bang bang

Today the building work starts properly as in the professionals are starting to do their stuff. I know it will mean a few weeks of a lot of noise, but it will be so worth it. I already have a few ideas of how I want to decorate, but that will have to wait. I’ve been busy around the house, painting our dining furniture, it was looking old and tatty so I decided to paint it cream & recover the cushion pads.
A quick shot of before and after on a chair. I think they look much nicer now. Cleaner, fresher and smarter.

Meal plans for the week were done. I forgot all about meal planning Monday, probably for us it is meal planning Friday, as we shop on Saturday. We are trying to budget better when it comes to food (building work is not cheap). So minimising waste & eating less meat are our main priorities right now. This weeks meals were/are.
Monday – Leftover chicken fajitas.

Tuesday – Kedgeree – I ended up with fishfingers as I discovered I do not like smoked haddock (too salty
Wednesday – Bottom of the fridge frittata (using up all the veg hanging around)
Thursday – Cajun pork, sweet potato wedges, salad.
Friday – Fish, chips and baked beans.
I’ve not done the plans for next week, but they will include more pulses, more cheap cuts and more fish. If I lose a few lbs with the healthier eating then that will be a real bonus.

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The work so far

So we bought another old house, an old house with damp, we knew about the damp so budgeted for the work.

This is after I ripped out the carpet, only to discover a layer of vinyl tiles, You can see some of the damp on the wall,

This is what lurked under the plasterboard. As you can see they did try and put the right stuff on, but they did not quite get it right as they did not take it to the tops of the walls and the pegs they hammered it onto the walls with had no seals, so damp could easily travel up the pegs. *rolls eyes*

So now we have hired a builder to come and finish ripping everything out (we filled a skip already) and then put it all right again. I am really looking forward to it being done and us being able to make full use of this house.

Back with a bang – Meal planning Monday

Meat free week and support your butcher week, hmmm this is a dilemma. I’m going with a bit of both. We do want to cut down meat consumption, but I can not at the moment imagine us being a completely vegetarian house. This week we have a night out! rare for us, especially on a school night, it is only drinks with our new neighbours (wibble) but it will be good to get to know them. A bit of a hastily put together plan this week as we are still not fully settled into this place.

Monday – Halloumi ‘burgers’ in black onion seed buns (salad, salsa & chipotle mayo) oven baked sweet potato fries and a warm sweetcorn and courgette salad.

Tuesday – Fishfingers, chips and beans <this is our night out, so a very quick supper needed.

Wednesday –  Mutter paneer, rice, aloo sag, poppadoms, kachumber, raita & pickles

Thursday –  Pork Ballotine, bolangere potatoes & green veggies

Friday – Coq au vin, creamy mash, garlic green beans.

Saturday –  Kedgeree

Sunday –  Might try out the local for carvery, if not then roast dinner – probably chicken or pork.

 

I know this blog is a bit sparse on content right now, but I am hoping to make more interesting posts than just meal plans. I need to get back into the swing of things and get my kitchen workable for photography. I’m going to blog all our old favourites and all the new dishes, so this will become a recipe book for family and friends to turn to when they just have to make ‘that’ amazing dish they had for dinner at Sandi’s house, I say this very much tongue in cheek, but it would be nicce to know people have tried my recipes and liked them.