This is a special Meal Plan as it is for Christmas week, so is stuffed full of Christmas flavours. Priced using my Asda.com in November 2023
Special tho it is, as for all the others, it shows 3 meals a day, plus some cakey extras to fill any gaps, for 7 days, for 2 adults. The same caveat applies, as usual, to 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 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 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. I have shown which is which in the tables below.
I will be posting any recipes in the next week
| Christmas Week | |||
| Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | |
| 22nd | cinnamon toast | mixed veg soup, wrap or crusty roll | 2 egg omelette and chips |
| 23rd | dried fruit and cinnamon pancakes | mixed veg soup, wrap or crusty roll | HM pasta, cream, mixed veg, mustard |
| Christmas Eve | scrambled eggs on toast, 2 eggs and 2 slices toast each | stilton jkts, clementine and yog | other half of steamed pud |
| Christmas Day | clementine pancakes | pork, stuffing, roasties, red cabbage, parsnips, 1/2 of dried fruit steamed pud, cream | pork in crusty roll, stuffing, mustard, mince pie |
| Boxing Day | dripping toast, or porky pancakes | parsnip soup, scone, mince pie | stilton quiche, red cabbage coleslaw |
| 27th | cinnamon toast, clementine | stilton quiche, red cabbage coleslaw | pork wraps, stuffing, mustard + yog |
| 28th | dried fruit and cinnamon pancakes | pork in crusty roll, stuffing, mustard, mince pie | gnocchi, pork bits, stuffing |
| Cakes & Bakes | Fruit scones with cinnamon | Cinnamon muffins | |
On the first day of your Christmas week, mix 800g flour with half tsp salt, 1 sachet yeast and enough cold water to make a dough. No need to knead it at all. Just cover well and place in the fridge.
22nd & 23rd
Mixed veg soup with wrap or crusty roll
Simmer 400g mixed veg in 750 ml boiling water for 15 minutes. Take some of the veg out, whizz the rest, add the other veg back in and season well with s+p. Serve half of the soup in both 22nd and 23rd.
While the soup is simmering, make a roll or wrap each. If you are following the meal plan, you will have some bread dough in the fridge. If you haven’t any dough in the fridge, mix 500g any flour with a sachet of yeast and enough cold water to make a loose’ish dough. Cover well and put in the fridge for several hours. This dough can be safely left for 10 days without doing anything at all to it. Just take some out of the fridge when you want to use it. If you want to make fresh bread at a moments notice, when you use some, just top it up with more flour and water, no need for more yeast, and you will never need to knead it either.
To make crusty rolls. 35 minutes before you want to eat, pre-heat the oven to 220C, Gas Mark 8. Take the bread dough out of the fridge and remove a quarter of the mix. Divide the dough into two portions, 100g each is a nice big roll. There is no need to knead this dough, the long time in the fridge allows the gluten to develop. Shape into rolls, tucking the bottoms around and around with the sides of your hands to make a tight roll. Place on a baking sheet. Spray the inside of the oven with a little water, or put a baking tin with a little boiling water in the bottom of the oven. Once the oven has heated, bake the rolls for 20-30 minutes until dark brown, crusty and sounding hollow when you rap the bottom.
You can use exactly the same mixture to make wraps instead of rolls. If you want wraps, using 100g mix per wrap, roll out the very springy dough to the size of a dinner plate, about the thickness of a 2 credit cards, you will probably need to dust the work surface with a little flour. Pre-heat a frying pan or griddle, don’t oil it, turn the heat to medium. The pan shouldn’t be smoking hot, just hot. Now slap the wrap on the hot surface and wait a couple of minutes, peeking at the bottom of the wrap until it has brown splotches on it. Flip over and repeat. Put the wrap on a plate and cover immediately with a clean tea towel. The steam trapped under the tea towel will ensure the wrap stays soft. Now repeat for the 2nd wrap.
You could make the rolls or wraps for all days in one go if you want to, keeping them covered, somewhere cool. If you can, either the rolls or the wraps do taste much nicer freshly made, but I know this isn’t always practical.
23rd, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, 27th, 28th. Make crusty rolls as above
On one of the days, there is enough bread from the loaf to use 2 slices of that each instead if you want to.
22nd and 27th. Make the toast using the spread and Muscovado sugar for a deep and nutty flavour. On the 27th, serve with a clementine each
22nd For the chips, use 300g potatoes each. You can peel them or not, up to you. If not peeled, wash well. Cut into chip shapes. Toss with 1 tblsp melted Best For Baking spread, s+p and bake in a hot oven for about half an hour. If you have any, you could include some tandoori spice mix when you toss them, some ground coriander, cumin and turmeric, or just lots of ground pepper.
