My Week of meals

This is my week. I am a gluten and wheat free girl and have used GF for things I have replaced in my pantry. With things like pasta I cook a pot for myself and Stef and Amelia have regular pasta. Pizza bases, Amelia prefers and eats more when I use the GF bases for her pizza. I have written staple next to things I always have in my pantry/freezer. These have helped me out of many a tricky situation with visitors just popping in!

Friday - Homemade pizza
Shifts - none - RDO
Activity -  Mum had a night out leaving Daddy and daughter to have an evening together after swimming.
Needed - tomato paste,  mushrooms, ham, salami
Pantry/Fridge items - small tin pinapple pieces (staple), bacon, cheese, Lebenese bread (staple), GF bases (staple), salad veges


Saturday - Mushroom and bacon pasta w creamy sauce and meringue nests, strawberries and cream for dessert
Shifts - none - w/e off
Activity - boring BAS and other accounting stuff
Needed - nothing!
Pantry/Fridge items - reg & GF pasta (both staple), onion, garlic (staple), bacon (staple), mushrooms, strawberries, cream, meringue nests (staple)
(this meal was a fluke, the merigue nests were left over from Xmas 2010 but within date, the cream was left over (unopened) from a dinner party last weekend and the strawberries wouldn't have survived more than passed Sunday!). I feel pretty pleased with myself I was able to use up so many items!

Sunday - Family meat pie
Shifts - none - w/e off
Activity -morning playdate, afternoon sewing!
Needed - GF pastry, potatoes
Pantry/Fridge Items - mince, onions, carrots, broccoli, beer (yep a bottle of beer!)

Monday - Tuna Pasta Salad
Shifts - Day ,home at 7.15pm
Activity - Girl guides 5-7pm
Needed - green beans, tomatoes,
Pantry/Fridge items - Reg & GF Pasta (staple), tinned tuna (staple), eggs (staple), mayo (staple), olives (staple), capers (staple)

Tuesday - Chicken Stir-fry
Shifts - day off
Activity - school
Needed - chicken and lots of veges!
Pantry/Fridge items - Jasmine rice (staple), GF soy sauce (staple), garlic (staple)

Wednesday - mystery pick! On the school dinner menu is Mexican Enchilida bake so we might do something that resembles nachos as there will be sauce left overs I imagine.
Shifts - Stef - Day shift, home at 7.15pm, me kitchen shift 10-2pm
Activity - school and me working
Needed - corn chips
Pantry/Fridge items - fresh salad veges

Thursday - Roast beef, roast /steamed veges *Amelia and I will eat early to allow her dinner to go down before she goes to bed and the veges not to spoil while we go to the bus stop!
Shifts - Day, home at 7.15pm
Activity - Music till 3.30pm
Needed - joint of beef & veges!
Pantry/Fridge items - gravy (staple - we actually keep Gravox in business...)

Friday - sausage and mash!
Shifts - Day, home at 7.15pm
Activity - Swimming 4 - 5.30pm
Needed - sausages, potatoes, veges to steam
Pantry/Fridge items - frozen peas (staple)

So there you go, a week of us. This is an easy week or at least in theory it should be. The needed items are basically my shopping list.

With 4 day shifts there is little to no scope for help with the cooking but I will (make up for it over the weekend) do some of the prep before shcool pick up where I can or get Amelia to help which she loves, peeling carrots and cucumbers are her speciality. We also meet Daddy off the bus and as the evenings are lighter we can. Daddy gets home about 7pm which is a dreadful time of the night... We want to eat as a family but she should be in the bath! Aarghh! It's all good though. She seems to be coping with the later nights but still awake early in the mornings as we don't have the sound buffering in our new house we had in the old one and the combination of shower noise + male = early mornings :-(

We're finding it a hard juggle and having lots of early nights on the weekends!!

I will do my best to post the recipes for the pie and the tuna salad this week. These are my variations on printed recipes so I am not breaking any laws!