Tuesday, March 21, 2023

March Meal Plans: Week 3 Review and Week 4 Plan

This was the plan for Week 3, which I started with a lot of leftovers and some chicken that needed to be cooked and frozen:

Breakfasts/Brunches: Scrambled egg and toast or fried potatoes; ham & split pea soup with biscuits(on a day when I want more of a lunch than a breakfast)✔, yogurt with cereal and fruit preserves (eaten mostly as dessert instead of brunches)✔ 

Dinners: Ham & split pea soup (on a day when I don't have it for brunch)✔, patties with ground beef filling and salad✔, smoked sausage sauteed chicken stir-fry with vegetables and rice✔, leftovers✔.  Or...I might have something quite different!  It'll depend on how much I feel like cooking, or not!  

And this is how it worked out:

Monday:
Brunch: Drop biscuits with cream cheese
Dinner: Rice, sauteed chicken, carrots & broccoli stirfry
Dessert: Yogurt with strawberry jam and cereal

Tuesday:
Brunch: Ham and split pea soup, drop biscuits with butter and golden syrup (the last of the drop biscuits)
Dinner: Patties, salad
Dessert: Yogurt with strawberry jam and cereal

Wednesday:
Brunch: Patties
Dinner: Soup & cheese crackers
Dessert: Yogurt with palm treacle

Thursday:
Brunch: Soup
Dinner: Rice, chicken, stir fried vegetables (broccoli, carrots, snow pea pods)
Dessert: Yoghurt with apple-cranberry jam and cereal

Friday:
Brunch:  Spam sandwich (yes, the canned luncheon meat! Not as good as canned corned beef, in my opinion, but half the price.)
Dinner:  Soup and salad (the last of the ham & split pea soup; shared it with M)
Dessert: Yoghurt with apple-cranberry jam and cereal

Saturday:
Brunch: Spam sandwich
Dinner: Spam fried rice (leftover rice, cubed Spam, an egg, frozen green peas)
Dessert: Chocolate wafers

Sunday:
Brunch: French toast
Dinner: Sauteed chicken, boiled new potatoes, steamed pea pods 
Dessert: Chocolate wafers, ice cream!

Snacks included grapes, homemade cheese crackers, and chocolate wafers
Beverages included homemade passionfruit lemonade and apple juice from the store

Well, that turned out quite well, I think.  I finished all the leftovers I needed to finish and nothing went to waste.  

On to Week 4!  I have some of the Spam leftover and just a little bit of the yogurt I made (which I am keeping as the starter for the next batch).  

Brunches: Frozen burrito (Monday), salads, fried rice, sauteed garbanzo beans, egg salad sandwiches, toast with cheese

Dinners:
- Breakfast for dinner (Monday; scrambled egg, fried Spam, toast)
- Smoked sausage/vegetables stir fry with rice
- Baked frozen fish fillets with rice and pea pods
- Chicken curry and rice? 
- Leftovers

That is the tentative plan for now.  I might change things as I go!  

Did you make a meal plan, last week?  Did you keep to it?  Will you be making a meal plan for this week?   

12 comments:

  1. You did well with your meal plan. I haven't had Spam in years and just looked online and we can still buy it although I'm not sure if I'd order it or not.

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    1. Thank you, Eileen. Spam is something I keep, along with other canned meat, in my emergency supplies (should there be a major earthquake, for example, I keep shelf stable food on hand to last me for at least 2 weeks, always assuming that the house stands and I will not be buried under all the rubble!). I try to go through the emergency supplies every so often to keep them up to date and that's what I am doing, right now.

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  2. Good week! Tasty food and no leftovers. Per usual, we have no specific plan this week except to make soup with the cabbage we got when it was on sale for St. Patrick's Day.

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    1. Thank you, June. Yes, it was a good week. Sounds like you have the beginnings of a plan with the cabbage soup! :)

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  3. You did well with your meals in week 3 and didn't seem to deviate from your list too much. Week 4 meals sound good, but I'll pass on the spam. We used to have it occasionally as children but I never really like it that much. I do like your chicken curry though, and am sure the smoked sausage stir fry will be good.

