Our Eats this Week

Again this week we have been very busy. We do still manage to plan our meals for the week and execute them. Even when we are strapped for time, this is something we cannot do without, because it is such a money saver.

Gone are the days when we would shop with no real purposeful intentions in mind. This used to cause so much food waste and so much wasted money! I don’t want landfills to be full of my money! Seriously, if you think about it, that is what it is really like, buying food and throwing it away is as bad as filling up landfills with your hard earned cash.

This week, we had some real Jamaican treats. Can’t forget our roots! This week too, we tried to have less meat in the meals (after all, there are other forms of protein). Our eldest has gone ‘off’ meat. We don’t mind accommodating, especially since it saves us some money as well. Also, since we eat more meat at Christmas time, we are trying to cut down now.

 

These are some of the meals we planned for this week

 

Stew Peas (meatless) with Rice (Kidney beans is a popular staple food in Jamaica)

Sweet and Sour Tofu

A wonderful meal to make to use up all the sweet peppers and chunky onions.

We use cornstarch to thicken the sauce which then looks really shiny. We seem to have devoured the dish before any final photos. Next time.

Pepper Pot Soup (Using calaloo which is a bit like Spinach)

Oxtail and Beans with Rice and Vegetables

Calaloo and Salted Cod with boiled dumplings and green bananas

Vegetable Soup

Image source: Pixabay

In addition to those meals, we made a big batch of vegetable soup and stored some away in the freezer. It has come in really handy. When the kids come in from the cold after school, they are offered some warming soup or hot chocolate and I am pleased to say that sometimes they do accept the soup.
It has helped us as well. When we come home from a day of filming and we are really tired, we like to enjoy warming soup.

If for whatever reason you have not yet tried meal planning, I urge you to do try. If nothing more, you will appreciate the monetary savings. It only takes us a few minutes on a Sunday to have a quick look at what we have in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. All we then do is to plan the meals to include what we already have in and prepare a shopping list for what we need to get.

We mostly shop at Aldi and we usually head straight to see what items are in the Super Six section first. These are usually fruits and vegetables, and, as they are cheaper, we tend to use them up. This week we were able to get tomatoes and carrots which we used up in most of the meals. We also bought a bag of about 8 ‘wonky’ read and yellow peppers. They didn’t look oddly shaped to me, and they were quite tasty.

They featured well too in the meals and we used some when we make our green juice in the Nutribullet blender. We are trying to make space for Christmas treats by using a green, mostly vegetable juice to replace one meal, usually breakfast. We will tell you how that is going another time.

Cheers!

Don’t forget to check in with Katy Kicker to see how she is rocking meal planning. I especially love to see how she uses up her slow cooker.