Meal planning around many different requirements!

Empty plate - that's what we're after!

Sometimes, I wonder about the monster I've created here with this blog.  Particularly when we find ourselves on a Monday morning trying to juggle all the menu plan's different requirements.

For instance, I agreed to join in with the Lean on Turkey campaign (remember the Petuba Canneloni?) and challenge no. 2 has just been announced.  I needed to come up with a low fat/healthy meal for 4, for £10.

Then there is the Mic's Chilli products that I agreed to review, and the Spice'n'Sizzle curry kits that I promised to review.

Of course, along with all that is son & heir's commitments with band and choir practice, necessitating a late pick-up from school on two days in the week.

Considering how difficult it used to be to just think of nice dinners to have for a week, I think I must be a sucker for punishment.

Not that I'm complaining!  (Well, alright, it might SOUND as though I'm complaining).  All this does wonders for keeping me off the streets.  After all, I might be out there in my slippers shouting at the neighbourhood kids, or running my stick down the railings or worse.  Okay, it's not likely, but it might happen!  Instead, I'm here in my cave exercising the grey matter, in between stumbling about the kitchen, muttering and stirring, chopping and tasting.

So what sort of plan did we come up with, that took into account all the above elements?  I think we did quite well - but if you could hear hubby swearing about those fish cakes right now, you'd wonder.  *chuckle*

Tues : Turkey & Asparagus Impossible Quiche, buttered Jersey Royals and salad

Wed : Smoked Haddock Fishcakes & salad

Thur : Beef Massaman Curry & rice

Fri : Pasties, chips and baked beans

Sat : Barbecue Burritos with chopped salad

Sun : Roast Beef, roast potatoes & parsnips, carrots, savoy cabbage, Yorkshire puddings & horseradish sauce

Mon : Tuna Pasta Bake with garlic bread.

You'll notice I planned in a couple of "days off" for us there!

Well, last night's Lean on Turkey meal went off without a hitch.  Considering it was one of the late school pickup nights, it fitted into the time available very well.  I was very pleased with how the Impossible Quiche came out, as I'd never made one that wasn't bacon & cheese before.  I'll be blogging it next, so won't say more than that just at the moment.


Tonight's Fishcakes are hubby facing his nemesis.  He loves fish, but really dislikes potatoes.  You would think, therefore, that he'd be keen to make the Thai fishcakes - but no, he's gone for making ye olde English style fishcake.


He's out in the kitchen right now, making the mashed potato and cooking the fish in advance of the egg & breadcrumb maelstrom that he's determined to put himself through in order to create HIS kind of fishcake, as opposed to MY kind of fishcake.  *chuckle*  My kind of fishcake is fish & mashed potato (with seasoning & herbs), fried.  Apparently, that's not a "real" fishcake - not without being pannéd anyway.


Rod for his own back?  As they say on LOLCats, aithinkso.  *smile*  Still, I'm sure the fishcakes will be gorgeous - after all, smoked fish and mashed potato?  What could go wrong?

Thursday's Beef Massaman Curry is another matter entirely.  We'll be taking advantage of the local butcher's special offer on silverside for this curry - and also trying out the Massaman Curry Spice'n'Sizzle kit.  I have already tried the Korma curry kit - which I made according to their instructions.  This time, I'm using the spices included in the kit but adding my own ingredients to the mix - so we'll see how we get on this time!

It's another late school pickup night on Thursday, so I've planned - being beef - to use the slow cooker for the early cooking and transfer to the cooker top once we're back home (if necessary).  I'm hoping it will be a good flavoursome curry - as slow cooking the beef will ensure it is tender.


I'll blog the results once we're done and it will be interesting to see what we think about the two methods and how they worked.


Friday is very definitely a day off.  Chuck some shop-bought Cornish Pasties in the oven along with some oven chips and heat up some baked beans.  Slumming it in a big way - but who cares, it'll taste great and we don't have to spend an hour creating it!

Saturday's Barbecue Burrito's will give me a chance to use the Mic's Chilli Barbecue Sauce, which looks yummy in the jar and will hopefully be as yummy on the plate!  We've also got four (yes, four!) chilli sauces to try - and a sweet chilli sauce, too.  I thought it would be interesting to use pork mince instead of the obvious beef - and I'm quite looking forward to this one.


