Start of June's meal plan

First of all I can't believe that we are in June! This year has flown by. For those of you who read my last post you would know that my husband has deployed but I have a friend staying with me so my meal plans are still for two people.

5th spaghetti bolognase and salad
6th pasta bake
7th beef and broccoli
8th our for lunch so most likely something simply like leftovers or omelettes
9th I'm at a wedding and my friend is eating at her parents
10th chicken curry
11th sweet and sour chicken
12th beef stir fry
13th and 14th my friend is away so I haven't planned any meals yet this weekend
15th sweet and sour chicken
16th tacos
17th Mac and cheese
18th omelettes
19th stir fry
20th pasta bake

After this I am off work for a week so I haven't meal planned as I am unsure of what my plans will be. Since being pregnant I'm more content with simply food such as scrambled eggs on toast or soup so even though I plan evening meals I don't always eat a huge amount of it.

Have you done any weekly or monthly meal plans yet? Let me know what your eating this month.

Claire

What's in my fridge and freezer!

This month we are doing both the 100 days of real food mini pledges and Good cheap eats pantry challenge. These go very much hand in hand as each week we get a different challenge with 100 days so this enables us to eat the food in our pantry that may not meet each weeks challenge. With our pantry challenge this month we are hoping to keep to a budget so by using our pantry and freezer to the max we are hoping for a low spend. Once we have a pantry that isn't quite so full we we hoping to be able to restock on more clean foods.

Starting with our fridge. On the top shelf we have butter, mustard and  some chopped garlic. The next shelf down we have some cheese sticks, some jam that has now been used up and a couple of innocent drinks. We then have regular full fat cows milk and almond milk. At the bottom is a bottle of seasoning that my husband likes to use on meat occasionaly.

In the main bulk of our fridge on the top shelf  we have some BBQ sauce, some nandos sauce, tomato pasarta, not from concentrate orange juice and some maple syrup. There is also a couple of small Greek yogurt pots. In the plastic tub we keep things like cheese and lunch meat. We currently have some chorizo and German ham.

Next there is some wine from when we had guests the other day. I don't drink alcohol and my husband does very rarely but it seems a waste to throw it away. There are two tubs of yogurts, some left over sweet potatoes in the bowl and a bagged one in the back. Behind the bowl is a box with some Healthy truffles. Also there is a pot of soup.

On the bottom shelf there is some leftover chicken in a Tupperware box and also some cut up pineapple in the red one. There are some wrapped bacon lardons in the back. There are strawberries, hard boiled eggs and some salsa.

In the drawer there are apples, carrots, brussle sprouts, onions and peppers.

Our freezer is a jumble sale right now! We have a selection of meats, a couple whole chickens, beef mince, meatballs, pork joint, some fish, pork chops and some diced chicken.

In our other three drawers we have a selection of frozen fruit and vegetables. Homemade chicken stock, a couple different bits of leftovers and a couple of ice lollies.

Do you know what's in your fridge and freezer. Later I will be posting about what's in my pantry.

Egg muffins

Here is a great on the go breakfast idea. We make these most weeks and vary what we include.

You will need:

• Eggs I used 3 which made 12 muffins
• Bacon
• Peppers
• Mushrooms
• Salt,pepper and garlic

You can use any ingredients you like for this. Start by cooking you filling on the stove top. 

Once these are cooked add them into a bowl with you beaten eggs. Oil your muffin pan or use cupcake cases if you like and spoon the mixture evenly into them. I have a fan assisted oven and I cooked these for 15minutes at 180 degrees. Cook these until a knife comes out clean. Once cooked place on a wire rack to cool if you are not eating straight away. These can be stored in the fridge for a few days or frozen and taken out the night before you want them. Let me know if you try these. Claire

Pantry challenge update

So it's been almost a week since we started Good cheap eats pantry challenge. Since them I've done two small shops both at aldi.

I can't seem to download the photo of my first shop but if I'm able to I'll insert it below. This shop came to £7.80 and I brought two boxes of eggs, cream eggs, dried apricots and some garlic granules.

My second shop is below and came to £7.20. We only had apples left and no salad which were my main reasons for going. We use almond milk for our porridge but I personally enjoy drinking cows milk which is why I purchased this too.

After my Shop at waitrose last week I was left with £79 in our budget for the month. We have £64 left. Later on I will be uploading a post showing you what I have in my pantry.

