Meal Planning Monday!!!

Yeay! It's a whole new month and a whole new load of meals!
I actually plan month by month, so I sat on Saturday and planned 4 weeks worth of meals. We tend to eat a lot of the same or similar meals each week, so that's not as hard as it sounds.
This month we celebrate Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Sheep, which is ironic as I can't actually remember the last time we ate lamb. It really is the most expensive meat, probably because with the best will in the world you can't intensively rear sheep! However, in an homage to chinese food I am trying out recipes from this book, Gok Cooks Chinese.

I've read through the book and picked one or two recipes to try each week. If they're good, I'll be adding them to the regular repertoire. If they're not, well, I'll try again. The Gok recipes are marked below, complete with page number to aid my memory.
So, to business. Would you like to know what's cooking chez AngelJem this week? Yes?Here it is then.

Monday; Chilli Beef Noodles. Basically, this is a fast mince dish, with fried chilli powder and mince added to stir fried spring onions or leeks and broccoli with quick cook egg noodles. Served with a generous splash of soy sauce, it's easy and edible in 10 minutes.
Tuesday;  Beef stew. The problem I have with beef stew is that the Lads don't like scouse style stew, with the potatoes mixed in, whereas Princess and I do. Do I cook how I know they will like it (and eat it) or do I cook to suit myself on the grounds that the chef gets to decide what we eat and if you don't like it.... well, you know where the kitchen is.
Wednesday; Breakfast at night; is there anything more delicious than eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, hash browns, mushrooms, brown sauce, fried bread and black pudding with a few pieces of buttered bread served as the last bars of the Pointless music fade into the background? No? I thought not.
Thursday; Turkey pie. I still have a bag of shredded Christmas turkey in the freezer. On Thursday I shall make a white (ish) sauce, probably with mushrooms in, and either give it a savoury crumble topping or a mashed potato topping. Or, if I'm really energetic and enthusiastic I'll make a simple pastry topping. I have naturally cold hands, so I'm good at pastry.
Friday;  A meal for the children. haven't decided yet. For our romantic, lovey dovey candle lit dinner we are having Garlic Chicken (page 42 in Gok's book) with rice or noodles. I might just put chopsticks out first, for fun. I can use them well, Mr AJ.... well, no. Not at all!
Saturday; An adventurous day. Mr AJ and I are going out for a meal together with some friends and the (granted) teenage children are fending for themselves. Okay, that sounds daring, but don't get excited. It is entirely possible that I will end up cooking pizza for them before I go out.
Sunday; Roast duck dinner. Again, a piece of meat from Christmas sat in my freezer. I shall defrost it on Friday and serve it on Sunday with red cabbage and mini roast potatoes (or Nigella's roastinis which are just pan fried gnocchi! The quickest and easiest way to roast potato heaven, really!)


And a reminder; today is 2nd February, Candlemas Day in the Christian calendar. Go look at the weather; The old English saying is "If Candlemas be fair and bright, Come, Winter, have another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rains, Go, Winter and come not again." Apparently they used to have a sort of 'Groundhog Day' with hedgehogs........


I bet if it were hedgehogs, the man wouldn't be holding him quite so tightly!