The Fourteenth Meal Plan – wow, that’s three and a half months worth! Plus all the celebration and 5 day ones!

This one, as per usual shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults, and this time, two 15 year old teenagers as well.

You will need £29.60 at the checkout, but the food eaten comes to £28.78, so £1.02 per person, per day, if you have all the suggested snacks as well.

The meal plan just below has links to recipes. Please make sure you read the instructions below the meal plan as well, as many recipes have had to be tweaked to take account of the ingredients available on this plan

	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
day 1 – Sunday	breakfast pancakes	roast chicken lunch, roasties, veg, gravy	mackerel fish cakes, salad
day 2 – Monday	overnight oats	blt sandwich	mixed veg dauphinoise
day 3 – Tuesday	bannocks & jam	soup using stock, butter beans	peperonata, added veg, crispy croutons
day 4 – Wednesday	overnight oats	pasta salad with chicken bits	veg crumble
day 5 – Thursday	bannocks & cheese	baked bean hummus, carrots, pitta	chicken and onion pie, stir fried cabbage, potato bake
day 6 – Friday	overnight oats	cheese and salad wraps	onion tart, stir fried cabbage & celery
day 7 – Saturday	breakfast pancakes	roast parsnip and apple salad, carrot & peanut salad, jkt	spaghetti, tom sauce, cheese
	cakes and bakes – sultana scones, tomato scones, peanut & raisin biscuits,  jam cake, jam sponge
	Nutrition
	2000, 2500, 2820, 2390 calories for an adult male, female, and a 15 year old girl and boy
	10% protein, 43% fat, 47% carbs
	Govt. recommendations 10-35% protein, 20-35% fat, 45-65% carb, 25g fibre pppd
	This plan has, over the course of the week, a total of 8 portions of fruit and veg per person, per day
	How many calories do teenagers need?

Breakfasts

Overnight Oats – soak 50g oats per person in150ml milk person overnight. Pop them in the fridge, all ready to grab and go. Grate in a whole apple per person the next morning,skin and all. Or if you don’t mind the odd bit of brown on the apple, do it the night before, or just pop the apple on top of the pot of oats to be eaten at the same time.. Soaking overnight gives greater satiety than eating straightaway as something called Resistant Starch develops during the soaking. If you don’t want cold oats, use the same ingredients to make porridge. Add a little sugar if you want to, personally, I don’t think it needs it.

Breakfast pancakes – for 4 portions, use 300g flour, 180ml milk, chop up half an apple, skin and all, and stir through 100g sultanas or raisins. Top up with water if necessary to make a thick batter. In extremis, you can omit everything but the flour and water

Bannocks – make a batch using the recipe link. Use 160g oats and 45ml oil. Once cooked and cooled, divide the batch into two and use half on Day 3 and half on Day 5. Use 150g of jam between everyone on Day 3 to go with them and 200g of cheese between everyone on Day 5

Lunches

Roast chicken lunch, roasties, veg, gravy – Use 1.2kg of the potatoes, 200g cabbage, 300g parsnips and 300g carrots.  You could shred the cabbage and slice the other veg and cook them in a minimum amount of water, or roast the parsnips and carrots. Roast, boil or mash your spuds.  Once the chicken is cooked, take it out of the oven and drain off all the lovely juices, cover the chicken and allow to rest.  Put all the juices in a pan and heat gently, whisk in a little thickener (flour or cornflour) a tsp of jam, a bit of mustard and some salt and pepper, bay leaf if you have one. Bubble gently, whisking, until it thickens. Keep tasting and adjust accordingly. Keep about half a teacup of gravy back for the pie on Day 5

Use the breast and leg meat between the 4 of you. Later on, strip the rest of the meat off and use in the chicken pie on Day 5.  There should be 150g or so. Put the remaining carcass, skin, leftover gravy, anything left on plates, including the leg bones, into a pot. Just cover everything with water, not too much, we don’t want to dilute the stock too much, and simmer gently for an hour. This is the stock for the soup on Day 3. When the stock is cool, remove all the bits and pick over again, get every last scrap off. Use the bits retrieved in this way in the pasta salad, on Day 4, there should be about 100g. Keep both lots of chicken bits in the fridge, in the cool, covered, until you need them.