Good cheap eats pantry challenge

A few months ago I came across Good cheap eats pantry challenge. I forgot about this until last week when I saw that she has started this again this January. On her website you will find the full details but the main part of the challenge is to use up what's in your freezer and food cupboards while saving money.

Our budget moves around a fair bit but on average it is about £250-£300 a month for the two of us. This works out at £62.50 a week if we are using a four week month. The last few months we have hosted a christmas party as well as a few get together a with friends. For the next four weeks we don't have anything big planned so I am hoping to reduce our budget to £150. After my Food shop at waitrose today I realised I can't fit anything else in my freezer and my main food cupboard is overflowing. I know that it may seems like a weird place in the month to start but I often do our food shopping on a Wednesday as I don't work.

I will start by doing an inventory and then a meal plan for the majority of the month. Off the top of my head I know we have three whole chickens, a couple packs or mince, a pork joint, some meatballs and burgers, fish and some diced chicken in our freezer. I'm hoping that as I don't have to buy meat for the rest of the month this will keep our budget down.

Today I spent £71 so I have £79 left. This budget is from 21/01/15 to 18/02/15.

If like me you feel that your cupboards and freezer are jam packed then head on over to good cheap eats as she is very inspiring and posts daily with what her family are eating.

Let me know if you plan on giving this a try.

Claire

Food shop at waitrose

Waitrose is my favourite supermarket. I love their range of organic/free range food and also that you can find things that are just a bit different. I shop here whenever our budget allows and right now they have some great offers on.

Starting with frozen and chilled.

I got my husband some frozen fish mainly for his lunches. I love how convenient frozen vegetables are. We used to have a small fridge so I think I am still in the habit of getting these but they do tend to avoid waste. We try to live by the 80/20 rule with eating healthily so the frozen yogurt is a treat.   Again for my husband are the Rachel's yogurts and the liberte yogurts are for myself. The soup will be for lunch one day and the ham and cheese for things such as sandwiches and omelettes. We didn't really need meat this week but the chickens and mince were half price so I thought I would get them for the freezer. The bacon lardons are for egg muffins and also to go with our brussel sprouts. The burgers and meatballs are things we haven't tried before but with being organic and gluten free I wanted to try them. I also thought the price wasn't bad as they were two for £5. We didn't need a huge amount of fruit and veg this week. Between us we eat 3-4 apples a day so I got two bags as these were half price. I ribboned veg are for a stir fry one night. We don't have children but we do like to have some of the Ella's pouches on hand. I often have one in my handbag with a cereal bar for a snack or we may have one after dinner occasionally. For the cupboard we got some organic sweet corn and rice pudding. I do like to try and make my own rice pudding but this is handy for a quick dessert. The dragonfly tea is also a new thing to try. The crisps are a rare treat but were on offer. When we open a large bag like this I like to portion them out into zip lock bags to avoid over eating. Hiding in the back are some tiger bread rolls for my husband. The plastic containers were reduced to clear so I purchased these. I do keep looking at glass containers but these are practical for my husband to take to work. My shop today came to £71 and some change. A while ago I came across a pantry challenge on good clean eats blog. I will be doing a post about this which includes tracking our spending on this blog too. Did you find any good deals this week? Do you have a budget for your family? Claire

Homemade popcorn

For a wedding present we got a stove top popcorn machine. It has a handle to keep moving the popcorn so none of it burns. I don't use it very often but every time I do I always think that I should be using it more. If you do not have one of these you can still follow this recipe by using a pan with a good fitting list.

 You will need:

• Popcorn kernels
• An oil of your choice, I use coconut oil
• Salt 

Start by melting your oil in your pan. Once it's melted add a couple of kernels and close the lid. 

Once you hear that these have popped add the rest of your popcorn kernels. Add the lid again and either turn your handle or shake your pot to keep the kernels moving. Keep going until you only hear a couple of pops left.

Once the popping stops you will be left with a lovely bowl of popcorn. Add salt to taste and enjoy.

I'm hoping to find a sweet recipe that uses honey or maple syrup. I will share it if I find a good one. Claire

Meal plan 12/01/15

We kept to our meal plan last week fairly well which I'm happy about. We are planned on stacking our food challenges so again this week we will be trying to add two servings of fruit or veg at each meal.

