The Eighth Meal Plan. As I say every time, it shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults. 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.

This week, you need £23.38 at the checkout and there are no leftovers this time. This is £1.67 per person, per day. The plan has been priced at Asda at the end of  April 2024.

You and the 2nd person 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 freezable, 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.

Weekly Meal Plan Eight

	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
day 1	porridge	lentils, chilli & coconut with oriental salad	chicken casserole with dumplings
day 2	peanut butter & coconut pancakes with sweet chilli	ind pie of lentils, onion, bean sprouts, cabbage and coconut	stir fry with noodles
day 3	cabbage pancakes, chilli sauce	lentil & veg salad with soy	chicken casserole with dumplings
day 4	porridge	ind pie of lentils, onion, bean sprouts, cabbage and coconut	stir fry with noodles
day 5	peanut butter & coconut pancakes with sweet chilli	chicken noodle soup	chicken with coconut & peanut butter sauce
day 6	cabbage pancakes, chilli sauce	lentil & veg salad with soy	oaty fritters, roast veg, chilli & yogort
day 7	porridge	chicken noodle soup	chicken with coconut & peanut butter sauce
Cakes & Bakes
coconut biscuits, plain scones , Bannocks with roasted veg hoummous

Priced at Asda 28th April 2024	no leftovers this week	Apr-24
Asda Bean sprouts, 360g – 200g * 2		£1.00
Carrots, 2kg		£1.30
SP onions, 2kg		£1.98
White cabbage		£0.80
SP natural yoghurt 500g		£1.10
Just Essentials whole chicken, 1.5g		£3.93
SP peanut butter 340g		£0.99
Asda dark soy sauce 150ml		£0.59
Asda sweet chilli sauce		£2.15
KTC creamed coconut, 200g		£1.00
rapeseed oil, 1 litre		£1.85
TRS brown lentils, 500g		£1.50
Asda dried medium egg noodles, 500g		£2.30
porridge, 1kg		£0.90
flour, 1.5kg		£0.80
sugar, 1kg		£1.19
Total		£23.38
£1.67 per person, per day
Nutrition
2000 plus 2500 calories per day
10% protein, 42% fat, 48% carbs, 23g fibre pppd
Govt. recommendations 10-35% protein, 20-35% fat, 45-65% carb, 25g fibre pppd
Current recommendations have moved from 5 a Day for fruit & veg, to 7 a Day.
This plan has, per person, a total of 0 portions of red, 12.5 orange, 19 green, 0 purple and 21.5 white. This gives a total of  7.5 portions of fruit and veg a day, per person

 

The packs of bean sprouts were 360g. We now need to buy 2 packs. but they are 200g each, so use up the excess 40g in the stir fries

The link to the scones recipe is a raisin one, we don’t have any raisins in this plan, so just leave those out. Or if you have any in the cupboard, and want to use them, do, of course, feel free.

Use 60g oats per person when it is porridge for breakfast with up to 30g sugar each if you want it.

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 and the 2nd person you are feeding don’t need this many calories, healthwise, these would be the best things to leave out.

Prep for the week

• All the cakes and bakes can be made in advance and stored until needed. Freeze the scones as they stale quickly
• The pie on days 2 and 4 can be made several days in advance
• It will make your week easier if you cook all the lentils at once and weigh them out as and when you need them. The evening before you start, put them all in a big saucepan and cover them with water. Don’t add salt at this point, it will toughen the lentil skins. The next day, bring them to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes, until tender. Not too long, mushy lentils are pretty yuck.
• At the same time as the lentils are soaking, pop the whole chicken in a big pot or slow cooker, cover with COLD water and poach  Bring the water to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes. DO NOT BOIL. Boiling will toughen the chicken meat and make it dry. Turn the chicken over and simmer gently for a further 12 minutes. Turn the heat off, put the lid on the pot and leave the chicken in the hot liquid to go cold. The chicken will finish cooking in this time. Remove the chicken from the liquor.Don’t want to wait for the cooking liquid to go cold? Continue simmering, very gently, for a total of about an hour. Test for doneness by poking a sharp knife in the thigh and check if the juices run clear. Or if you have a thermometer, the chicken will be done when the temperature in the breast or thigh reaches 175F / 80C.
• Not too much water, we don’t want that lovely stock to be watery, you can always add more water when you use it. You will now have a lovely stock for the soup. Once the chicken has cooled down, pick every scrap of meat off and refrigerate until needed. If you are doing the plan in warm weather, you may need to freeze the meat and lentils remaining half way through the week, taking out what you need on the successive days.

What will freeze

• The pies will freeze well, yes, even those delicate little bean sprouts
• Soups always freeze well
• The scones

 

You can swap the green lentils for pearl barley, chickpeas, chana dahl, green or yellow split peas. Any of them would work in any of the recipes this week.