This week, I shall mostly be .... roasting!

Which would be okay, if I were talking about the weather.  Unfortunately, as we are now deep into late autumn/early winter, I can't see we'll be roasting under the sun any time soon.

No, this week's menu plan seems to have brought with it at least three instalments of roasting - vegetables, goat and chicken - but not all at the same time.

Now, before we get into all that, let's have a little look back at last week.  We actually made 90% of the dinners I'd planned - only opting out on Sunday's Osso Bucco, which got moved on to Monday.  The planned crunchy fish & slavering mice (*giggle*), have been moved on to this coming Monday.  So, nothing goes to waste.

Osso Bucco & Risotto Milanese - will be blogged very soon!

We had a sudden attack of the "right, I'm fed up with this bedroom being such a dump!" and had a serious re-shuffle (well, hubby did all the shuffling and re-shuffling, I just observed and offered my opinion when it was required) on Sunday, which meant that I just didn't have time to put the Osso Bucco together.  So we had a kebab instead - which, as it turns out, is a whole lot healthier than Osso Bucco!  After all, with a Shish Kebab, the lamb is cooked over the fire on skewers and is as lean as can be - then placed into a pitta bread and accompanied by salad.  I reckon that's got to be the healthiest takeaway meal you can get!

So what's for dinner this week?  Well, I have a couple of blog-worthy meals - but I am trying not to make any more that will require blogging for the next week or so.  I have such a backlog of bloggable meals already photographed, that I think I need to work my way through some of those before I forget what they are!  Here's what's on the menu :

Tues : Scampi, salad, potato salad & coleslaw with garlic bread

Weds : Sausage casserole & rice

Thurs : Turkey Pithivier, roast potatoes & parsnips, brussels sprouts, peas & pigs in blankets

Fri: Nasi Goreng

Sat : Roast leg of goat, sweet potato jackets, mushroom & courgette cream and broccoli

Sun : Roast chicken, roast potatoes & parsnips, brussels sprouts, carrots, stuffing & Yorkshire puddings

Mon : Crunchy fish & slavering mice.

You see what I mean about the prevalence of roasting going on this week?

I like to think of Tuesday's meal as being something of a punctuation point for the week.  It's when we do the shopping, so fresh food like salad is perfect for Tuesday.  However, we're generally pretty bushed on the day we go shopping - and making a big production dinner (even if it's a salad!) isn't my preference.

So I think that Scampi fits very nicely into that "something different - but not tricky to make" bracket.  Yes, it is pre-breadcrumbed and no, I'm not preparing them from scratch, for that very reason.  The potato salad and coleslaw are shop bought too.  I'm having a day off, okay?

We're off to the Dorset Smokery again on Wednesday, to find some lovely bangers to have in our Sausage Casserole that night - hubby's in charge of that one - and also to find some special sausages to use in the Turkey Pithivier the following day.

The Turkey Pithivier idea is part of the "Lean on Turkey" campaign, with Christmas in mind of course!  This year, the challenge is to find something interesting to use your turkey dinner leftovers for - and our idea is to make a lovely Pithivier, with a view to using it on New Year's Day.

Currently, the Pithivier will be full of turkey meat, chestnuts, cranberries, stuffing and sausage meat.  I can imagine what I'm after making, but whether or not it appears how I imagined it, remains to be seen.  Either way, it can't be bad - not with those ingredients!

Friday's Nasi Goreng has finally found a place, having been moved on from last week!  All the ingredients are in the house, so it should be a relatively simple matter to put it all together.  I just need to remember to pre-cook some rice during the day!  I'm looking forward to this one, as I've been yearning for it ever since I saw a photograph of someone's pilau rice they made for their dinner!  See - told you I was susceptible to suggestion!

Who put this picture here?  Nooo, don't let them look!

Saturday's roast leg of Goat relies on a delivery from Farmers Choice Free Range Ltd on Thursday.  They've always been as good as their word, so I see no reason to worry on this instance.  The lovely Jason has offered to send me a leg of Goat to roast, as we had so much trouble with the fat involved in the stew pack.  I'm really looking forward to this, as I've got an inkling that it is going to be luscious.  I intend to roast it hard and fast, in a hot oven, much in the same way as you would spring lamb and try to keep it a little pink in the middle.

I didn't want to make the traditional roast dinner accompaniments, as we're having roast chicken the following day (yes, I could have moved it - but there's a reason why we're eating it then!), so pondered on what would be tasty, yet not such a big flavour that it might swamp the delicate goat meat.  Also, bearing in mind the oven is already on for the goat, it made sense to use that.  Hence, sweet potatoes in their jackets.  I'll probably dream up some kind of topping for the sweet potatoes by the time we get there, but at the moment I'm not doing so well for ideas!  So, we'll have the sweet goat meat, sweet potatoes (with hopefully some kind of savoury topping), the very savoury mushroom/courgette cream and broccoli to mop it all up with.  Sounds very acceptable, to me!

Now the reason why we're eating the roast chicken on Sunday, is entirely down to our local butcher having a remarkable special offer on legs of lamb.  We are intent on getting one for our Christmas dinner - but need the space in the freezer to keep it.  Hence, the chicken has to go!

No - not THAT kind of mice ..

Monday's dinner will also make a bit of room in the freezer, as we'll be able to get rid of the big box of crunchy (breadcrumbed) fish!  The slavering mice have been slavering away in the larder in their little packets and could easily continue to do so for quite some time - but savoury rice goes so well with crunchy fish (especially when you're trying to avoid the high fat chips!).

..... this kind of rice!

So there you have it - this week is a bit of a chess game, all designed to create room in the freezer for Christmas.  No, don't tell me now many weeks away it is - I've got to make the Christmas Puddings yet and I don't want to get all panicky!

One last word - congratulations to Caroline from All That I'm Eating, who won the Boeuf Bourguignon box - and commiserations to all who missed out.  Son & heir picked the winning number - although he had no idea why he was choosing a number between 1 and 20.  He dryly commented afterwards "oh, I feel so .. involved".  LOL  Thank you all for trying - and here's wishing you all better luck next time!