Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

A question about : Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

well, good morning and welcome to batch cooking day

this is the day before our lovely brave testers will begin cooking like Bob and Shirley for a month-eeeek

if it would help and people would find it useful, please feel free to post your 'do list' and have the satisfaction of ticking them off

storage: Can I recommend that people take your potatoes and onions out of the plastic packaging and put them in a cardboard box, as this will stop them going slimy. Ideally if you can put them somewhere dark and close the lid of the box that is ideal

Best answers:

• Space for us to address the following questions:
  what this month planner is: Our aim was to provide a healthy and very cheap meal planner for an average UK family. We have aimed for 80p per person per day. We have followed the government recommended targets for fruit and vegetables (our planner exceeds this ) omega 3 and has an appropriate percentage/ratio of fats/carbs and protein. We have also looked at calcium and dietary fibre and these are well within the guideline daily amounts.
  Saturated fat, salt and sugar are below the amounts which are said to become unhealthy in a person's diet, and all are approximately half of the amounts consumed in the average UK household. (Defra food survey, 1942-2000 data)
  Trans fats are virtually non-existant in this plan (less than 0.001%) and are eradicated if you rinse your raisins in warm water
  
  what it isn't: This is not intended to be luxury eating, it is a subsistence planner and will save people a great deal of money. We felt that to do this, the average family needed to eat a relatively normal diet, but did not need lots of luxuries. We are not saying that this is the most super healthy plan ever, with more vitamins than you could possibly require, but we are confident that it is more healthy than the average family in the UK is currently eating. As a subsistence planner, we feel this is good enough, and further healthy additions would reduce the planner's effectiveness in helping people to reduce debt/get out of financial hardship.
  
  why we are testing it: This testing phase is to help us to see how real families cope with the challenge of trying the planner out, what hurdles they face and how it fits into a working week. We will also be looking at how our testers feel health and motivation-wise as they try out the food.
• recipes list
  essential list for testers
  shopping list, broken down by kezlou into weeks-work in progress, we'd value your feedback!
  
• I thought it might be good if the testers briefly introduced themselves, to say who is participating?
  Like who you are (just MSE username I mean!), how many of you are doing the month, any special dietary needs, any things on the list you are not going to be trying/making, anything you're nervous about and the 64 billion dollar question, what made you decide to try the month 1 planner?
  xxx
• Hi,
  My name is Frankie and I'm a Frugal Meal Plan Tester
  My family consists of 2 adults and 4 children, but I'm missing a child this week and my DH has a tendency to work away so I will be cooking for 6 when I can freeze the meal I've made, otherwise it will be for whoever is here.
  I've decided to give this a go because we've been pretty skint in the past and I just had to try my best on my own. I think having a resource that people can come to is a great idea and I think weezl has done great work on it so if I can support her by 'road testing' her plan....I think it's the least I can do
• Good Luck to all
  I hope it all goes well for everyone
• if people did soak that 140g dry weight chickpeas when their order came (I think I posted it on saturday?) now is the time to pop the kettle on to rapidly boil them before simmering
• no- kneed bread recipe updated it's in the usual place now, arty, can you link to it, it's called 'bread of heaven'
• weezl I would find it helpful to know what main meals can be frozen.
  On the bread front, I've worked out that at 5 slices a day, I would need to make 14 loaves a week...I think I'll see how it goes before I committ to that today!
• frankie, have you got a grill section above your oven?
• weezl my grill is in my oven
• Thanks for the freezing info, that's really helpful.
  My DH puts the bread on the hob to rise, so I will probably do that.
  Is there a method somewhere for the pizzas? Anything with dough involved is a bit of a weak area for me
• Whenever you get around to it is fine. I'm not sure if I'll get around to it today, but didn't want to be searching around for one on Saturday.
• I have decided to do my To-Do lists in OneNote. I don't know if anyone else has/uses that but thought I'd mention it in case it's helpful.
  So far my list looks like this:
  • Bread
  8 loaves
  • Tangy bean pate
  2 batches
  • Houmous
  2 batches
  • Nut butter
  2 batches
  • Pastry for tart
  For freezer
  • Pastry for pie
  For freezer
  • Slow cook chicken
  Portion out for pie and freeze
  • Carrot cake
  1 batch
  • Savoury bites
  1 batch
  • Oat biscuits?
  • Soak peas
  Portion out and freeze
  • Make up sandwiches
  For freezer
  Monday is already the day I set aside for cleaning and cooking, though not usually to this extent, so I'm just working on this weeks food.
• weezl Just a couple of other questions, if you don't mind...
  Do the cheese balls need to be made and eaten straight away or can they be stored?
  Do you think if I made the oaty biscuits today, they would still be ok for Sunday?
  How long do you think the savoury bites would stay fresh?
  Is there a list somewhere of the other cakes/snacks?