Neil's Food Plan

This is my attempt at making a weekly vegetarian food plan with minimum leftovers. I hope to try it out and revise it according to what I've got left over. If anyone's got any tips please help!

Meal ideas

Love food, hate waste

• Mixed vegetable curry
• Indian sausage parcel
• Vegetable lasagne
• Vegetable rosti cakes
• Vegetable pilaff
• Aubergine and tomato moussaka
• mushroom risotto
• Vegetable thai curry

Vegsoc

• Herby Mushroom Pasta
• Vegetable and Nut Stir Fry
• Cheesy Potato and Lentil Bake
• Spinachy Pancakes
• Black-eyed bean stew

Week 2

Thursday and Friday last week I completely failed and got a take away and a ready meal. But I think I'll move my shopping day to a Saturday anyway because I'm usually feeling pretty lazy on a Thursday.

Saturday 20/2

Shop this afternoon, need to buy:

• 400g can chickpeas
• Coriander
• harissa paste or chilli powder
• plain flour
• sunflower oil
• toasted pitta bread
• tub tomato salsa
• green salad
• 1 red onion

• 2 onions
• courgette
• pepper
• leeks

• 675g potatoes
• 1 cooking apple
• 450g carrots
• Tinned tomotoes
• vegetable stock

Lunch, soup with the garlic bread I've got

Dinner

Falafel

Yummy! And no need to trudge around London trying to find that shop!

Ingredients 400g can chickpeas , rinsed and drained garlic clove , chopped handful of flat-leaf parsley or curly parsley 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander ½ tsp harissa paste or chilli powder 2 tbsp plain flour 2 tbsp sunflower oil toasted pitta bread 200g tub tomato salsa , to serve green salad , to serve 1 small red onion , roughly chopped

Sunday 21/2

Sunday lunch at Mum's

Monday 22/2

Falafel burgers again. hopefully there will be some left over.

Tuesday 23/2

Dinner, lasagne. I've already got a jar of white sauce and some tinned matoes. I'll make a red sauce with onions, courgettes, peppers and leeks

Wednesday 24/2

I've still got some veggie sausages from last week so lets make veggie sausage casserole.

Thursday 25/2

Left over lasagne

Friday 26/2

Left over sausage casserole.

Results

Last week went a bit off piste. I couldn't be bothered to cook on Saturday so I left the falafel until Monday. But I completely failed to cook it properly because I chopped the vegetables too small before grating them and then I couldn't get the frying to work without the burgers falling apart. And then I accidentally melted a plastic spoon into the mix so I had to throw most of it away. I ended up baking what was left so I had enough for an edible but not very nice meal. Tuesday and Wednesday Abi stayed over so we had a takeaway curry on Tuesday and made the lasagne on Wednesday, but there wasn't any leftover because there was two of us. On Thursday I made the sausage casserole which was quite nice. I ate that again on Friday and I *still* have some left! I now have a couple of carrots, half a bag of potatoes, and a red onion to use up.

Week 1

Wed 10/2

Quick shop on the way home from work to make Black-eyed bean stew

Need to buy:

• 3x onions
• a green pepper
• 1 thing of garlic
• tinned tomoatoes

I already have bay leaves, black eyed peas and parsley. I won't bother with the oregano. I will eat with some garlic bread which will hopefully keep until tomorrow.

Thu 11/2

Time for a bigger shop.

Vegetable Gratin from the recipe book (number 68)

Need to buy:

• 750g parsnips
• 225g carrots
• 225g courgettes
• 175g cauliflower florets

Will use onions bought Wednesday and cheese that I already have. Serves 4 so I'll try to keep half of it.

Friday 12/2

Left over vegetable gratin from Thursday.

Saturday 13/2

Lunch: let's make a quick sandwich with bread and cheese.

Dinner: more time to cook, let's have Vegetable rosti cakes

Need to buy:

• 450g potatoes, peeled and halved
• 2 medium carrots, halved lengthways
• 250g parsnips or swede cut into chunks
• 250g courgettes, grated
• 4 spring onions
• 1 lightly beaten egg
• 2 level tablespoons of plain flour

I'll just use olive oil instead of sunflower oil

Sunday 14/2

Faux sunday lunch. New potatoes, vegetarian quorn thing. Cauliflower left over from Thursday.

Dinner, ready made soup.

Monday 15/2

Left over rosti cakes

Tuesday 16/2

Herby mushroom pasta

Need to buy:

5oz / 150g button mushrooms, sliced 1oz fresh basil, finely chopped ½ carton soured cream

will just use the fusili i've already got instead of taglietelle. onion from wednesday.

Wednesday 17/2

Lets use the potatoes and parsnips that I've probably still got and make parsnip and potato mash with some veggie sausages and maybe some baked beans. I will have to incorporate the remaining sausages into next week.

Results

The bean stew worked well enough and I'd give it about a 6 out of 10.

The vegetable gratin was really good and really easy to make. I ate it with some soda bread that I had. It was also fine to the next day so 8 out of 10.

For Saturday lunch I forgot buy any cheese so I ended up with a chutney and hula hoop sandwich :) The rosti cakes turned into a huge disaster because I didn't read the recipe properly and cut the vegetables up too small so it made it really hard to grate. Then I completely failed at frying them and ended up with a burnt mess. Also I accidentally melted a plastic spoon into some of it so I had to throw it away. I salvaged some of it by baking it and it was enough for a meal but it wasn't great.

Sunday, I realised my new potatoes were a bit sprouty so decided not to eat them and had the parsnip + potato mash with a Quorn thing instead. That was quite nice. Soup was nice too.

Monday I went to the Scrabble club so I didn't get back until late but I ate something on the train instead.

Tuesday - herby mushroom. Quick and easy and quite nice 7/10