Blt sandwich – use all the bacon, 80g of the lettuce, 2 slices of bread each and about 10g of spread in each sandwich. Grill the bacon until crispy, keep any juices and dribble over the middle of the sandwich for extra flavour.

Soup – use the chicken stock made with the carcass from Day 1’s roast. Saute 80g celery in a tblsp oil until soft. Add to the stock. Add the whole tin of butter beans, drained, 60g of tomato puree, 180g penne. Simmer until all soft. Serve with 2 slices of bread each. You could remove half the soup and whizz it if you like, adding it back to the rest to have a smoother soup.

Pasta Salad – use the chicken bits scavenged from the roasted chicken on Day 1. Cook 320g penne until done, drain well. Stir a tsp of oil through to stop the cooked pasta cooling into one big lump. Chop 100g cucumber, shred 100g lettuce, add 100g raisins or sultanas, add the chicken, toss it all well through the pasta. Add 2 more tsps. of oil. Season with salt and pepper. Keep cool.

Baked Bean Hummus, carrots, pitta. Drain and rinse a can of baked beans and put beans in a bowl or food processor. Add 100ml oil, zest and juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper and as much garlic as you want. Mash or process until smooth. Serve the hummus with 800g carrots cut into sticks between you and a pitta each

Roast Parsnip and apple salad, carrot & peanut salad, jkt Follow the recipe in the link, use 400g potatoes each for the jackets, you may need two small ones each, depending on the size of the potatoes you have. Can be eaten with hot jackets if you are at home, or delicious cold and chopped  for a packed lunch.

Cheese & Salad Wraps – at a convenient time, make some wraps and store them until needed. They freeze well. Follow the recipe in the link using 320g 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 depend 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. When you come to make up your lunch time wraps, there is the following available between you – 270g cheese, 50g cucumber, 100g lettuce and an apple.

Dinners

mackerel fish cakes, salad. Follow the recipe in the link, use 2 tins mackerel fillets and 600g potatoes for the fish cakes. We don’t have a spare onion on this plan, if you have one in the cupboard, you could use it here.  Fine chop 320g celery, shred 200g lettuce, slice 150g cucumber and tip into a salad bowl. Mix a little well crushed garlic and mustard with 2 tblsps oil, add salt and pepper and whisk well. When ready to serve, dress the salad.

mixed veg dauphinoise – follow the recipe, but use the whole pot of 300ml double cream, and for the veg – saute 100g onion until soft, shred 320g cabbage, slice 50g parsnip and 360g carrots and cook until just soft. If you have boiled the veg, drain very well. Add the seasonings. Then cook as per directions.

peperonata, added veg, crispy croutons. Follow the method on the linked recipe using the 3 mixed peppers, also add 100g of tomato puree (we don’t have a 2nd tin of tomatoes) 360g of potatoes, diced, no need to peel, and a tin of baked beans that have been rinsed. When you are ready to eat, cut 4 slices of bread in half on the diagonal. Brush with oil on both sides, season. Put on a baking tray and bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. Or you can toast them. What you are aiming for is some large crispy croutons to go with the pepper stew to give a bit of added crunch.

veg crumble, use the recipe as in the link, but adjust the cheese from 100g to 80g as we don’t have quite that much available on meal plan 11

chicken and onion pie, cabbage, potato bake. Make the pie as per the recipe, leaving out the stuffing balls, unless you have some available. Add the gravy reserved on Day 1 to the filling of the pie before putting the pastry top on. Slice the potatoes into 2p coin thick slices, no need to peel, cook for 4 minutes in a covered container in the microwave or simmer in a tiny bit of water until scarcely cooked. Lay in a thin layer on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil, season with salt and pepper. Pop in the oven with the pie until you have lovely brown crispy bits on top.  Shred 280g of cabbage and stir fry with plenty of oil and some of the garlic and mustard

onion tart, stir fried cabbage & celery. Cook the tart following the recipe. Shred the cabbage and chop the celery finely. Stir fry with plenty of oil and seasoning, use some garlic and mustard if you want to

Spaghetti, Sauce, Cheese. Cook 500g spaghetti until soft. Drain well. In a separate saucepan, gently heat the pasta sauce. Stir the warm sauce through the hot pasta and mix well.  Tip into a large serving bowl and grate over 50g of cheese. Serve immediately.

