Meal planning ahoy!

After a cunningly placed two days without a recipe worth blogging (in the hope that I'd catch up a little bit! Still got a book review to do though), here I am on Wednesday all ready to talk about this coming week's menu list.

Which is a bit better than last week, when it was very nearly all over by the time I got to it!

Here's what we're having :

Pizza and doughballs

Spicy lamb mince and Kosheri

Spring time prawn pasta

Parmesan chicken with Polenta and peas

Tuna & Asparagus salad with Ciabatta

Chicken a la Son & Heir with Jersey Royals, carrots & tenderstem broccoli

Sausages, cheesy champ mash & peas (or baked beans).

Tuesday starts the week with a special request from hubby for Pizza and doughballs.  Yes, I know I should have had some virtuous salad or something, but there we are.

Tonight is a lovely combination, being my recipe for Spicy Lamb Mince and Ottolenghi's recipe for Kosheri.  It's been a while since we've had Kosheri and I am remembering it as being a bit of a trek - but having read the recipe it seems easy-peasy, so either it's harder than it looks, or my memory has gone to pot - which is quite possible!

Thursday demands an easier recipe as it's a working day.  I discovered a recipe for Spicy Shrimp & Mushroom pasta, which I've used as a base and developed what I'm euphemistically calling "Spring time prawn pasta".  It's basically what it says it is - pasta with prawns, plus sugar snap peas and baby corn.  It has a cream cheese (low fat) sauce which binds it all together.  I've never done this one before but hopefully it'll be tasty.

Friday is another case of "face the scary recipe", where I'll be having a go at cooking wet polenta for the first time.  I've taken Willie's advice (and who better, considering he's been making it for years) and I'll let you know how I get on!  The chicken is a simple chicken dunked in grated parmesan recipe, so that I can give the polenta my attention!

Saturday (pray for fine weather!) will be a Tuna & Asparagus salad, with Ciabatta.  The tuna is only tinned - but then I've two tins lurking in the cupboard needing using - and hopefully I'll be able to get some Asparagus, even though we're at the end of the season now.  I have a fall-back position just in case I can't find Asparagus - which is to get some fine green beans, but Asparagus would be so much better!  The Ciabatta will be rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and cooked on our new griddle pan.  Hubby found the griddle pan in a charity shop for £1.50!  Bargain!

Now Sunday is a special day, as that's when Son & heir will be trotting out his recipe for Sunday dinner, involving a chicken breast wrapped in bacon, with Jersey Royals, carrots and tenderstem broccoli.  The last time he cooked this for us, it came out beautifully.  He's keen to do it again - and I'm certainly not going to stop him!

Which brings us back to Monday, which being a working day, demands an easy dinner.  We'll be having sausages from the butcher, with the cheesey champ mash that I saw Paul Merrett making on "Perfect" the other night - except with somewhat less butter!  The combination of raw spring onions with the melted cheese and mashed potato has been making my mouth water ever since - so it just has to be done!  I'll be having some peas with it and I expect the boys will be wanting baked beans.

So that brings us to the end of another week.  I'll have to buy just the Pizzas, prawns, chicken and sausages, as the lamb mince and tuna are in the kitchen already.  The Kosheri doesn't require shopping for, as I bought everything for it last week.  The Polenta is already here, as is the parmesan and the peas.  I did have to buy some blue cheese to use with it though, and hopefully Willie will forgive the fact that it's French blue cheese instead of Gorgonzola - as there was a difference of £1 inbetween the two!  I think it's a nice variety of styles of cooking and meat products, with plenty of opportunity to get those all important veggies into us.

Now, if only I'd remembered to get the Lamb mince out of the freezer this morning ....

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