This is our meal plan for this week:

For breakfast I plan on making a batch of egg muffins and Slow cooker porridge. As we both work early mornings this really helps us when I'm organised as we won't grab anything unhealthy.

Lunches again tends to be pretty random. If we have leftovers we will have them. Alternatively I have some chicken stock from yesterday's roast chicken so I may make soup.

• Monday - we have friends over for dinner so will be doing a big sausage casserole or pasta bake with salad. I think we will have a dessert this day but I'm not sure what yet. 
• Tuesday - homemade chicken nuggets and chips with frozen veg mix
• Wednesday - I had eggplant Parmesan on the menu but it didn't arrive on my online shop so I may improvise with what we already have indoors and change this
• Thursday - leftovers. I'm hoping there will be some leftovers this week. 
• Friday - quinoa veggie burgers. This is a new recipe I'm trying and looking forward to it. 
• Saturday - basil pork chops and veg
• Sunday - slow cooker roast chicken. 

What are you having this week? 

Week 1 of real food mini challenge review

I would say that our first week of Real food mini pledges has been successful. There was only one dinner that we didn't have two servings of either fruit or veg. We also stuck to our Meal plan fairly well.

Breakfast was probably the easiest as we tend to have eggs with peppers, spinach and mushrooms or porridge with a fruit cooked in and one on the side.

Lunches most days were leftovers which we added more fruit or veg too. We also enjoy doing lunch picnic style when we are both in.

The only meal we didn't have was tacos. The mince I had brought unfortunately went bad before it's best before so we improvised and added some veggies and leftover chicken to rice which you can see below.

We've also been using fruit as a dessert. I have a real sweet tooth so I have been trying to cut back in preparation for some of the other weeks,

Here are some pictures of some of our meals this week.

How did you do this week?

Welcoming cooper to the family

Yesterday we picked up a yellow Labrador puppy who we have called cooper. He is settling in well with minimal accidents.

He is already enjoying ruling the household and has found his spot near the sofa for sleeping. I hope to include some blogs on some natural dog care such as home made treats and eco friendly accessories. 

Is there anything you would recommend?  

Reusable cloth facial pads

With wanting to be more 'green' this year I purchased some reusable cloth facials pads at the end of last year. I'm really enjoying using them so was wanting to share some of the benefits with you.

I purchased mine off an etsy store however if you had spare material indoors they would be fairly easy to make. These have cotton on the front and flannel on the back. I tend to use the cotton side for touching up make up as it's softer and the flannel side for washing my face with. These can replace flannels and bath sponges.

As these are reusable it makes them Eco friendly as well as budget friendly. Using these will minimise your household waste. I know myself I tend to use two or three of these a day. You will also never run out. If like me you always forget to buy cotton wool then these would be great for you.

Once I've used one I just throw it into my washing tub and wash with my regular clothes and towels. It would be beneficial to buy/make enough to last at least a couple of days so that you don't run out.

Personally I love using mine and would recommend everybody using them.

Week two - Why you should be drinking more water

Week two of the Mini pledges concentrates on drinks. The challenge this week is to only drink water, tea and coffee. One glass of fruit juice is allowed a week as is the occasional glass of wine. We generally do pretty well with this as we drink slot of water and avoid fizzy drinks. We do however like the occasional glass of squash which we have used up and not purchased. I personally don't drink alcohol but my husband tends to only drink alcohol on special occasions. With tea and coffee this week it can only be sweetened with maple syrup or honey. I've tried honey in my peppermint tea which was nice but my husband has yet to try these replacements in his coffee.

I know that drinking water can be challenging for many people which is why I want to give a few tips on how you can drink more.

 There are many reasons you should be drinking more water and in the post I will be covering some of them. The body is made up of about 60% water so it is important for a healthy body to make sure that you are drinking enough.

 Benefits of drinking more water include:

• Less headaches and higher concentration levels
• Clearer skin and eyes
• Could help you lose weight - water has 0 calories and thirst can often be confused with hunger
•  Flush out waste easier 
• Helps you avoid sugar and chemicals found in other drinks.

Ways to help you drink more water include carrying a reusable water bottle around with you. You could also purchase a drinks dispenser. We got one that looks like this for christmas.

We put fruits in such as lemons and limes which help make the water more appealing. Or 100% not from concentrate juice which we dilute down.

Some people I know use an app to track how much water they are consuming or set reminders on their phones. Do you drink enough water?