Week 3 eating from the store cupboards: meals

I’ve kept going with the store cupboard challenge, although my spending on food shot up this week partly due to the combination of Fathers’ Day and a couple of families coming over for lunch on Day 20.

I bought food for a barbecue, which was all relegated to the freezer when the weather forecast was rubbish, and I ended up buying stuff for an entirely different meal.

Anyway here’s what we ate in the end:

DAY FIFTEEN

 Breakfast: Porridge with banana

Lunch: Sandwich thin with ham, soft cheese, cucumber and tomato

My Husband’s Packed Lunch: Ham, soft cheese,
chutney and salad sandwiches, plus leftover apple pie and toffee sauce

Dinner: Baked smoked mackerel in breadcrumbs with rice.
Served with mixed veg for the children, and black-eyed bean and sweetcorn salsa
for adults.

Lunch in a hurry, then we all ate together early evening. The children have eaten baked mackerel in the past, but today it caused more resistance.

DAY SIXTEEN

Breakfast: Porridge with raisins

Lunch: Leftovers lunch of tinned tuna, artichoke
hearts and rice salad

My Husband’s Packed Lunch: sandwich, fruit
and lemon cake.

Children’s Dinner: Pasta in tomato sauce with grana
Padano and broccoli

Dinner: Veggie meatballs in tomato sauce with wholewheat pasta and
broccoli

I finally tried some more of the Pizza Express light dressing from an Approved Food order aeons ago, and it was fine. The tomato sauce was not a great success with the children, and my husband was not a fan of the veggie meatballs made from tinned black-eyed beans and tinned sweetcorn. Suspect I didn’t fry them in hot enough oil in the first place. 

DAY SEVENTEEN

Testing out the lentil and bacon soup

 Breakfast: Porridge with banana

Lunch: Lentil and bacon soup with tuna and sweetcorn sandwich thin

My Husband’s Packed Lunch Salami sandwich,
lemon cake

Dinner: All invited out for a family barbecue

I finally used up some red lentils that had survived the house move, combined with some of the cooking bacon bought at the beginning of June. Great tasting version of lentils! Lovely time out at a family barbecue in the evening.

DAY EIGHTEEN

Breakfast: Porridge with banana

Lunch: Lentil and bacon soup with rolls with yogurt cream cheese and cherry
tomatoes

My Husband’s Packed Lunch: Two sausage rolls
with cherry tomatoes and lemon cake

Dinner: All invited out

Today I survived a whole morning of sports day for my daughter, followed by a whole afternoon of sports day for my son, with only very brief time off for good behaviour in the middle when Granny and I sprinted home for some soup.

We were all invited out again in the evening, so no time for photos of food, just Bo Peep and PE Ted riding a sheep, all as part of Hadleigh’s Year of the Sheep at the start of Sports Day. They duly reappeared for the second session, and re-ran all the same gags. 

DAY NINETEEN

Breakfast: Forgot

Lunch: Lentil and bacon soup with yogurt cheese, tomato and cucumber on a
sandwich thin

Children’s Dinner: Mini toad in the
hole with broccoli, plus strawberry and banana smoothies

Dinner: New potatoes with chorizo and roasted peppers

The soup was tasty even on the third day running, and new potatoes with chorizo and roasted veg were minimal effort while I cooked ahead for the next day. I had fun making mini toad in the hole for the children, with strict instructions about who wanted toad in the hole, and who wanted plain yorkshire puddings served alongside frankfurter sausages.

DAY TWENTY

Breakfast: Porridge with banana for me, croissants for everyone else

Lunch for 10: Roast leg of pork with crackling, chipolata
sausages, mashed potato, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli cheese, gravy and
apple sauce. Berry lemon cheesecake and roast plums with cream

Children’s Dinner: Movie night baguette
pizzas with olives, cheddar and mozzarella, plus yogurt tubes

Grandparents’ Dinner: Cheddar
topped Shepherd’s Pie using lasagne mix from freezer, with sugar snap peas and
mangetout

Our packed lunch on the train: Rolls with
leftover roast pork, cucumber and mango chutney, cherry tomatoes, satsumas.

Another day that passed in too much of a rush for food photographs.

Two families came round for lunch, and the bargain leg of pork proved very handy when the dreadful weather forecast put a stop to any barbecue. There were lots of great leftovers however, as photographed.

My husband and I also discovered two days before that we’d won tickets to see Blur at the British Summertime Festival in Hyde Park, after I filled in a Live Below the Line feedback survey. So the grandparents very kindly stepped into the breach to babysit while we zoomed up to London for the concert. Brilliant night.

DAY TWENTY ONE

Fathers’ Day Breakfast: Bacon, sausages and fried egg with toast and orange juice

Breakfast: Pancakes with banana, grapes and strawberries for the children,
porridge and banana for me

Lunch: Rolls with leftover roast pork and mango chutney, home-made
coleslaw and mozzarella, tomato and cucumber salad. I had a sandwich thin using
up the last tinned tuna and artichoke heart.

Children’s Dinner: Sausages with gravy and leftover mash and
carrots, plus strawberry and banana smoothies. Crumpets with jam.

Dinner:  Cheesy topped shepherd’s pie
with the remaining lasagne mix and leftover mash, peas.

The excitement of seeing Blur the night before was a great start to Fathers’ Day, which continued with a cooked breakfast for my husband and pancakes for my daughter and my son. At lunch time we had a picnic lunch outside in the sunshine, where my attempts at coleslaw were rejected by the children because it wasn’t as sweet as the school version. Pah. All the more for me. Dinner time marked the final demise of the lasagne meat mix, squirrelled away in the freezer since Boxing Day to be given new life as shepherd’s pie using leftover mash.

Snacks throughout the week

Fresh and tinned fruit, with added value range natural yogurt for me

Home-made lemon drizzle cake

Chocolate crispy cakes for school sports day refreshment stand

Bread or crumpets and jam

Yogurt and fromage frais tubes

Treat for the children after swimming lessons: Fruit Shoots, packet of crisps from a multipack and a hot cross bun each