Sunday finds hubby back in the kitchen roasting a lovely piece of Beef Silverside.  We're staying traditional with this one and are looking forward to a good old style roast dinner.


Monday's Tuna Pasta Bake will come as welcome relief at the end of a busy week.  As I've said before, we all love the Homepride Tuna Pasta Bake mix - and with hubby's delicious home made garlic bread, it's just perfect.


I don't (currently) have any plans for any additional bakes or makes, but who knows what will occur to me in the meantime!  After all, I've two enormous rhubarb plants out in the garden glowering at me and challenging me to create something luscious for dessert on Sunday - and the Gooseberry bush is coming along nicely, too.


Hmmn - it'd be interesting to make a sort of rhubarb fool that's a lot healthier than the regular (gorgeous) rhubarb fools ... I'll have to give that one a ponder.


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The latest menu plan & a fit of pique

First of all, I shall admit something that probably nobody noticed - but I feel I should tell you anyway.  Which is that I deleted the blog on Sunday evening, in a fit of frustration and bad temper.  I had been trying, all flipping day, to post the Pork & Rhubarb recipe but with little success.  When, finally, I got everything together in the right place and had it written, photograph installed and ready to post - the computer threw a wobbly and wouldn't post it (or so it seemed - unknown to me, it had posted anyway).  It seemed as though I had spent the last two days trying to a) be a mum, b) be a wife (albeit not a great one, as poor hubby has to do almost everything thanks to my disability), c) write the damned post and d) time was running out, as I should (by then) have been in the kitchen making steak & kidney pie.

So, after a lot of shouty noises, swearing and general stomping about, I decided that the best thing was to delete the flipping blog and get that source of frustration out of my life.

Kerpow!  With one fell click of a switch, there it was gone.  Strangely, I didn't feel any lighter.

I missed not being able to go into Google Analytics to see who'd been by, what they'd been looking at, whether the results were up in comparison, or down.  I missed having the hope that someone would have commented (which is by far the best part of the whole blogging experience, and I wish more of you would!).  I missed the mad scramble for the camera as dinner is served.

Although, I did enjoy the freedom that not having the blog gave me.  Not having to remember to take a photograph of each meal.  Not having the next blog post forming itself at the back of my head.  Not feeling pressured to think of or find some interesting recipes that would blog well.  I actually managed to spend some time reading my book (and very good it was too - "Wolf of the Plains", by Conn Iggulden.  All about the early days of Genghis Khan).

It was in this period of time that I had to put together the week's menu plan and convert it to a shopping list.  I didn't spend any time scouring the internet for inspiration, nor did I waste much time looking through my lever arch folders full of categorised recipes (yes, I'm THAT anal - I have one folder for "tried & tested" and one folder for "untried & ideas").  I just got on and wrote down things that sounded nice, fitted with what we had already or were things that we'd liked in the past and were worth doing again, interspersed with old favourites.

So you won't find any curried lark's tongue, or fricassee of lamb niblets going on this week.  I think this is a good thing, as I suspect I had been being driven by the blog rather too much - and instead, I needed to get back to the driving seat and take a firmer control.

Obviously, I re-instated the blog the following day, having calmed down and talked it over with hubby.  Thank goodness for Blogger's "cooling down period" approach to blog deletion, eh?

So here I am again, suitably contrite (although as I say, I doubt any of you noticed it was gone!) with a new and improved approach to finding time to write the blog and every intention of never deleting it again.  Honest.

Now then, let's have a look at what I decided to cook for dinners this week.

Unfortunately, we missed the steak & kidney pie - but I write briefly about it in my latest blog post for the Bournemouth Echo - which should follow this blog, so look out for it if you're interested.

Tuesday brought a return visit from an old friend from last summer.  Spicy chicken with mango salad & naan bread was what it should have been, however having received a brick-hard mango with the shopping delivery on Tuesday, it rapidly became just spicy chicken with plain old salad instead.

We've acquired a nice non-stick frying pan since last summer, so I decided against cooking the chicken in the oven (as I'd done before) and opted for the pan frying version.  That way created a gorgeous crunchy spicy crust on the chicken which was really satisfying to eat.  The chicken is a lot more controllable where cooking time is concerned when you're breathing down upon it, watching its every move, too.