    I'm in the middle of sorting out a meal plan, maybe for next week, to introduce the new breakfasts but this will impact on all the other meals as well so am trying to second guess what I think I'll need. I'll have to have plenty of options for the other meals to make it work ... just as well I like cooking! xx

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    1. Thank you, Eileen. Yes, I just substituted a piece of the sauteed chicken I had already cooked instead of the smoked sausage - I moved that meal to this week.
      As for the Spam, it's not something I eat on a regular basis, but, I do keep a can or two in the pantry, along with other canned meats, as part of my emergency supplies (I'm thinking more in terms of earthquakes, but, it could be floods, too, if this rain continues! LOL.) Then, every so often, I go through the supplies and try to eat the stuff before it goes too out of date. I prefer canned corned beef to Spam, but, Spam is less expensive. :)
      Good luck with your meal planning! Give yourself a week or two to experiment and see how things work out. A more substantial breakfast followed by a lighter lunch and a bigger dinner? Or, a more substantial breakfast, a good lunch, and a lighter dinner?

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  4. I see you mention golden syrup. I was raised on this delight but we don't find it in our supermarkets. It is available in stores that sell imported treats from the UK. I think I have a bit of an ongoing meal plan as I usually cook salmon on a Wednesday and fish and chips (air fryer) on a Friday. However, we had salmon yesterday because I was too lazy to decide what to do with a large leftover pork chop. I do have a recipe with rice that looks suitable to use with cooked meat, so that will be for today. Wednesday will have to change this week!

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    1. I buy the golden syrup from the Sri Lankan store, Bushlady. They have some items imported from the UK. A slice of bread with butter and golden syrup used to be a treat when I was a small child, at least until the government stopped most, if not all, imported items. Much later, one of the local companies produced their own version of golden syrup.
      Yes, it does sound like you have a bit of an ongoing meal plan! But, flexibility is the key! Maybe you can cut up the cooked pork chop, add a can of cream of something soup to it and have it with the rice or with egg noodles? Or, cook the rice with the soup and the cut up pork added to it as a casserole? I'm sure whatever you make will be delicious. :) Actually, I have some cooked turkey bits in the freezer and cans of cream of something in the cupboard...a rice casserole might be a nice warming meal instead of the chicken curry and rice I have listed with a question mark on the meal plan! Thank you for the idea! :D

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  5. You had some good meals. I do like golden syrup, haven't had it in years. I've seen it available online, someday I might order it. BTW, anonymous post yesterday about trying to grow potatoes was me. (I have to clear the cache on my cellphone every so often , and if I forget to log in to google I'm anonymous! It took me awhile to figure this out!)

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    1. Hi, Celie. Thank you; the meals worked out well. I certainly didn't go hungry! I have to limit the amount of golden syrup I eat because I have to be careful of my sugar intake, but, it is a favorite thing to have on a slice of bread (or a drop biscuit!).
      Good to know it was you with the comment about wanting to grow potatoes. I wondered who it could be. :) I hope all is well with you.

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  6. You had some nice meals this past week.
    I have never had Spam. I've heard the Spam is good fried - not sure why I've never tried it.
    The palm treacle - is that the golden syrup mentioned in the comments?

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    1. Thank you, Debra. :)
      I think Spam is OK. I prefer canned corned beef to Spam, but, Spam is less expensive and the can with its pull tab top is much easier to open than corned beef with its key and strip of metal to be pulled off, which rarely works well for me.
      Palm treacle is a Sri Lankan product/sweetener made from the sap of the kithul palm (Caryota urens); it is a dark brown syrup. A type of palm sugar called jaggery is also made from the sap of the kithul palm. Technically, both treacle and jaggery can be made from the sap of the coconut palm, too, but, the kithul palm versions are considered to be superior in taste and quality. :) I buy them from the Sri Lankan store.
      Golden syrup is made from sugar - traditionally from cane sugar. The sugar cane juice is mixed with a type of acid and allowed to cook until it is caramelized. It has a golden color similar to honey and is a thick syrup. :)

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