Monday – Picnic tea
We eat quite a few wraps in our house…my kids love them, they have them in the morning for brekkie, either with banana and honey, or just butter and jam or peanut butter is also a firm fave! Wraps are also brilliant for picnic teas and packed lunches too in the form of quesadillas…as Maisie is dairy intolerant (i’m sure you know that by now so sorry to bang on about it!) but as we omit dairy in quite a few meals these probably aren’t strictly quesadillas as there’s no cheese but we have made sweet potato and chorizo ‘quesadillas’ and they are yummy eaten warm or cold! Perfect for picnic teas so why not try these this week?!
Simply mash some sweet potato with some dairy free butter, 1/2 tsp of cumin (optional) and salt and pepper and a small squeeze of lemon. You could throw in some fresh coriander too if making for less fussy kids! Mine although quite good eaters would probably pick the coriander out!..then add some cooked, chopped chorizo into the mash. Take a wrap and put over a medium heat in a dry saucepan and then add the filling, Fold the wrap in half and cook on the other side….mmmm! These are good!
Tuesday – Meatballs with sweet potato tagliatelle
So if you were following last week and made the Albondigas in the Spanish themed night then hopefully you’ll have lots of meatballs left over for this now quick and easy mid week meal! Just re-heat the meatballs and serve with some sweet potato tagliatelle! If you haven’t made the meatballs/Albondigas then click the link and the recipe is there for you! Weekly Food Planner – Week 12
Wednesday – Salmon traybake
Traybakes are such an easy way to use up veg you have in the fridge! To this salmon I added broccoli, courgettes, spring onion, lemon, whole garlic cloves and tomatoes and then for the last 5 mins I added some leftover cooked peas to warm through. This only needs around 15/20 mins at 180. So easy and quick. Perfect mid week meal.
Thursday – Turkey Lasagne with courgette layers
I used turkey thigh mince for this version so swap out your traditional mince beef for turkey, fry off some onion and garlic, then add the turkey mince and brown, next add a can of tinned tomatoes, 1 tbsp of tomato puree, some mixed herbs, stock cube, splash of wine and simmer.
Meanwhile make the white sauce..I made two versions one dairy free and the other the more traditional white sauce (Butter, Flour and milk) So for Maisie who is dairy intolerant I used Sunflower butter, flour and then oat milk.
Once the meat is cooked through and the sauce made start layering the lasagne. Start with the meat sauce at the bottom, then add a layer of courgettes, then the white sauce and then repeat. Top with some grated cheese and put into the oven for 30-35 mins at 180.
We had totally clean plates and seconds from Alfie!
Friday – Chicken Chorizo and chickpea casserole
Saturday – Veggie bean burgers or Falafels.
My daughter absolutely loved these. They were just on the side cooling when Maisie came from school and she grabbed one and devoured it as a post school snack! She then had another one for her tea as planned! These are also really good to pop into lunchboxes so although they require a little love to make them if you make lots then you can have them for lunches etc during the week. I chopped some up and put into a salad as well! yum!
I followed the recipe in this link: Veggie Bean Burgers
I used a can of kidney beans and a can of chickpeas. The mixture was slightly too runny so I added some wholewheat flour to this as well which helped to combine them and made handling them a lot easier. I then used sesame seeds to coat and then popped into the oven.
Sunday – Cajun Spatchcock BBQ chicken
Spatchcocking a chicken is actually a fairly simple procedure but you can also ask your butcher to spatchcock for you…You simply need to turn the chicken over so it’s breast side down and then find the backbone. Cut down on side with some good kitchen scissors and then cut down the other side and then remove., Turn the chicken the other way and then push down onto the breast bone with the palm of your hand so that it breaks and the chicken lies flat. Done! You can use the discarded backbone to make chicken stock at a later date, it will freeze for a while…If you’re still in doubt do a quick google for spatchcocking a chicken and there are a ton of videos there which shows you how simple this is!
So once you’ve spatchcocked your chicken you can choose your marinade. The one above was made with cajun spice, paprika, olive oil, crushed garlic cloves and juice of a lemon. I then brushed the chicken and then covered and kept in the fridge for a couple of hours before bbq’ing. Cook breast side down for 15 mins then turn and cook for 30 mins on the other side…check that it’s cooked through and that the juices run clear when you cut through!
Serve this with these yummy bbq’d courgette strips. Marinade the raw strips in lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and some paprika. Then BBQ for a couple of minutes on each side then garnish with some chopped fresh mint and some roasted pine nuts.
Hope to see you back here next week!! xx
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