Last month I bought a week planner blackboards and I have started making good use out of it.

This is the second week I have meal planned and it makes life a little easier and definitely means less waste! I am not regimented about it and if I feel like a change then of course I will change it but I like the structure and knowing what I’m cooking later that day.

In case you can’t read my chalk scrawl this is what this week looked like:

Sunday : Spaghetti and meatballs
Monday : Beef stew (slowcooker style)
Tuesday : Griddled spiced chicken on a bed of cabbage and mashed sweet potato/potato with a mushroom cream sauce
Wednesday: Gnocchi and meatball tomato bake
Thursday: Beef stroganoff Pheasant au vin with cabbage,peas and boiled potatoes
Friday: Sausage and Bean stew
Saturday: Thai takeaway treat 😉

As you can see this week has already had one adjustment, Andrews Dad gave us half a pheasant and well I was eager to experiment with it – I’d never tried pheasant before and it was a pleasant (see what I did there) surprise. The sauce that I made to accompany it which is loosely based on the River Cottage Cock pheasant au vin recipe was delicious and rich.

I think I’m pretty good at using up leftovers and not overspending (most of the time) but I was still finding myself wasting a lot of vegetables and on occasions meat. It makes me angry at myself so this is a new way to try to stop that.

I am also finding that now most days Izzy will eat what we eat. This makes life so much easier.
I adapted a few of our dishes to suit her, in particular the meatballs in tomato sauce which we had with gnocchi on Wednesday I instead covered with mash from Tuesday and baked for her ..wow she loved it even pointing and wanting more.

As much as I love cooking sometimes it’s nice to take a break and order in, we are lucky to have the most wonderful Thai takeaway just minutes from our house so I’m excited to eat that tomorrow. Massamam curry is a big favourite in our house.