I'm really not sure what the naan bread is supposed to bring to the dish, other than a fabulous accompaniment to the sour cream & lime mixture that goes so well with the chicken and salad.  It was a bit out there on its own, without any friends other than the sour cream & lime and seemed a bit surplus to requirements.  I think I'd have far rather had some sweet potato wedges or some such.  Much more appropriate.  So, that's my recommendation, which I've included in the recipe - which I'll blog next time.

Wednesday (tonight, as I write this) we've got good old Impossible Quiche.  Except, with this one, it'll be made with some of the leftovers from last night's salad, such as red onion and red pepper.  With lovely back bacon, how could it go wrong?  I'll definitely be doing some potato wedges to accompany it - probably with a sprinkling of Cajun spice or maybe even ras-el-hanout.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday is one to look forward to.  Thyme & mustard gammon with mashed potato, peas and carrots is a not only delicious but easy to make, too.  Can't argue with that!

As for Friday's dinner, well, here follows a bit of child psychology.  You see, son & heir hates stir-fries, for the simple reason that the dreaded vegetables are mixed in with the lovely meat to the extent that if he attempts to pick one from the other, he gets told off.  So, as and when he asks, it's a Pork with red peppers dish and not a Pork & Peppers stir fry.  I just know he's going to really like this meal, as the vegetables are represented by both red and yellow peppers and the pork will be the steaks from our local butcher, which he really likes.  So, it's best not to colour his opinion early on, by calling it a stir-fry.  Better to let him find out it was stir fried, on the day.  *wink*

As hubby is now working, Saturday has become our "top up shop" day.  So because I will only cook fish that is as fresh as I can get it, fish is only available on a Tuesday or a Saturday for us.  As a consequence, Saturday shall be Kedgeree day.  Is there much nicer than a lovely little mountain of smoked fish, curry spices and rice, all held together with lovely butter and topped off with crumbled egg yolk?  Naughty, but oh, so nice!

Sunday sees the return of an old friend, in that I thought I'd have a second go at the Lamb & Orzo bake.  This surprised me, last time, as to its depth of flavour and general niceness and seemed perfect for a "getting away from a roast" Sunday.

Which leaves the poor old packet of prawns that I'd bought for the prawn curry that we should have had on Monday (see Bournemouth Echo post as to why we didn't).  I'd bought everything required for a prawn curry - so, prawn curry it is!  Just a week late!

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Impossible Quiche - made possible!

I well remember first hearing of the famed "Impossible Quiche" and thinking that it couldn't be possible.  Which is, I suppose, what you're meant to think when faced with just the name and the idea.  The dish is apparently and somewhat incorrectly, attributed with being able to "make its own pastry", which is of course a misnomer.  It does indeed form a crust - but it is simply nothing like pastry.  It is more a cross between a frittata and a pastryless quiche.

Delicious any way you want to serve it, but particularly with a mixed salad and a few fries, it makes a perfect meal for those lovers of the bacon/cheese/egg trinity.  One added - and fairly important - benefit, is that it registers right up there on the Yummy List for children!  A recipe that can do that - and regularly - is worth its weight in gold. :)

Regarding the quantities, do check that they will fit into the container you're intending on baking them in and as regards the vegetable component - anything goes.  Don't feel you have to stay with sweetcorn and spring onion as courgette, tomato, mushroom - whatever your family likes best, will do fine.  So long as the item will cook in the allotted time, it's a goer.

IMPOSSIBLE QUICHE  (Serves 5-6)

Ingredients:

1.25 cups milk

0.5 cups self raising flour

3 small eggs or 2 medium or large eggs

1 cup grated strong cheddar cheese

chopped pre-cooked bacon (I also use smoked turkey rashers)

3-4 spring onions, chopped
half a tsp of dried parsley

a handful of sweetcorn kernels (optional)

salt & pepper.

Method :

Put the flour, parsley, salt & pepper into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs.

Pour the liquids into the flour and whisk steadily, pulling the flour down from the sides of the bowl into the mixture.

Add the remaining ingredients (and no, there is no need to pre-cook the onion) and stir to combine.  Save a little of the cheese (or grate a bit more!) to sprinkle over the top.

Decant into a greased baking dish and bake in a moderate oven (I use 180deg) for around 25-35 mins or until golden on top. Pierce the centre with a skewer or knife to test. If the egg mix is still soft, put it back in for another 5 minutes or so.

When done, remove from the oven and leave for 5-10 minutes to settle.  Then run a knife around the edge, after which it should be relatively easy to cut portions and remove.

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