March 23rd 2015 - Try something new for tea

March 23rd 2015 - Try something new for tea

As part of the family meal planner I made back in January (that has been altered/updated twice since as found other meals we had forgot about) there is a "try something new for tea".  For this I decided we would try a recipe I had pinned on pinterest for Honey & BBQ shredded chicken.

It sounds really nice and hopefully the kids will like it.  The only thing we have not included is the Italian dressing it says as when I looked at it in shop it looked really horrible and the ingredients had things in I don't eat, so fingers crossed it works and is liked.  It smells nice so far.

The recipe says to use 3 pieces of chicken breast but mine are just big enough for a mouse so i've added about 8 bits to the slow cooker.

I will update later with pics and the verdict of tea.

UPDATE

Well it was cooked alot earlier than the time stated so we had tea at 4pm instead of 5:30pm.  There was mixed reviews on it.  I personally thought it was really nice and so did 2 of the boys, they just couldn't eat all I gave them and there was loads of chicken left so we don't need as many pieces of chicken as I thought we would.  Hubby liked it loose on plate but not in the bread roll as it altered the taste and lil man said he didn't like taste BUT he has come home from  school not well and complaining of ear ache and is off to docs soon.

We will try it again another day but I think would work nicely as an extra for a bbq!  Overall I would say thumbs up for it.

The shredded chicken in the honey & bbq sauce

January 8th 2015 - Monthly meal planner

January 8th 2015 - monthly meal planner

Since the begining of December 2014 when money was abit tight we have sat down and worked out meals for that week, and bought the things we needed only (plus the odd snack type bits for lunch times and weekends, health n beauty bits, fruit, cereal  etc) and we have saved LOADS of money compaired to when we just went and bought "stuff" or "everything".  WHY I haven't done this sooner I never know!!!

Well I decided if we can do it for a week can we work out a plan of food for the whole month?  The answer is simply yes!  I sat and made a list of all the meals we eat/cook regularly and it came to 33, now I know my maths isn't great BUT I do know that no month has this many days in it, so i'm already onto a winner.

The hardest part was actually working out what to put on what day and what week, so that we didn't have all chicken in 1 week or on consecutive days (if possible) but as chicken is the main meat we eat this wasn't a totally easy task. But I managed it.

Then there was a harder task of working out what we needed for each meal so as to compose a shopping list.  So I worked my way through each of the meals from list 1 noting down what we needed for each 1, and things that were used in multiple meals I changed the font colour to red.

Even though we have the planner things may change on it if my knee is playing up and I can't stand to cook, or if we are ill or not at home or decide to have a take-away.  But by doing it and saving money we will have extra money to be able to get a take-away every now and then.


I found the idea of the monthly meal planner here on pinterest, so used this for todays task.  It doesn't seem possible that I have done over a week already.