Meal Planning Mondays (21st March 2011)

Last week I came across a great idea posted by Mrs M of At Home with Mrs M - Meal Planning Mondays! Each week she will be posting her meal plans for the week and has invited other likeminded bloggers to the same.

I'm a great believer in meal planning for two reasons. Firstly I hate waste so pretty much everything I buy has to be bought with a use for it in mind. Secondly, after a busy day I don't want to be spending time trying to decide what to cook. Not that I don't have days when I'm out of ideas of course - that's why I keep oven chips in the freezer and a few jars or pasta sauce in the cupboard.

So how do I decide each week's menu? Hard to say really as it can vary quite a lot. Sometimes I'll grab a big armful of recipe books or my file of pages ripped out of food magazines and choose a few new recipes to try out. Or I might revisit some tried and tested ones. Other weeks I might rely on leftovers from the freezer. And of course a lot of the time it's a mix of all three!

So this weeks menu looks like this...

Monday - Go-to tomato sauce and pasta (garlic oil, pancetta and tinned tomatoes)

Tuesday - Steak & Ale Pie from local producer, Woodwards Farm, with mash & veg

Wednesday - Goats Cheese-topped ratatouille (from the freezer) with garlic bread

Thursday - Chilli Mince with rice & veg

Friday - Tomato & Thyme Cod with Potato Cakes & veg

Saturday - Lasagne

So what are your plans for the week? If you fancy blogging about it too go and check out Mrs M's blog and add your post to the bottom of hers.