23rd, 28th. Using 100g flour per person, make pancakes as shown in the link. You can make flat crepe type ones, or thicker American type ones. Use the mixed dried fruit instead of raisins.
26th. Either make 2 slices toast each using some dripping left from the joint, with perhaps a sprinkle of salt on top, or use a few scraps of pork, crisp them in a frying pan, and serve with some plain pancakes.
Parsnip Soup
240g parsnips, 750ml boiling water
Put the parsnips and boiling water in a pan and simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the parsnips are soft. Season well with salt and pepper. Whizz smooth, or leave a few lumps in there if you like a bit more texture.
While that is happening, make some
Plain Scones
135g self raising flour
50g Best for Baking
Put the flour in a bowl. Add the spread and rub in until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add just enough water to bind the mixture into a soft dough.
Turn out onto the worktop and pat gently to a square shape about 2cm thick. At this point you can either cut the scones into more little ones, or fewer big ones. Just cut down the middle and slice up each half into whatever size you prefer.
Whichever you do, place your scones on a greased baking tray and bake at 220C/200C fan/gas 7 for 12 minutes for diddy ones and 20 minutes for larger ones.
You could brush them with milk and sprinkle crunchy salt flakes on top if you have any, or grind some pepper over
Too, too moreish warm from the oven. When I made some Tomato Scones, I suggested some different alternative flavourings that you might like if you have any of the ingredients to do it with.
Put the hot soup into 2 bowls, and serve with a scone or 2 each. Follow with a mince pie
There should be a scone or two left, so have that/those whenever you want to
Fruit scones, follow the method in the link. Use the dried mixed fruit and Muscovado sugar. Melt the Best for Baking and add just enough water to make a dough, you may not need any more liquid. Add some cinnamon if you want the flavour of it. Use about a 1.5 tsps.
Cinnamon muffins, follow the method in the link. Using 255g flour, 100g Best forBaking, 85g Muscovado sugar and 20g cream. The cream is because we don’t have any milk in this plan. Add 1.5 tsps cinnamon.
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.
Shopping list. Priced using my Asda.com in November 2023
| left at the end of the week, or spare to use to fill up with | |||
| Asda | 680g pk Chosen By You frozen parsnips | £1.25 | |
| 1kg pk frozen mixed vegetables | £0.85 | ||
| Just Essentials 15 mixed weight eggs | £1.99 | 2.5 eggs, 33p | |
| Deli selection, 200g blue stilton | £2.50 | ||
| Just Essentials natural yoghurt, 500g | £0.35 | 100g, 7p | |
| fresh double cream, 300ml | £1.15 | ||
| Best for Baking spread, 500g | £1.34 | 35g, 9p | |
| Just Essentials mixed dried fruit, 500g | £1.25 | ||
| red cabbage, 1kg | £1.00 | 500g, 50p | |
| white potatoes, 2.5kg | £1.85 | 400g, 30p | |
| clementines, 700g | £1.29 | 1 clementine, 18p | |
| value s.r. flour, 2 x1.5kg | £0.75 | 430g, 21p | |
| Billingtons Muscovado sugar, 500g | £2.00 | 225g, 90p | |
| SP stuffing 85g | £0.30 | ||
| value loaf | £0.45 | ||
| Chosen by You Mince Pies, 6 | £1.25 | ||
| Butchers Selection British Pork Shoulder Roast,1.6kg | £6.00 | 600g pork, but this depends what it weighs once cooked £2.25 | |
| English mustard | £0.70 | about half the pot, 35p | |
| TRS cinnamon 100g | £0.80 | at least half the pk, 40p | |
| pk of 2 sachets yeast | £0.45 | 1 sachet, 22p | |
| Total | £27.52 | £5.80 in leftovers |
You will need £27.52 at the checkout, although the food eaten during the week comes to £21.72, or £1.55 per person, per day, so still very inexpensive – amazing! Having said that, it isn’t exact, as it depends how much pork meat you actually have after it’s been cooked.
This weeks menu plan would work well at any time throughout December, and maybe, if you felt like it, through January too. Or alternatively, use it when the price of the pork joint is right, and use a different cake treat instead of the mince pies. The Stilton may not be available at that price outside of the Christmas period, but you could substitute a bit of mature cheddar or even the £1 Brie that can be got at supermarkets for the 2 recipes that use cheese.
Nutrition
| If you eat everything on this plan, including all the spare items, and nothing else, you will have:- | ||
| 2000 plus 2500 calories per day | ||
| 14.5% protein, 32.6% fat, 52.6% carbs, 12g 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 6.5 portions of red, 10.5 orange, 0 green, 12.5 purple and 15.5 white. This gives a total of almost 6.5 portions of fruit and veg a day, per person | ||
| I have counted the mixed veg as orange, and the mixed dried fruit as purple | ||