Monday, 13 January 2025

13-01-25 and reverse meal planning

Hi, everyone!  Welcome to my blog where I talk about my ongoing Slimming World and associated health journeys.  At present, I am working to reduce my 'Bad' cholesterol through diet.

Over the last little while, I have noticed that the term 'reverse meal planning' coming up in some of the vlogs I watch, usually but not exclusively the 'frugal' vlogs.

Is this a New Thing, this latest frugal trend?  Well - no, not exactly!  I Googled the term and it said:

Reverse menu planning, also known as backward menu planning, is when you take an inventory of what you have on hand and then plan a menu around those items. This is the opposite of how regular menu planning works, where you plan your menu and then shop for all the ingredients.

So there you go - story of my life!  For once, I am bang on trend without realising it.  It just goes to show that everything goes round in circles, doesn't it?  Reverse planning indeed!  I just call it using your common sense and not wasting food/money!
What I ate today:

The usual fruit, seeds and yogurt.
One and a half syns for chia seeds and mixed seeds.


What I should have had last night, had I not been diverted into Christmas cake.
Dessert was an orange.
One healthy extra A and one B, one syn for the cranberry sauce and two syns for the salad dressing.

This was dinner.  It was originally going to be a pasta bake but if I had added pasta it would have made two portions.

I softened onion, pepper, mushroom and shredded sprouts in some evoo before adding some passata made with home grown tomatoes and some tomato puree plus seasonings and half a tbsp bulgur wheat.
When that was all cooked I topped it with some cheese and baked it in Nellie until the  cheese had melted and browned.
It was loads without any other veg.
Afters was a pear.

One healthy extra A and three syns for cheese and three syns for evoo.  I also had another nibble of cheese to three more syns.

Summary:
two healthy extra As
one healthy extra B
thirteen and a half syns - bit high!  Oh, well.


Tomorrow's plans:

B:  fruit, yogurt and seeds

L:  soup with croutons and turkey shreds; fruit

D:  turkey and bean pasta bake or stir fry, side salad; fruit

Exercise:  none

5 comments:

  1. Haha, I have spent my life ‘reverse meal planning’. Doesn’t everyone, at least to some extent?
    I also laughed when, a couple of years ago, I read of the new trend for bulk cooking! It was even vaunted in the newspapers and recipe books were published. What on earth do they think those feeding families and balancing working have been doing for years?
    And don’t get me started on how to use turkey leftovers. Do whoever ‘they’ are think that until they started telling us how to turn them into curries and pies that we used to sling it all in the bin?!!
    Feeling a bit feisty today ….. did you notice? LOL.

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    1. Oh, yes, all of that really gets up my nose - as you say, it's as if it's all a new discovery, a clever invention.
      I suppose each generation invents the wheel one way or another - cooking from scratch, using leftovers, 'reverse' meal planning, batch cooking, cooking once to eat twice, . . . is there really anything new under the sun?
      It is good that these things are being brought up, even if it can be mildly irritating. :-)
      Feisty is good!
      xx

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  2. Reverse menu planning - haven't we all been doing that for years? Makes me smile to myself when a young person thinks they're doing something new that isn't new at all. But then I guess it's new to them. xx

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    1. Oh, that was me, Sooze, by the way

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    2. Hi, Sooze. This is the thing and I guess it is great that the old, tried and tested ways of managing these things are being highlighted and recommended again. It just makes me smile when they are presented as a super-new thing. Maybe I am getting old (at last!!) :-) xx

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