Week Four

Breakfasts:

  • Brunch @ Bosco
  • Omelette
  • Quasi huevos rancheros

 

Lunches:

  • Sausages w/ sweet potato salad
  • Tuna deli salad w/ eggs
  • Mackerel, beetroot, green bean and egg salad
  • Bora bora fireballs w/ celeriac slaw

 

Dinners:

  • Haggis, mashed neeps and red wine gravy
  • Pigs cheek in leek, mustard and cream sauce w/ savoy cabbage
  • Pesto chicken w/ green beans (4 x chicken thigh)
  • Kippers, spinach and poached eggs
  • Czech meatballs w/ mashed swede and gravy
  • White fish w/ pesto veg
  • West African chicken w/ cauliflower rice

Week Three

Breakfast:

  • Ham, spinach and poached eggs (Brunch – Bosco Lounge)
  • Broccoli slaw omelette
  • Sausage, bacon and egg (work canteen)
  • Broccoli slaw omelette
  • Kippers and scrambled eggs

 

Lunches:

  • Chicken, bacon and avo club salad
  • Grilled chicken w/ sweet potato salad and eggs
  • Tuna deli salad w/ pickles
  • Mackerel, beetroot, green bean and egg salad
  • Tuna deli salad

 

Dinners:

  • Chicken fajitas in lettuce wraps
  • Bolognaise w/ sweet potato mash
  • Meguez meatballs w/ aubergine gratin*
  • West African chicken stew w/ sweet potato dauphonoise and red cabbage* 
  • Kippers on spinach w/ poached eggs
  • Czech meatballs w/ cauliflower rice*

*ready meal in freezer

Low Carb, High Fat for ZAR40 / day?

 

Interesting topic on Twitter from Prof. Tim Noakes this week. Can a LCHF diet be maintained on ZAR40 / day?

On today’s exchange rate, ZAR40 ≈ £2.25 ≈ $3.67

Not sure if this is based on an individual, buying food every couple of days or a family doing a weekly or bi-weekly supermarket shop taking advantage of economies of scale, and obviously I’ve not taken into account buying power in each country.

We average £40/ week on food shopping. This covers 3 meals a day for 2 adults so approx. £2.85 per person, per day. And that’s without really trying to cut costs; just shopping at the supermarket and shopping to a list, rather than picking up all the BOGOFs.

Our menu is varied and, even though it doesn’t often feature steak anymore, we eat good quality protein with each meal.

Does not include beer and wine, but of course we shun booze on our Paleo/ Primal diet don’t we…. 🙂

 

Week Two

Breakfast:

  • Omelette
  • Sweet potato patties w/ bacon and egg
  • Quasi huevos rancheros
  • Muffins

 

Lunches:

  • Reuben rollups w/ broccoli salad
  • Tuna waldorf salad
  • Mackerel, orange and green bean salad

 

Dinners:

  • BBQ chicken wings w/ sweet tayto wedges
  • Sausages roasted on tomato and veg sauce with sweet potato dauphinoise
  • Crispy belly pork w/ sauerkraut and garlicky green beans
  • West African Chicken Stew w/ kale and coconut cauli-rice
  • Merguez meatballs w/ aubergine parmigiana
  • Czech meatballs w/ kale and mashed cauliflower
  • Egg fried rice w/ pork and broccoli

SUNDAY COOK-UP!

As mentioned before, I like to roll my sleeves up and get a good cook-up going on the weekend. In part this is due to the amount of prep required while following a paleo or primal diet, but also because I like to know that I have enough food supplies for the week . It’s less hassle to pick up a few extra bits during a Sunday stroll than remembering to do it on my way home from work, and I’m less likely to pick up extra treats and ‘bargains’ if I don’t have a car with me!

For this week’s dinners I wanted a few big, veggie side dishes ready to heat and serve. It’s cold and wet outside so the temptation for stodge is strong 🙂  For this week I’ve gone with an aubergine parmigiana (without cheese – just for versatility) and  a sweet potato and red onion dauphinoise. I also needed to restock the freezer with different flavour meatballs and koftas, which I use for at least 2 dinners a week now.

Got started early (for me) by reworking the leftover sweet potato mash into a breakfast. Had about a heaped cup of mash, added 2 chopped spring onions and a couple of tablespoons of ground almonds to give it some form. After cooking some bacon I dolloped 4 ‘cakes’ of mix into the pan and made myself leave them alone for 5 minutes to get a good crust. Result was more like bubble and speak as they don’t hold together very well. Managed to turn them and make reasonable looking cakes to go with the bacon and a couple of poached eggs.

