Meal Plan 24/03/13 - 29/03/13

This week we have five meals planned, I've decided to put down what we're having today as well in this menu as for us this came into the same budget. On one of the days, we will be having leftovers from one of the meals (there are only 2 of us, so we tend to have quite a few leftovers!). We normally leave 1 or 2 days without planned meals, as this helps us use up all of the leftovers in fridge / freezer.

All of the meals will be gluten free and we've made an effort to incorporate more vegetables into our diet. I do admit that the toad in the hole is a bit of a treat, but it's something that I've not had since going gluten free so I'm really looking forward to it.

I have some bananas that need using up and I have leftover nutella, so I think we'll have some of this as a light after dinner treat on sunday after our roast chicken dinner.

Meal Plan for 24/03/13 - 29/03/13

Roast chicken dinner with vegetables (runner beans, carrots, broccoli and roast potatoes)

Baked potatoes with tuna, sweetcorn and cottage cheese (I prefer cottage cheese with chives, but the boyfriend likes it with pineapple)

Gluten free Toad in the hole

Home made gnocchi with tenderstem broccoli in a creamy parmesan sauce

Vegetarian cottage pie with chestnuts and mushrooms

Leftovers (Cottage pie, Toad in the hole or Gnocchi)

The shopping list for this, verified on asda.com on 24/03/13 is as follows:

4 x Princes Tuna Chunks - £3.00

Cottage Cheese with chives £1.00

Cottage cheese with pineapple - £1.00

2 x 350 g mature lake district cheese - £4.00 (these are on offer)*

Butchers Selection Gluten Free sausages (8) £3.50 (or £1.80 per pack)**

Maris Piper Potatoes (2.5 kg) - £2.40

Parsnips (loose - 275 g) - £0.41

Asda jumbo baking potatoes - £1.50

Butchers Selection Whole Chicken Extra Tasty - £4.51

Onions (3 or 4 per pack) - £0.85

Swede - £0.68 (I think this was based on £1.00 per kg, this was pre packaged)

Runner Beans (160 g) - £1.00

Extra special tenderstem broccoli - £2.00

Creme Fraiche (300 ml) - £1.10

Shallots (450 g) - £1.00

Carrots 500 g - £0.50 (or you can get loose carrots)

Asda Jumbo Mushrooms (250 g ) - £1.15

Chestnut Mushrooms (250 g) - £1.00

Chestnuts (200 g) - £1.47

Marmite (125 g ) - £1.43

Clover (500 g) - £2.00
|Creative Cooks Mixed Mushrooms (Dried Oyster, Shitake and Porcini Mushrooms) - £1.98 ***

Total Price - £37.28 (Updated price as of 26/03/13)

* We will not use both of these, but as it will keep we will save this for next week. You can also freeze cheese.

** We will be freezing one of the packs of sausages, for use at a later date

*** Updated on 26/03/13 as we realised that we had forgotten these

We do already have some items in our cupboard such as flour, sweetcorn and parmesan.

Meal Plan 18/03 - 22/03

In our household my boyfriend and I both love food and enjoy cooking, but due to ever rising costs we do have to keep a budget. I'm also trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet, so this week I've tried to plan our meals based on this.

I thought I'd share my meal plans with you and the shopping lists for these. I'll be sharing the recipes for these    throughout the week.

Monday

Lamb leg steaks with vegetables (we had tender stem broccoli, extra fine beans, baby corn and sugar snap peas)

Tuesday

South Western Quinoa Vegetable Casserole

Wednesday

Asparagus, Peas and Bacon Risotto

Thursday

I've not included my meal for this day, as we have made plans to go out for dinner.

Friday

Baked potatoes with tuna and cottage cheese with onion and chives

The full shopping list for this is as follows (I've used asda.com to verify the following prices on 17/03/13):

Item	Cost
Quinoa  - 300 g  (This price is not verified as it isn't available online )	£2.18
Frozen Sweetcorn - 1kg	£1.40
Mixed Chillis	£0.50
Knorr Stock Cubes - 8 pack	£1.67
Mixed Beans in tomato sauce - 405 g tin	£0.79
Garlic Powder - 100 g	£0.69
Ground Cumin	£0.57
Asda Mature Cheese - 200 g	£1.27
390 g chopped tomatoes with herbs	£0.50
Ground Coriander	£0.71
Arborio Rice - 500 g	£0.98
Parmesan  - 150 g Asda Parmesan	£2.50
Asparagus - 150 g	£1.50
Frozen Peas - 1 kg	£1.60
Onion -  3 Pack	£0.85
Baking Potatoes  - 4 Pack	£1.00
Salad Crisp Sweetcorn	£0.57
Cottage Cheese with onion and Chives	£1.00
Princes Tuna Chunks in Brine	£3.00
Lamb Leg Steaks (This is just an example, as we actually bought these from our local butcher at the market)	£5.00
Baby corn & sugar snap peas	£1.50
Tenderstem Broccoli, extra fine beans	£1.20
Total	£30.98

There will be some leftovers, which I will incorporate into my meals in the following weeks.  Also we may interchange the meals that we have on certain days, just so that we can get a little choice in what we would like to eat. 

Also some meals will provide leftovers which you can either freeze or use for lunches the following day.