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 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.

Week 2

Thursday 18/2

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 1⁄2 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