I decided last week not to add my breakfasts to the menu plan, or even all my lunches for that matter. But some of them are still coming out of the freezer.
Take this morning for instance, the bagel was supposed to be eaten with soup for my lunch but I just wasn't in the mood for soup and as you read further down I was messing about with my potatoes for a while and it got me in the mood to have a baked/jacket potato for lunch. So I decided to switch around the soup and bagel and baked potato meals.
But I did have 'bagel' on my mind, so I decided that I would still have it but for breakfast and with some dairy-free cream cheese instead. A small but very tasty breakfast, and of course according to my freezer inventory list I do still have two more bagels left to eat.
I bought these potatoes right at the start of December and they have been in the Stayfresh bags and inside a cool bag to try and keep them in a dark place, and then in the coolest place in the lodge ... which is actually my bedroom windowsill.
Yeah ... food is never where you expect it to be with me!!
Anyway they had spouted much more than I expected them to, although they were still lovely and firm.
I tipped them all out into a bowl of cold water, washed the bags ready to be used again for something else and then spent five minutes scraping off all the sprouts. But you know me ... I couldn't resist leaving two of the smaller potatoes with their sprouts and pushing them into the soil in the middle section of the large raised bed in the garden ... it's always worth a try. 😁
I ended up with some very respectable looking potatoes.
One of the large ones was zapped in the microwave for my lunch and served with some butter and grated cheese and all the smaller ones were peeled, chopped and turned into mashed potatoes.
On my menu plan was mince and mash with the 'bonus peas', but I decided to keep it simple and just have these potatoes as they came out of the pan, so it was a very deconstructed Shepherdess Pie, and a very filling evening meal.
Once I had finished eating I mashed up the rest of the spuds and left them to cool in this container, which is now in the fridge and has enough mash for my three other planned potato meals for this week.
It's always nice to have a bit of meal prep done for the week ahead.
Sue xx
Get you with spuds in the bedroom! Jon can't resist planting a sprouting potato, either!
ReplyDeleteI like my meals to be spontaneous, that's why we've never done meal planning. To me, there's nothing more off putting than knowing what I'll be eating in three days time, same as if I laid my clothes out for the week ahead, it'd make me feel trapped & unhappy. Isn't the mind a weird thing? xxx
Haha ... I know!!
DeleteIt's funny, but lovely, how we are so totally opposite and yet get on so well. xx Well my mind is definintely a weird thing!!
That's the joy of blogging, we can be so different in some ways but united in others! xxx
DeleteI had 3 sweet potatoes in the fridge, bought before Christmas and looking a bit sad. I mashed them with three regular spuds, and made a huge batch of ragu type sauce with other leftover veg & some mince - so we had shepherds pie last night and there's more I'm the freezer for another day. Real comfort food for cold January days
ReplyDeleteThat's the only way I can eat sweet potatoes, mashed with regular ones, I literally find them too sweet on their own. I wished I did like them that way, baked with a bit of butter would be much healthier than me just having the regular ones.
DeleteI have my spuds in a hessian bag inside my (dark) larder cupboard but they still sprout like mad! Ah well, still edible and I used them up and got fresh ones this week. Just in time as a couple of inches of snow (over the lane which was pure ice on one side anyway) so I'm staying put for a while.
ReplyDeleteI used to keep mine in a hessian bag and then a few months back some went all mouldy and made a real mess of it, so I threw it away in disgust. I thought I would never be able to rid it of the mould spores and didn't want to waste anymore potatoes. I think I will just buy them in much smaller quantities and use them within a week or so in future.
DeleteThose stay fresh bags really are good, aren't they? xx
ReplyDeleteThey really are, I think I have had the same ones for about five years now and they still work. In fact there are still some unused ones in the pack as I keep using the same ones over and over.
DeleteLove the "deconstructed" Shepherdess Pie approach.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Vix, I am of the "plan a few days ahead" school of menu organising, because it means I do not have to think about what to defrost on the days when my brain is not co-operating. And I always reserve the right to change my mind and have something other than what was on my semi-list. 🤭
It made tea a lot simpler and less washing up too. :-)
DeleteI like having the backbone of the menu plan, and usually the first couple of days go exactly to plan, but I have no qualms about deviating from the plan when necessary if I decide I fancy something else ... or someone offers me a chippy supper.
Adaptable meal planning is crucial for me too. I do like to know what we have in the house so that we don't panic and eat unhealthily! We love a bit of mashed potato too especially with sausages (Linda McCartney ones for me) and gravy :)
ReplyDeleteBangers, mash and gravy is just about the perfect food for this weather isn't it.
DeleteWe got one hundred pounds (two fifty pound bags) of red potatoes last fall. We have finished off one bag already, and started on the second bag just yesterday. We expect that by the time that spring starts making an appearance, we will have plenty of sprouted potatoes...which will go into the garden!
ReplyDeleteI used to grow a lot of potatoes when we lived in Wales and I had the unheated workshop to store bags full in, but here there is nowhere suitable for long term storage. Home sprouted potatoes just do so well don't they.
DeleteWe just finished off the last of the potatoes we harvested in the fall. I enjoy a good mashed potato.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
They lasted well, I used to love using all the produce up and then planning what to eat in the 'hungry gap'. Pasta used to fill the void nicely. :-)
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