Tenner Week Sep 2017: Day 1: Make a menu
Hello! It’s the first official day of our Tenner Week challenge, as part of our ‘Back to School’ theme. As usual, the first day is all about making a menu plan to make sure you are going to be able to eat well for the week.
If you haven’t looked at your food stores yet, you might like to try the quick checklist from the Sunday Stocktake so that you don’t forget anything you could put to good use.
Once you have a more comprehensive idea of what food and drink you have available, think about what needs to be used up first so that you can avoid food waste.
Next, look at your diary for the week so that you know which nights you’ll be out, and how many meals you’ll be having at home. From here, you can start planning your meals, remembering that some nights you’ll want something quick and simple, and on others you’ll probably have more time to cook.
Remember to include:
- Breakfasts
- Snacks
- Lunches or packed lunches
- Dinners
- Optional desserts
Try to include a few household favourite meals if you have the ingredients to hand. If possible, also think about how you can make your meals healthy, including your intake of fruit and vegetables for a balanced diet.
As it’s ‘Back to School’ week, maybe try to cook a new recipe as well (as long as you won’t need to buy any additional groceries). Look for free recipes online or try a cookbook you already own, or maybe borrow one from the library.
What’s happening here
We’re still getting quite a few ingredients from our kitchen garden, and there’s a decent amount of food in the freezer too, so we should be okay apart from things like milk and bread.
I’m making pasta tonight with home grown roasted vegetables and herbs – they’re left over from a big batch I made for the freezer yesterday so the entire meal will probably take less than 15 minutes to cook. There are a couple of nights when I’m out, but the rest of the menu includes falafel, veggie burgers, prawn noodles, black bean burritos, and some chilli squid.
Writing out a menu makes me really look forward to the meals, so I’m going to put the list on the fridge for a reminder.
Are you looking to save some money this week? Join in! There’s something new to try every day.
We do our meal planning/look at the calendar on a Sunday, so I rolled that into the stock-take, which was very useful as found some black beans/corn tortillas in the freezer that need using, so that’s going to be some sort of mexican-ish meal on Friday.
I also used up a tin of pears from back of the cupboard and some stem ginger from the baking cupboard to make a pear and ginger loaf cake for snacks this week. Mmmm.
Hi Meghan – that cake sounds completely delicious, and you’re very organised! Maybe you could have Fajita Friday? 🙂
Penny x
I very much recommend it. Pear and Ginger loaf – where it says two pears, I just use a tin of drained pear halves. And if you dust the pear chunks in a bit of flour, they don’t sink straight to the bottom as it bakes.
I’m thinking quesadillas with plenty of cheeeeeeese. Mhmm!
Thank you so much for the recipe – will definitely be trying this out soon! Enjoy your cheeeeeseadillas.
P xx
Dear Penny, I am in, did my stocktake. Plenty of fruits and veggies from the garden as well, not too bad for a start.
Hi Patricia! So glad you’re joining in – looks like you’re off to a good start.