Meal Planning Monday

Harry turned one on Friday - no I have no idea how that happened either. We had a lovely party yesterday, with family, friends and a Hartbeeps session for the little ones which was amazing. We all enjoyed a dairy free feast, and this week's meal plan will largely be featuring the leftovers from that. Well aside from the bread, I ended up giving most of that away!

Breakfasts: I'm sticking with fruit or overnight oats at the moment. It's not thrilling, ,but I know Harry doesn't react to them and as he's reacted recently to egg through my milk and strawberries I'm erring on the side of caution.

Lunches: The warm weather means salad and leftover ham or roast chicken for me. Harry is having chicken or ham and slices of pepper, chopped up cherry tomatoes or cucumber sticks. Also houmous. All the houmous.

Suppers:

Monday - Leftover roast chicken with salad and baked potatoes

Tuesday - I'm doing Outdoor cooking with the Guides, but will leave M some stir fried chicken with mushrooms, brocolli and rice.

Wednesday - Ham (leftover from a ham in coca cola) and salad - possibly with sweet potato wedges

Thursday - Chilli crab linguine with salad

Friday - Salad and something fishy *vague*

Saturday - I think I might do a slow roast shoulder of lamb, portion it up and freeze it. Then I can have it with salad.

Sunday - leftover roast lamb

That's this week. M will be enjoying the culinary delights of a campsite at Le Mans - burgers and sausages will feature heavily I'm sure.

As always, don't forget to pop on over to At home with Mrs M to see what everyone else's menu looks like

Another quick and easy: Chilli crab linguine

Last week's post on the quick and wasy smoked trout pasta seems to have gone down well (and I certainly enjoyed eating it) so I thought I'd add another standby for when I need supper to be fast, furious and filling. This one is something I have been cooking for over ten years, my Dad and I came up with it once when we were there over a weekend and I go through phases of cooking it regularly and others of forgetting it exists.

It's not quite as cheap and cheerful as many of my usual recipes - even tinned crabmeat is expensive, and although I'd love to, I've never tried it with fresh crabmeat as that to me is something really special. Again it's something that cooks up really quicklywith limited prep time too.

Chilli crab linguine (serves 2) 

1 tin fresh crab
1 red chilli, finely diced (or equivalent of lazy chilli)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large handful parsley, chopped
1 lemon - zest grated, and juiced
3 Tbsps virgin olive oil
Linguine (or any pasta) enough for 2
Salt and pepper

Put the water on to boil and when it's ready put the pasta on - you've got the length of time it takes to cook to prepare the sauce
Crush the garlic and chop the chilli and add these to a splash of olive oil in a frying pan
Drain the crab meat and fork in the lumps breaking them up a bit as you go
Finely chop the parsley and add this and the lemon zest to the pan
Keep all of this warm while you drain the pasta
Add the pasta to the frying pan and stir through the sauce, adding the lemon juice and olive oil before you serve

This is lovely with a green salad and traditionally for me a large glass of white wine - it's a really light summery supper. And works equally well if you can pick up some prawns on special offer instead.