast and both the puddings.  In the freezer we had a batch cooked meat spag bol and a veggie one, we had a bag of mixed frozen fish.  Our store cupboard is mostly up to date with herbs, spices, gravy granules, custard powder, baked beans, cereal and potatoes!

We needed some store cupboard replacements....porcini mushrooms and frozen mushrooms, chocolate spread and assorted crackers (for cheese).  We also needed the regulars like milk, butter, cheese and breakfast / packed lunch / supper bread.

Our meals were as follows: Monday - Lasagne
                                             Tuesday - Leftover Roast dinner (roll-ups for Little Lady)
                                             Wednesday - Soup and Bread
                                             Thursday - Fish Pie
                                             Friday - Salmon Tagliatelli (more roll-ups no doubt!)
                                             Saturday - homemade Pizza
                                             Sunday - Roast Beef & Yorkshire puddings

This was our bill......        

I couldn't get some things so I text Hubby the remainder for him to grab on his way home.  BUT....he didn't stick to the list!  The first 6 items were definitely NOT on my list!

...but hey-ho, I'm not complaining!

On Sunday I made a roast dinner, a crumble and an eves pudding, a loaf and a batch of scones. 

Yesterday I added a normal and a sweet potato into the leftover Sunday roast veg together with an onion, a bay leaf, salt and pepper and bouillon powder...boiled it to buggery (wondering if it would be purple due to the red cabbage) and once it was all soft, blitzed it with a little milk to thin slightly and hey presto....roast dinner soup for lunches and a dinner this week!

Monday we made lasagne from veg and meat bolognese sauce that we had batch cooked and frozen.  We had it with garlic bread and salad followed by portions of Sundays puddings....no waste (a little salad left for Little lady suppers and lunches).

Tonight we ate another roast dinner, I just cooked fresh veg and homemade Yorkshire puddings.  We will finish the Sunday puddings...so no waste at all from Sunday.  Little lady had cheese and ham roll-ups....

I'll soon be posting a recipe for those...they are delicious!

Tomorrow, we'll be having the soup as our mail meal...probably with the last of the loaf.  I'll be making more bread tomorrow.....yes, I cheat, I have a machine.

I'll come back soon with a round up for later in the week and the menu for next.  I'll also be posting that recipe.......I think I might post a few....quick, easy and cheap....and if I can get the hubby spreadsheeting....I might even be able to cost meals too!

So.....until the next time...

bye for now.