As part of my frugal reset, I’ve been sharing our weekly meal plans on here again and I’ll be honest, I’ve really enjoyed the old school blog posts again along with the accountability that I get from sharing something with you all!
I love our home – it’s filled with love and laughter – and very few kitchen gadgets. 
We don’t have a big enough kitchen to warrant many kitchen gadgets so what we do have, needs to be well worth the space it takes up. For that reason, when I moved in, I didn’t bring my big family sized air fryer and for the last few years, we’ve only had a super small one which is one that’s really only suitable when you’re cooking for one. It’s small enough that it took up very little space on the kitchen counter in an unused corner which is a good thing in our kitchen but also small enough that it was very rarely used.
This week, we spent the vouchers I got for my Birthday on a larger air fryer because I feel like it’s going to save me so much time and effort when it comes to planning our meals and cooking them. I only had to put £30 towards it so I think it was a good buy.
According to Google, an air fryer is cheaper to run than an oven for smaller meals so that’s a win too.
I picked the smallest model which is more than double the size of the one we had so I know that we’ll use it loads AND it actually doesn’t take up much more space on the counter than the old one we had so I’ve no doubt that it’s going to earn it’s space on our counter.
Meal planning has been going really well for us since we made the decision to start to do better at it. We knew it was a long overdue decision as we were all over with our meals which was costing us both time and money – neither of which we want to waste.
We plan the meals together on a Sunday although I’ll be honest and say it’s mostly me who plans the meals with my partner generally just nodding along as I suggest meals. I know the food he enjoys and I know what I can eat as a diabetic so all of the meals I suggest work for both of us. And when we have the kids over to stay or for tea, I plan meals that I know they will enjoy too.
I am trying to choose meals that I know everyone will enjoy rather than ‘budget’ meals as I really don’t mind spending a little more on our meals when I know everyone will enjoy them which will make it easier to stick to the plan. We’re saving money just by planning our meals so a couple of pounds extra a week is still less than we were spending before we got back into meal planning.
Before I share what our plan is for this week, I should just say that you won’t see the extra bits that I serve with each meal on our meal plan board. There’s always plenty of salads and vegetables as we’re trying to be much more health conscious at the moment with more healthy food and more exercise happening for us all.
Monday – Chicken Special (again)
This has been our regular Monday meal lately as it’s quick to make, easy to cook and always super tasty!
As a diabetic, chicken is my favourite ingredient to cook with – it’s just so versatile. I can take some chicken breasts out of the freezer the night before and do just about anything with it. I like mine relatively plain with just some sort of spice on it while it’s cooking but my partner loves his with BBQ sauce so I’ll do both in no time at all – when we got the air fryer, we also bought a silicone insert that will mean I can cook saucy chicken with spicy chicken at the same time without getting the sauce all over mine.
I’ll do rice and veg for my partner and I’ll have something like roasted tomatoes to go with mine. Honestly, I could eat this every night with no issue with repetition as I don’t get bored of eating the same thing which is super lucky because I’m limited with what I can eat these days.
Tuesday – Chicken skewers with spicy rice
I’m going to have a go at making chicken skewers in the air fryer using slightly spiced (i’m torn between cajun and peri peri) chicken chunks on skewers.
I’ll serve this with spicy rice as I know that everyone loves that and seeing as I’ll be making a salad too then I might as well add some wraps into the mix for the kids so they can turn their skewers into chicken wraps.
Wednesday – Mince and Yorkshire Puds
I’ve added this one in for Wednesday night’s tea simply because I have a full portion of this in the freezer and it was down as Wednesday on last week’s meal plan so I didn’t have to change it on the meal plan board if I used it on the same night.
I did cook it last Wednesday and part of it made a great packed lunch for my partner’s night shift tea but I agreed to take Master Frugal shopping instead and by the time I’d dropped him back off at home and got back here, I wasn’t that hungry so I had crispbreads with cheese on them instead. I froze what was left over for this week which makes this a super easy tea to cook for me!
Thursday – Jacket Potatoes
I’m going to have a go at making air fryer jacket potatoes which is a treat for me due to the high carbs in potatoes. I’ll make sure that I have a really low carb lunch so I can stay within my recommended allowance for the day still, I’ll also make sure my toppings are quite low in carbs too so all will good.
I’ll serve my partners potato with beans and cheese I think although we’ll see what he fancies on the day as we always have things in that will make a good jacket potato topping.
Friday – Steak night
Air fryer steak sounds easy enough to cook so it’ll be our Friday night treat. I’m not sure yet what I’ll serve with it but I’m pretty sure it will be amazing!
Saturday – Corned Beef Hash
I used to make corned beef hash with more potatoes in it than anything else to really bulk it out cheaply but I need to be careful with carbs now so my ingredients have changed a little bit. I still use potatoes but in smaller amounts and I add in some carrots and peas which are lower carb vegetables.
It still tastes amazing and the fact that I don’t exclude potatoes completely means that I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
Sunday – Air fryer BBQ Pork Steaks
I’m going to have a go at making some BBQ pork steaks in the air fryer although I’ll be using my little silicone split insert so we’ll have saucy steaks for my partner and mine will just have a BBQ rub on them as the sauce is a bit too sugary for me to eat. I’ll go with egg fried rice for the saucy steaks and possibly cauliflower rice with mine.
The steaks were a yellow sticker bargain from Asda costing £1.89 for 8 steaks (maybe 6) so we picked them up and put them straight in the freezer ready for when we needed them.
And that’s what we’ll be eating this week!
See you next week.
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