Today has been a cold and dull day here in Yorkshire and also the end of my first weeks Menu planning. Its worked really well and I hope this week will be the same. I actually did my plan before I went shopping on Friday and only bought the things we needed.
I did change one thing last week after I read a post on
Frugal Queens blog about cheaper cuts of meat, it reminded me I had some of the Pork Slices she mentioned in my freezer, so out they came and we had a delicious dinner with some home grown beans from the garden. Sadly these are now finished but I did manage to put a few bags in the freezer.
It has been a day for cooking and baking for the freezer and a few meals to be added to the menu plans over the next couple of weeks.
I made a beef stew which will make us 2 meals one with dumplings or savoury scone and the other with a savoury crumble mix on the top.
Here we have a spicy beef goulash, we love this with mashed potatoes, a real winter warmer and again enough for 2 meals.
These are probably the last of the ripe tomatoes there are still lots in the greenhouse but they are green, I'm hoping a few will still ripen over the next few weeks just to eke out the budget. I have roasted these with some black pepper and olive oil, these 2 large portions will be frozen to have with bacon later in the month.
Everything is now cooked and portioned up ready for the freezer so look out for these appearing on future menu plans.
While having a rummage in the freezer I found a small pack of sweet pastry, just enough to make a tart of some description, I also had a jar of Mincemeat from last Christmas to be used up, so this is sort of a christmassy tart with cherry cake mix on the top
Its delicious but very sweet which my hubby loved.
I also made 2 loaf cherry cakes and a dozen sultana scones.
Again everything has been portioned up and put in the freezer and enough in the cake tin for during the week.
I also roasted a chicken and made a full dinner with enough for tomorrow. Doing all this cooking makes good use of the oven while its on and good use of my time, it make things so much easier for busy days when the last thing you want to do is set about cooking from scratch.
I hope you have all had a good weekend and are ready for tomorrow, the 1st of October!!! where has the year gone?
Thank you for reading
Karen xxx
Wow, what a cookathon! All looks great. Even tomatoes that are still green can be brought into the house to ripen in a bowl. I always do this with my green tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteWow! You have certainly made fab use of a day in the kitchen. I wish I could sort more for the freezer but I don't seem to have the time to organise it. I always make double when I cook spag bol or chilli and when we have yorkies on sunday roasts I make more mix and make 6 in a muffin tin and 4 larger ones. We eat the 6 on sunday lunch and I put the other 4 in the freezer to have with sausages for a cheats toad in the hole. Makes an easy mid week dinner x
ReplyDeleteYou were busy! What a great cooking session. Everything looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteIf your green tomatoes don't ripen there are several relishes you can make or you can also fry the slices. Oh and green tomato pie is good, too.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI love that menu planner. Where did you get it?
Donna