Meals of the Week, February 2nd to February 8th, 2025

 

Happy Sunday and welcome to my weekly Meals of the Week post. Normally at the end of each week I like to do a round-up post of the main meals that I have eaten from the seven days previous. These posts contain all of the recipes and menu suggestions. Some are recipes I have just cooked, and others are reposts of recipes that I have cooked previously. In some cases, I have eaten out at a restaurant or at a family or friend's place. In those instances, I have provided a suitable substitute recipe. 

This has been something which I have enjoyed doing and which you seem to have enjoyed me sharing.  I have always loved meal and menu planning and have been doing it since my children were small. It helped me when it came to budgeting for my weekly meal expenses and it also has helped me through the years to be more accountable and to make things interesting for those people that I am feeding.  

Most Sundays I will have Sunday dinner with my family at my sister's place. Occasionally they will come here. Normally I will eat out once with my father. That didn't happen this week, although I did have a fast-food chicken sandwich one day. 

Any time I have eaten elsewhere I have provided a "like" recipe that you can use in its place. 

When I was a child, you knew exactly what day of the week it was by what our mother was cooking for supper. Mom tended to cook the same things day in and day out, week in, week out, year after year after year.  That can sometimes get boring. We all need and can use a bit of inspiration.

Because I am now a person that lives on their own there can be a tendency for things perhaps to become repetitive and mundane when it comes to meal planning. Singletons can sometimes resort to frozen ready meals, take aways or tins and bottles.  I don't want to be that person.  I have promised myself that for as long as I am able to, I am going to cook fresh and exciting meals for myself, filled with variety and good wholesome ingredients. Meals made completely from scratch and using ingredients we can all pronounce.

Having said that I am not perfect and occasionally I will use a tin of soup or another store cupboard ingredient to create something delicious for my supper, but as a rule, I tend to make everything from scratch.

I do enjoy taking you along for the ride!  Here are my menus/recipes for the past week.  I think you will agree that it's been a really tasty week and pretty exciting. (Note this is only my main meals, lunches and breakfasts are not included.) 

SUNDAY, February 2nd - Family Dinner at my Sister's place

Most Sundays, weather permitting, I go to my sister's place for Sunday Dinner.  Thankfully I was able to get there this week and she had a Pot Roast. It's always really delicious.  This is a photograph of what our plates looked like.

Just a simple pot roast with homemade gravy, beans, carrots, and mashed potatoes.

In its place I am sharing my recipe for Dad's Pot Roast. That is the photo on top. A beautifully tender and juicy pot roast with a rich and flavor-filled onion gravy. This is always delicious. It is oven roasted with carrots, onions and turnips/swede/rutabaga. All you need to make is some mash or roasted potatoes to serve on the side.

MONDAY, February 3rd. - Big Mary Monday

On Monday at the local chicken place Mary Brown's Fried Chicken they have what is called Big Mary Monday's.  You can get one of their chicken sandwiches, The Big Mary, for only $5.  Cindy and Dan had gone there for lunch and dropped one of them off to me.  I was really pleased. They are delicious. I enjoyed that with a salad and was more than full.

In its place I am sharing my recipe for Crispy Chicken Sandwiches.  You cannot beat homemade. A crisp coated and beautifully flavored chicken breast tucked into a toasted Brioche bun along with some garlic mayo and a homemade slaw vinaigrette salad.  These are fabulously tasty! One of these would go very well with some potato chips, fries or veggie sticks on the side.

TUESDAY, February 4th - Bqked Ham with Traditional Scottish Rumbledethumps and mixed veggies

I had some lovely potatoes for mashing and a piece of cabbage which needed using and so I made myself a casserole of Traditional Scottish Rumbledethumps. This is a Scottish Potato dish made from buttery mashed potatoes, wilted cabbage and sauteed onion.  Similar to Bubble and Squeak, but quite different. It is like a cross between the Irish Colcannon and the British Bubble and Squeak.  Very delicious.  

I enjoyed this along with a slice of baked ham and some frozen mixed vegetables. It was a wonderful meal. I was also able to share some with my next door neighbor.

WEDNESDAY, February 5th - Ham Casserole with Broccoli & Rice

On Wednesday normally I will go out to supper with my father, but this week I did not. My sister and I had appointments to have mammograms, mid-afternoon, in a town about an hour away from where we live.  You know how hospital appointments go.  I knew I would not be back in time and Dad wouldn't put off the time he wanted to be there at the restaurant and so he went on his own. 

I had made this casserole on Tuesday knowing I would need something for my supper on Wednesday and knowing I wouldn't have time to cook. 

This is a delicious casserole with cubes of ham, broccoli florets and rice in a rich and cheesy creamy sauce. It actually tasted even better for having sat overnight. Funny how that goes. It is that way with a lot of things. I enjoyed a dish of this along with some salad. I had already given half of it to my next-door neighbor, and I froze the rest for another time.

THURSDAY, February 6th - Chicken and Mushroom Pie

This is a delicious puff pastry topped chicken and mushroom casserole. It makes enough for four servings so now what I do is I will make the filling up, divide it into four individual pie dishes/casseroles and top with the puff pastry. You can then freeze it as is and thaw out as and when you need them to bake on the day.  I had several of these in the freezer, so I took one out in the morning and baked it up for my supper that night.  

You have tender flavor-filled pieces of chicken and juicy button mushrooms in a deliciously creamy pale-ale gravy, topped with buttery golden brown flaky pastry.  I enjoyed with some potatoes and vegetables. 

I only have one left now so I will soon have to make more!

FRIDAY, February 7th - Winter Vegetable Soup with Cheese Dumplings

I had some ham leftover from earlier in the week, so I decided to use it up and make some of this delicious Winter Vegetable Soup with Cheese Dumplings. This is a great soup to use up some of the veggies in your fridge that need using. Cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots if you have them, stock (ham and chicken if you have them both) all simmered together until the veggies are melt in the mouth tender.  Topped with cheese dumplings.

You cannot beat a nice bowl of hot soup on a cold day and this is a wonderfully hearty and delicious offering.  I did cut the recipe in half and, again sent some next door to Sheila.  She really appreciated it.  She had a hospital procedure earlier this week and has really appreciated the meals I have shared.

SATURDAY, February 8th - Pizza and Salad

I went grocery shopping with my sister on Saturday morning and picked up all the fixings to make myself a delicious pizza for my supper. This is the School Cafeteria Pizza.  It has an easy pourable crust.  I make my own sauce from scratch and top it with my favorite Pizza toppings. That is usually dependent on what I have but as I said, I had gone shopping, so I topped it with some sausage crumbles, pepperoni, a mix of peppers, onions and plenty of cheese.

You can buy vacu-packs of pepperoni, cooked sausage, and bacon pieces at our local shops.  They come in really hand for pizzas and such.

I don't mind making a whole pizza. I usually have one piece on the day and then I save one for breakfast the next morning. (Pizza for breakfast, it is the breakfast of champions.) I then freeze the rest of it in individual pieces, tightly wrapped, so that I can just take out and heat one slice up whenever I feel like having a slice of pizza.

And there you have it, these were my meals of the week for this the first week of February.  There was nothing too extravagant and I managed to clear out my refrigerator before I went shopping, using everything up.  I call that a win!

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