This meal plan is a celebration one. I wouldn’t usually suggest this much sugar. The plan is based around a leg of lamb, and so costs more than our usual plans, but at just £1.60 each per day, it’s still flipping cheap!  You can cut the cost even further by using a whole chicken or a joint of beef instead of the leg of lamb.

When I wrote this plan, the lamb legs were 1kg, they are now being listed as 1.25kg, so there is 250g more lamb this week than is used here. Use that extra for an extra meal : to make a pie, more lamb spread for sandwiches in the coming week, or on a puff pastry tart

The meal plan works out at £1.60 per person, per day in April 2023

The usual caveats apply: it shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults and 2 x 7 year old children. Change the meals around to suit yourself, combine the shopping list of ingredients in any other way that suits you, add extra ingredients that you may have, just use one of the recipes, leave out anything you don’t like or need or change anything else that you see fit.

You and the other people you are feeding may not need all the calories a day. Only you know what you need, I will leave this part of it to you to adjust. Many of the recipes are freezeable, so if you have the facilities, you could freeze the extra, or carry the ingredients forward to the following week.

If you do use anything from here, I would love it if you let me know how you get on.

You will need to be accurate with your measuring with some ingredients, and can be more free-handed with others. Look at the column of leftovers to see what you can be generous with.

As usual, use the Cakes and Bakes at any point during the week when you need them, as an extra at lunch, a pudding after dinner, for supper, or any other hungry moment. Or if you don’t need this many calories, healthwise, these would be the best things to leave out. I’ve also found with most plans that if you follow them, and leave out the cakes and bakes, the calories are at a level where you will lose weight.

Meal Plan for 4 bought at Aldi – Easter
Item	Left at the end of the week	Apr-23
Belmont ginger nuts		£0.49
hot x buns 2 x 6 Village Bakery	99p for 6	£1.98
beautifully buttery spread 1kg		£1.69
value sr flour x 2		£1.38
butternut squash		£0.85
savoy or any green cabbage		£0.61
cauliflower		£0.95
kg red onions		£0.65
garlic granules – or a fresh bulb		£0.52
everyday essentials baked beans x 4		£1.08
kidney beans		£0.33
tin sweetcorn		£0.59
2 kg carrots		£1.00
tin potatoes x 2		£0.76
2.27 litres whole milk x 2		£3.90
15 free range mixed weight eggs		£1.99
mushy peas x 2		£0.64
strawberry jam		£0.39
dark chocolate x 2		£0.72
bran flakes 750g		£0.95
250g lard		£0.39
1.25kg lamb leg		£12.64
500g raisins		£1.19
everyday essentials wholemeal loaf x 2		£0.78
tinned whole toms		£0.28
mozzarella x 2		£1.38
tin chick peas x 2		£1.10
1kg oats		£0.70
340g basics honey		£0.75
400g Aldi Nutella		£1.45
375g puff pastry x 2		£2.18
tomato puree, 200g		£0.49
Total	£1.60 each per day	£44.80

 

Family Easter Meal Plan for 4 bought at Aldi
	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Good Friday	bran flakes and milk	bean salad, hot x buns	scone pizza
Sat	2 eggs on 2 toast, 1 egg  1 toast  for the littlies	hummus and carrots, tomato scone	bean burgers
Easter Sunday	bran flakes and milk	roast lamb, roasted cauliflower, buttered carrots, crushed tinned pots	beans on toast
Mon	porridge and jam	lamb and bean soup, tomato scone	mushy pea fritters, squashed potatoes, poached egg
Tues	bran flakes and milk	bean salad, one of the cakes and bakes	puff pastry lamb, onion with carrot salad
Wed	2 eggs on 2 toast, 1 egg and 1 toast for the littlies	lamb paste sandwiches, one of the cakes and bakes	lamb and onion pie, roasted butternut squash
Thurs	overnight oats	lamb wraps, one of the cakes and bakes	lamb and bean soup, tomato scone
	cakes and bakes – rocky road, raisin pancakes, chocolate heaven, bannocks, tomato scones
	Nutrition
	2000, 2500, 1600, 1600 calories for an adult male and female, a 7 year old girl and boy
	12% protein, 32% fat, 51% carbs
	Govt. recommendations 10-35% protein, 20-35% fat, 45-65% carb, 25g fibre pppd
	This plan has, per person per day, a total of 6 portions of fruit and veg

 

Good Friday

Breakfast – divide the bran flakes into 3 equal portions, reserving about 90g for the rocky road, then divide 1 of the portions between everyone

Lunch – bean salad. Tip out the tin of kidney beans and rinse well. Add a fine sliced onion, 100g carrots, grated, 100g sweetcorn, 80g raisins. Stir fry 200g shredded cabbage and 200g cubed butternut squash until soft in 20g butter. Add to the salad. Season well. Serve half the salad now and half on Tuesday

Follow with a hot cross bun or 2, toasted and slathered with butter. Or if you are doing a packed lunch, split them and spread with butter before wrapping them.

