The menu plan for 24 - 30 May 2011

Coming along! Our Gooseberry bush.

It suddenly occurred to me to include the date in the title to these menu plan posts.  At least, that way, if I ever want to analyse how I'm doing on the "cooking seasonally" front then I've got half of the information!

I'd been looking at recipes in the low fat and "healthy" range, but it occurred to me that "low GI" is another category of healthy meal that it would be worth investigating.  Not least because of hubby's mild diabetes.  If we can keep it at the "mild" stage, then that'd be fantastic.

The weather doesn't seem to be able to make up it's mind whether we're in summer or still in spring, at the moment.  However, with summer in its infancy, it's a foregone conclusion that we're heading into a time of salads and a lighter style of eating.  Personally, I'd love to eat the Mediterranean way - lots of fish, lamb, lovely vegetables and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Gorgeous!  However, it's not that easy to do when you're having to balance your meals around everyone's likes and dislikes.

Jonty sunbathing on a warm day

Still, I figure that if I try everything in lots of different orders, eventually I'll hit on a repertoire of styles that suit everyone!

So, this week's menu looks like :

Tuesday : Pasta with Bacon, Goat's Cheese & Savoy Cabbage

Wednesday : Paprika chicken with Jacket Potatoes

Thursday : Indonesian fried rice with smoked Mackerel

Friday : Chicken Jalfrezi with rice

Saturday : Health in a Bowl with Ciabatta

Sunday : Dinner with my parents

Monday : Pie, new potatoes and vegetables.

Beginning with Tuesday, this Pasta dish really is the epitome of simple.  Just fry off the bacon, drain all but a teaspoon of the bacon fat (into the fat cup again) and cook the red onion.  Meanwhile, cook the pasta to which you add shredded cabbage in the last couple of minutes.  Melt a creamy goat's cheese in with the bacon & onions, let it down with a little of the pasta water and combine.  Add loads of parmesan to the plate and tuck in.  Does it get any more simple than that?  I don't think so!

Wednesday was originally meant to be the Paprika Chicken, however as I write this it is Wednesday evening and the chicken dish got bumped owing to the fact that I was needed to drive into town and collect hubby and his new stereo (brilliant bargain!) at exactly the time I would normally have been cooking.  ~gallic shrug~  What can you do, eh?  Couldn't leave the poor chap to juggle it all the way home on the bus!

In the end, we had a sort of mini high tea.  Ham sandwiches and a swiftly purchased box of cakes.  Son & heir definitely approved - that's his sort of dinner!

So tomorrow, Thursday, is the Indonesian fried rice with smoked mackerel.  It is another really simple dish to prepare - I'm pretty sure that the longest thing involved in it is picking the bones out of the middle of the mackerel!  This is one of the low GI meals, so it will be interesting to see how well received it is and whether it manages to keep us full for long.

Friday was to have been another low GI dish - Chicken Jalfrezi.  However, as Asda forgot to send me all the ingredients for it, I'm tempted to make this one into the bumped Paprika chicken - as I've got all the ingredients just waiting to go for that!  It'd save us having to shop for the Jalfrezi until next week, anyway.

Saturday brings about the return of Health in a Bowl.  Unfortunately it got bumped from last week for a very similar reason to the Paprika chicken.  I was supposed to be driving to collect a telescope for Son & heir's use, but unfortunately the chap decided not to sell in the end and we didn't go.  Shame really, because I had intentions of taking a quick spin around the New Forest to see some foals, plus Son & heir would have had fun looking at the stars - and I'd have been able to make the Health in a Bowl.  Hubby thinks I'm stark raving mad to even consider this dish, as he reckons it will contain everything that Son & heir dislikes in a meal.  For me, I reckon that if you combine ingredients in the right way, then you've every chance of a recipe turning out to be delicious.

Now I've seen Anthony Worrall-Thompson making his Health in a Bowl on t.v. and it intrigued me then.  It looked absolutely bursting with flavour and so very good for you, that as a Mum trying to feed her brood (and "brood" includes hubby) healthily, it is just too much of a temptation.  Of course, there's every possibility that the way in which the ingredients are combined for this dish, isn't the way that either hubby or son & heir enjoy having said ingredients presented - but as I said at the beginning, I'll try anything once!

Sunday is easy for me, as we've been invited over to my parents' for the day.  Hey, as they live in the New Forest, I might get that spin around, looking for foals after all!  I'll just lay in some nice sandwich fillings for when we come home.

Monday, even though it is a Bank Holiday, is a work day for me but hubby will be at home for Son & heir, who is on holiday that week.  Hence a nice easy pie with vegetables (as yet undecided) and new potatoes.  Fingers crossed we can get hold of some Jersey Royals still with their dirt on - as they seem to be the ones with the best flavour!  I know the season for Jerseys is almost over, but knowing how the supermarkets delay seasons, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So there you have it.  Even before I've managed to blog the week's meal plan, it's gone awry - but I'll keep on trying to make the best of what I've got before me!