It has been a really quiet week for us in the Yorkshire Dales with no real plans to get out and about. The weather has been very mixed and very wet at times but we have made the most of any dry weather window to get out for a walk. We have really enjoyed the slower pace of life only leaving the village twice all week!
A week of home cooking and healthy eating
In our continued quest to keep to an early retirement budget we had fun this week researching and planning a series of cheap but healthy meals. Knowing we would be at home all week, we sat down on Saturday night and looked through recipe books and online for different ideas and created a menu and a shopping list.
We find we can shop really economically if we stick to the list and pre-plan all our meals, including breakfasts and lunches. We also find that we tend to stick to the same few meals which gets quite boring and repetitive. Feeling adventurous and inspired, we have had so much fun creating the new dishes .
We try to stick to around £100 on our weekly supermarket shop and we came in on budget whilst eating like royalty! We shopped for 6 days as it was Richards birthday was on Saturday and he wanted an Indian takeaway with the family as his treat!
To give you an idea of what we ate I have listed our main meals below with costs:
Sunday - Roast lamb with sweet potatoes, cabbage, beans and carrots and a bottle of Rose wine. Apricot crumble and ice cream pudding - £18
Monday - Moroccan lamb filo pastry parcels using left over lamb, cous cous and feta cheese with a side salad. Filo pastry apple and mince-meat tarts with ice cream - £6
Tuesday - Cottage pie made with sweet potato and cauliflower mash with a side of green beans. £6 (also did 2 meals for lunch the next day)
Wednesday - Sausages baked with swede, red onion and apple coated in maple syrup - sounds strange but was delicious ! served with steamed baby sweetcorn - £4
Thursday - Stuffed pasta bake. We roasted off cherry tomatoes, onions, a yellow pepper and garlic in the oven to make a sauce then layered it with butternut squash stuffed pasta, mozzarella cheese and grated parmesan. Baked it like a lasagna, it was delicious. £4.50
Friday - Honey mustard chicken thighs, new potatoes and spring veg tray bake. £5.50
For our lunches we bought a small gammon joint to have cold meat and salads for a few days and even treated ourselves to a fish finger butty.
Breakfasts were a combination of either porridge with fresh blueberries, raisins and nuts, bacon and eggs or fruit and yoghurt.
Sticking to the country lanes
One of my New Years goals is to do 300,000 steps per calendar month. I like setting myself little challenges and this one is great because it does make me think about getting out into the outdoors, even when I am not feeling very motivated. There have been several days in February where we have just not been able to get out at all! So this week, whenever we spotted a small dry weather window we have got out for a walk.
We tried going down one of our favourite country paths, but had to turn back after the mud and puddles were more than ankle deep on my wellies! So we have stuck to the very quiet country lanes where we live, avoiding all the boggy fields. I am now back on track to achieve my target as long as we can get out every day next week, February is not helping us as it has less days!!
The stormy skies, and soft light has made for some great photo's.
Birthday celebrations and family get togethers
We spent the weekend down in Cheshire with our family for Richard's birthday. He was in his element with a birthday treat of a curry takeaway from his favourite restaurant! We had such a great time just chilling and chatting. Somehow (probably due to the few glasses of wine we had!) we decided to get out Mums old photo albums. Luke and Charlotte found this hilarious - there are some real corkers! We also found loads of our wedding photos that we didn't even know existed, a real trip down memory lane.
Before heading back home to the Dales, we went for a long walk with our son and girlfriend at Tatton Park which is in Knutsford. It is a lovely old country estate with huge walled grounds that is home to hundreds of deer.
It's back to another Sunday night and we have reflected how grateful we are that it is the last Sunday of the February half term and we are not having to prepare to go back to school. Even after 18 months, we still sometimes find ourselves relating to time in units of school terms, I wonder at what point that will fade?
Have a great week
Jackie and Richard
Some great ideas in your week of menus - thanks
Ann