Dinner – make the scone pizza using both bags of mozzarella, 200g onion, sliced fine, and the tin of tomatoes blitzed with plenty of seasoning to make a tomato sauce. Grind over black pepper if you have any

Saturday

Lunch – Drain the tin of chickpeas. Whizz them up together with about a teaspoon of garlic granules or a fine grated clove of garlic, a splash of water and plenty of salt and pepper. I’ve made hummus with no oil lots of times and its fine, however, if you have any oil available, preferably olive oil, use it instead of the water. And a tablespoon of tahini, or rather less of peanut butter, wouldn’t go amiss either.  Have a look at this post to see loads and loads of ideas for hummus if you have a larder you can call on. Serve with a tomato scone

Dinner – Make the bean burgers using 100g onion, 200g butternut squash, grated, 200g sweetcorn, a tin of baked beans, drained and a heaped tsp garlic granules. Squidge everything together with 50g flour. Shape into burgers and fry gently using a total of 50g lard.  Serve with 2 slices bread each, perhaps as a sandwich

Easter Sunday

Breakfast – use the 2nd portion of bran flakes

Lunch –  Roast the lamb joint and use half for lunch. Cut up the cauliflower, season well and roast for about 45 minutes. Drain and rinse the tinned potatoes, toss them in melted lard or butter, season well, squash them a bit and roast for half an hour or so. Serve with carrots tossed in a little butter

Easter Monday Lunch

Remove most of the remaining meat form the bone and simmer the lamb bone with a tiny bit of lamb for 1.5-2 hours to make stock for the soup. Saute 100g onion, 100g butternut squash, 140g carrots and all the cauliflower stalk to bring out the flavour. add a tin of mushy peas and a tin of baked beans. You can rinse the sauce off the beans if you like. Use half of the soup now and half for dinner on Thursday. Serve with a tomato scone

Dinner – mushy pea fritters, serve with one of the tins of potatoes, rinsed well and roasted and a poached egg each

Tuesday

Breakfast – use the remaining portion of bran flakes

Dinner -Using half the pack of puff pastry, roll it out and put on a baking tray, you may need more than one. Slice an onion finely, sprinkle over the pastry. Chop some of the lamb and sprinkle that over as well. Season well. Cook in a hot oven for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, shred a quarter of the cabbage. Stir fry in a good knob of lard, seasoning well with salt and pepper, keep the cabbage crunchy rather than well cooked. Serve both the tart and the stir fry immediately.

Wednesday

Lunch – using this base recipe, make lamb paste sandwiches. Use 110g of the cooked lamb and 50g butter. If you have any rosemary, chop some very fine and add to the paste, or possibly just a little mint sauce. Start with a little bit, and add very gradually so as not to overwhelm the paste with mint flavour.

Dinner – using this recipe for a pie as the base, substitute lamb for the chicken. Use lard to make the pastry, or if you have some and want to, you could use vegetable oil. Serve with 200g butternut squash, cut into chunks and roasted.

Thursday

Lunch – lamb wraps.Use this recipe to make 8 wraps. At a convenient time, make some wraps and store them until needed. They freeze well. Follow the recipe in the link using 250g ordinary flour. I have found that you don’t need yeast to make delicious wraps. This amount of dough will make more then 4 wraps, and it also depends on how big you make them. Give more to the bigger eaters.  Leave the dough to rest for an hour before cooking, it helps develop the gluten, which gives more flavour. I have made very small wraps for children using this, about the size of a saucer, which they loved. I’ve also made tiny ‘dolly’ sized ones, which they also cooked themselves, with help from me of course. Those were the size of a jam jar lid. Funny how most kids like tiny things!

Use 200g of the lamb in total in the wrap filling. Slice an onion very finely and grate a couple of carrots to add to the filling.

Cakes and Bakes

Rocky Road – break up the chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over simmering water, do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Once the chocolate has melted, crumble in some of the biscuits, you probably won’t need all of them. Keep some chunks larger. Either spoon all of the mix into a tin and allow to set, or spoon small piles onto a baking tray, or into muffin tins or cupcake cases.

Raisin Pancakes – using 300g flour, 100g raisins and 100g oats, make Raisin pancakes whenever they are needed, fry in a little butter. If you have any sugar, sprinkle a little on top after cooking

Bannocks – Using 240g oats and 60g butter, make some  Bannocks and have them with the remaining jam

Chocolate Heaven – roll out the remaining puff pastry, spread generously with the chocolate spread and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Cut into strips and eat while still warm.

Ginger Biscuits – have any remaining biscuits leftover from making the rocky road whenever you want them

Flapjacks – using this recipe, use honey instead of the sugar and add 100g raisins

Tomato Scones – make a double batch of the recipe. Freeze the scones to keep them fresh