While the cakes were cooking, I got chopping. Two big aubergine cut into thin slices; brushed with a little oil, S+P and dispatched into med-hot oven to cook completely. Onion, celery and garlic for the marinara sauce base. Left on back of the hob to simmer. Sliced red onions thinly for dauphinoise. was going to get the food processor out for the sweet potato slivers, but was short on space and wasn’t feeling strong enough to lift it out of the larder anyway. Besides, slicing 3 spuds by hand isn’t that much. Sliced 4 big cloves of garlic and added to double cream and milk in a small sauce pan. Brought to the boil then turned it off and left it to infuse. Made myself a coffee, changed out of my PJ’s and ate my breakie. Put half dozen eggs on the hard boil.

Layered up the cooked aubergine slices and marinara sauce, then bunged the dish in the oven for 20mins. The sweet potato looked like a lot more than I’d planned so had to dig out my biggest lasagne dish. Greased it then layered the potato slices and red onion slices with S+P and dried thyme until all used, finishing with potato to prevent nasty burned bit. Poured over the infused cream mix – forgot to remove garlic slices so they ended up on top. Covered dish in foil (to stop the garlic burning) and baked in oven for 1 hr. After 1 hr (only meant to do 45mins but got distracted washing up) took the foil off and gave in another 30mins to brown; checking every 10mins to make sure the garlic wasn’t burning.

While stuff was in the oven, I got mixing 2 batches of meatballs; Czech pork with caraway and wholegrain mustard, and a chorizo (of sorts). Take 2 big bowls. Put the relevant seasoning in each bowl. Make a coffee. Check on oven. Eventually stop flitting and take pork mince out of the fridge. Weigh meat before adding. Mix each bowl (washing hands in between to prevent cross-seasoning. Put both bowls in fridge out of the way until you have cleared enough space in kitchen to have 2 baking trays covered in greaseproof paper in front of you. I weigh my meatballs to ensure they’ll cook evenly and I get a consistent quantity from the batch. Take trays of perfectly formed balls and put in freezer to open freeze. After about an hour they should be quite firm so can be transferred to a ziplock baggie for easier storage. I put mine together in 1 big bag as you can easily tell the difference in colour.

Both veggie dishes done and cooled. Marked into portions (4 from the aubergine and 12 squares of dauphinoise), stored half in the fridge, other half in freezer wrapped in greaseproof and foil.

That little lot should cover me for all of tis week, and give me ready meals for next week too.

UPDATE: Spotted this article – sums up just how much you can get done even if you only have 10 minutes! http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/03/11/10-meals/

Week One

Breakfasts

  • Meat and spinach muffins
  • Omelettes

Lunches

  • Tuna deli salad w/ eggs and sweet potato salad
  • Sausages with coleslaw
  • Leftover bora bora fireballs w/ eggs and sweet potato salad
  • Meat and spinach muffins w/ coleslaw
  • Tomato soup w/ meat muffins and tuna salad

Dinners

  • Bora bora fireballs with cauliflower rice
  • Zoodle pad thai w/ prawns and broccoli
  • Chicken and bacon in creamy mustard sauce w/ broccoli
  • Belly pork with braised red cabbage and sweet potato mash
  • Beef and Kale garbage stirfry

 

Batch prep

  • Meatballs
  • Debone and freeze chicken thighs
  • Rice cauliflower
  • Hard boil eggs
  • Sweet potato salad (inspired by Summer Innanen)
  • Coleslaw (½ cabbage)
  • Tuna deli salad
  • Meat and spinach muffins x 16

New Year, new start

Ok, so I’ve left my New Year start a little late but it is only 3rd!

Xmas always puts me out of sorts. What day is it? In short, I’ve stuffed up my usual organised shopping and eating routine over the holidays. Yummy festive leftovers have been the base for most meals. Not entirely my fault; shops are silly busy and stock levels unpredictable.  Weather has been hazardous too so, for my own safety, I couldn’t venture out to the market.

Back to school on Monday, so no more loafing and grazing. Time to pull up the metaphorical socks. I considered doing a Whole30 reset for January but the restrictions make me want to cry; no nuts and seeds, no cheese, no wine, no coffee?!

My plan is to get my 4 weeks of real-food menus drafted, and get as much prep done as possible at the weekends so we won’t be caught out Mid-week when we’re too tired to think about food. Week 3 will be a tough one as I’m home alone and have tendency to not be bothered to eat properly. Dinner party anyone?