This post is in no way sponsored by ASDA or any other brands mentioned. I have not been paid or compensated in any way by any brands to write this post. I wrote it of my own free will and all views and opinions are 100% my own.
Feeding a family of four can be hard work. I find myself cooking four different meals most days. One day I actually cooked cheesy pasta with broccoli and ham for one of our girls, jacket potato, cheese and beans for the other, chili for my husband and salmon and vegetables for myself. It’s crazy!
I’d love to be one of those families that sits down to eat the same meal together every day, but that’s just not us! I guess that’s ok because after all we’re different people with different tastes and likes but cooking four different meals a day isn’t something I want to get into the habit of!
A while ago I started meal planning. It was mainly because I was training for the London Marathon, so I wanted to ensure I always had a good healthy meal planned. I found that meal planning actually helped me in lots of different ways. Some weeks I’d have lots left over so I could simply freeze the extra portions for another day which is always a good thing because it means you just need to defrost it, pop it in the microwave to warm it and wham! You have a healthy home cooked meal ready in minutes! Great for after a busy day at work!
Looking back to when I meal planned, I decided recently that I wanted to do the same again. I do my weekly food shop online with ASDA and I noticed that they have a new ‘recipes’ section on their app. I decided to take a look and see what they were like.
I picked out the following recipes to try:
Honey, mustard sausage rice
Tomato and chickpea orzo salad
Pork loin with citrus salsa
In addition, I also cooked some of my own favourite recipes for the week which are cheesy chicken and pea risotto, tuna with pasta and mayonnaise and of course a roast chicken dinner with plenty of vegetables!
The honey, mustard sausage rice was my favourite meal. It serves four so I froze the two leftover portions for another day.
This dish was full of flavour and it was really filling. It was also really easy to cook. I like that when you look at the recipes on the app, you can add all of the ingredients at the same time which is a definite time saver.
The tomato and chickpea orzo salad has pesto in it, which I do like, but I think next time I cook it, I’d probably add a bit more pesto. If it wasn’t for the cherry tomatoes it would have been pretty flavourless. More pesto and tomatoes next time, I think!
The pork loin with citrus salsa was certainly an interesting one. I must admit that when I looked at this recipe, I just read the title and added the ingredients to my online shopping basket without really looking at the ingredients. When grapefruits, clementine’s, shallots, limes and garlic arrived in my food shop I was a bit puzzled!
The citrus salsa is made by stirring together the grapefruit, clementine’s, lime, garlic and shallot. It does also suggest a green chilli, but I opted out of that one. I was really unsure about this one as it seemed like an odd combination to have with a pork loin, but in fairness it was really nice, and I really enjoyed it! I’d definitely have it again!
I’m going to try some of their other recipes next week, so I’ll keep you updated on how that goes. I’ve definitely found that meal planning has helped me and our family to eat better.
Do you meal plan? What are your favourite family meals, and do you have any meal planning tips? Let me know in the comments below.
1 Comments
Kim Carberry
October 11, 2019 at 9:34 am
I put a stop to cooking different meals for everyone a few years ago. It was costing far too much and it was such a faff!
I shop with Asda usually and keep looking at their recipes meaning to try them. The one’s you have tried sound very tasty!
I meal plan every week and at the moment the meals that are going down well are hearty, warming casseroles and big roast dinners. x