Meal planner week beginning May 20th & beanbag giveaway!

Here’s a week’s worth of meal ideas for busy working family cooks in my handy meal planner for the week ahead.

***Here for the beanbag giveaway? Scroll on down!!!***

I may not have blogged properly in months, but if you follow me on instagram and facebook you’ll know that I’ve still been faithfully meal planning my way through these past six months since I started my new full time job with Children North East. Seriously it’s one of the best things I do to keep things descending into mayhem. There’s really nothing finer than coming in from work and having all the ingredients in and knowing what we’re going to have for tea.

It might take an hour out of my weekend to plan the meals and do the online shopping, but it really is worth doing. I tend to leave the weekends free of planned meals so we can be a bit more spontaneous and just come and go as we please.

More Meal Planning Tips

So what are we eating this week?

• Chicken Escalopes with Minted New Potatoes and Greens – Mary Berry Recipe
• Frittata with Salad – recipe
• Tofu & Egg Fried Rice – recipe
• Sloppy Joe Stuffed Peppers – Pinch of Nom Recipe
• Herb Crusted Salmon & Sweet Potato Fries – recipe

After pigging out quite a lot, I’m hoping this lighter menu might give us a bit more energy this week rather than ramming ourselves with comfort food like we have been doing.

Mary Berry comes up trumps

I’ve spent a good few weeks road testing Mary Berry’s latest recipe book, Quick Cooking from her latest BBC TV series. I have to confess I’ve not watched any of it, but I can say that I’ve cooked a lot of the recipes and they are DELICIOUS. Like properly gorgeous.

We’ve had:

• Tagliatelle with Mushrooms & Stilton
• Romano Pepper and Herb Penne
• Glazed Coriander Chilli Chicken
• Chicken Escalopes with Crispy Bacon

And then last night I made a puff pastry version of the Chicken & Mushroom Pie. Oh my flipping goodness, it was unbelievable. The sauce has got Marsala wine in, so it has that divine richness that makes it feel really indulgent and luxurious.  I wasn’t sure if I could be bothered to make a pie from scratch on a Friday night, but I just cranked up the tunes in the kitchen, poured a glass of wine and just enjoyed the process.

If you feel like you need a new book to change up your meals, or you like cooking for other people, this is a great place to start because it’ll impress anyone you might be cooking for. Mary knows all about her flavours and how to make something just that extra bit special.

Pinch of Nom

I’ve also got the much-talked-about Pinch of Nom cookbook which I’ve been looking at too. The Honey Chilli Chicken is my favourite thing so far, and this week we’ll be trying the Sloppy Joe stuffed peppers, but using veggie mince instead of meat.

Have any of you tried the recipes out of it yet? I’m trying to work the Slimming World way of eating back into my life in a more disciplined way, so this is a useful place to start.

Giveaway!

And to finish off I’ve got a little giveaway for you. I’ve been sent this beautiful Arctic Wolf Faux Fur beanbag from BeanBagBazaar that you can see Pixie modelling above.

I love supporting local businesses so I was delighted to hear about this Northumberland based company who design, make and sell bean bags for grownups and children. Ahem. I’m aware that the dog is on ours… but if you’re not quick in this house, that’s just what happens!

It’s beautifully soft, and while some faux fur can look a bit naff and fake, I think you can see from the picture that this is pretty convincing. It’s well filled and looks like it will withstand the boys and dogs chilling out in the TV room!

Would you like to win one? Well, here’s your chance.

The Prize

ICON™ Kenai Faux Fur Bean Bag, Arctic Wolf

Luxury Faux Fur Fabric

Soft Faux Suede Bottom

Worth £89.99

Dimensions: H 70cm W 84cm D 84cm

How To Enter My Beanbag Giveaway

• Fill in the Rafflecopter widget to verify your entries Entries are via a mandatory blog comment, with bonus entries via Facebook, Twitter etc
• Please read the rules below
• Closing date midnight Sunday 16th June 2019.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

HOW RAFFLECOPTER WORKS

• • If there is no form hit refresh (f5) and it should appear
  • If it still not working check that your computer is running Javascript
  • You need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment
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  • Really want to win the prize? Come back every day for bonus entries via Twitter

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• This giveaway is open to all readers with a postal address in the UK.
• The winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter using an online randomiser and announced in a subsequent post.
• I am running this competition on behalf of BeanBagBazaar who will be organising the prize. Their decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• They reserve the right to substitute the prize for one of a similar type/value if the prize above is not available.
• The winner will be contacted by e-mail, if they do not reply within 48 hours another winner may be chosen.
• This competition is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with any third parties.
• Instructions form part of the terms and conditions.
• Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will be disqualified. No cheating please! I will check the winning entry to see that you have commented/tweeted/subscribed etc.
• There is one main way to enter and several ways to get bonus entries, including bonus daily entries. Follow the instructions in the form above, but please you MUST leave a comment on the competition blog page for any of your entries to count.
• If you already like/follow comment in the rafflecopter widget then let me know to get your entries.

Disclosure: With thanks to BeanBagBazaar for providing me with the prize for this giveaway and for a sample for me to keep.