Extras – Cakes & Bakes

Sultana Scones – follow the recipe in the link, use raisins if you can to get a purple portion

Tomato Scones – follow the recipe in the link. There is garlic and mustard available if you want to add any of those. There is 100g of the spread set aside to have with the scones. These savoury scones have proved to be one of the most popular recipes on the blog!

Peanut & Raisin Biscuits – follow the recipe in the link, but use 450g flour, 180g sugar and 180ml spread. Add the remaining 65g peanuts and 55g raisins. If you have any more dried fruit in the cupboard, add a couple of handfuls here. As you are usung spread instead of oil as in the recipe, you may need a little more water to make a dough. Store in an airtight container and use throughout the week as and when they are required.

Jam Cake, follow the recipe in the link using value jam (or homemade if you have any), and spread or oil instead of butter. There is enough of both so that you can choose, either will work well. You don’t need baking powder as the flour this week is self raising.

Jam Sponge – follow the recipe in the link, doubling everything and using jam instead of marmalade. Use the jam sponge as a pudding after Sunday lunch, or any other day or as a filler for hollow teenage legs at any time. It reheats beautifully in just a few seconds in the microwave.

Items not used in the plan, that can be used as snacks:

Depending on what you use on Day 6, there may be 2 pitta

Take the extra sugar, flour and oil over to next week. Or if your teenagers are starving, mix flour with a little sugar, make a thick batter with water and fry in generous amounts of oil as thick drop scone type pancakes. Like the breakfast pancakes, without the fruit. If you have any dried fruit in the cupboard, bung that in as well. These are great hollow leg fillers. They can be prepared in advance and stored in an air tight container, then they can be lightly toasted to warm them up.
If you have a few pence extra, substitute raisins at £1.29 for the sultanas at 84p. Raisins give you a purple portion, the hardest one to get. whereas sultanas are white.

Meal Plan 14 for 4 bought at Aldi
	Item	You will need	Left at the end of the week	Oct-24
	300ml double cream			£1.05
	2.27, 4 pints, litres semi skim  milk			£1.45
	2 x 350g mature cheddar, now 900g		200g, £1.08	£4.88
	6 eggs, free range			£0.99
	300g pk bacon			£2.29
	1.25 kg chicken			£3.89
	2 x 120g tins mackerel fillets			£1.58
	1kg onions			£0.80
	cucumber			£0.89
	cabbage, savoy type, 1kg			£0.75
	600g parsnips, everyday Essentials			£0.55
	2kg carrots – 1.5kg bag and 500g bag			£1.17
	celery, a head			£0.75
	Everyday Essentials potatoes, 3 x 2.5kg bags		1kg, 75p	£3.75
	2 tins Essentials baked beans			£0.56
	1 tin butter beans			£0.49
	jar Aldi pasta sauce, any flavour			£1.49
	1 tin Essentials peeled tomatoes			£0.39
	200g small tin tom puree			£0.59
	lettuce			£0.89
	1 green pepper			£0.55
	1 lemon			£0.30
	apples, pack of 6 fun size x 2		4 apples, 46p	£1.38
	500g sultanas, or raisins if you can			£1.19
	2 x 1.5kg self raising flour		340g, 17p	£1.50
	1kg value oats			£0.90
	wholemeal loaf, 20 slices, 800g loaf			£0.85
	6 wholemeal value pitta	4 pitta		£0.50
	1kg sugar	510g	310g, 34p	£1.09
	500g value spaghetti			£0.28
	500g value penne			£0.41
	200g value salted peanuts	135g		£0.54
	2 litres veg oil	1.38ml	613ml, £1.22	£3.98
	500g sunflower spread	185g		£0.95
	2 jars value jam, any flavour			£0.78
	mustard powder			£0.65
	1 fresh garlic bulb			£0.35
	Total	£41.38	£4.02	£45.40
	pppd	£1.48

If you can afford to  upgrade, get a jam with a higher fruit percentage, or you may make jam, in which case use that of course

If you want more fibre, and have the funds, swap the value penne and spaghetti to wholemeal

Dried pulses are better value than tinned, although less convenient of course. Soak and cook them and keep them portioned up in the freezer

You could save a few pence by not using free range eggs although I’d rather you stayed with the free range if you can

If you are lucky enough to have a bit of garden, you could grow some of the fruit and veg here