"Ask not what you can do for your country...

...ask what's for lunch"  (Orson Welles)

That seems a suitable quotation for a post about meal plans for the week!!

There is a thread on Ship of Fools at the moment, entitled "What are we going to eat tonight?" where people talk about how they plan (or don't plan!) their meals. so far, nobody, except me, has admitted to planning their meals for the month ahead, as I do. I know there is the possibility of not really fancying what has been planned, but I'm not so rigid that I can't change what we're having, if that's the case. Point to prove this: last Tuesday I'd planned Thai Red Lentil curry, but in the end this didn't appeal, so I pulled a couple of chicken thighs out of the freezer, marinaded them in a sticky marinade and we had them with salad. How do you guys decide what you're having for dinner? Is it planned or are you madly spontaneous?

So...

My plans for this week are as follows:

SUNDAY (today)

I'd planned steak in mushroom sauce, but we've been invited out for lunch today. I'm mostly abandoning my "diet" (although I've not had breakfast) so I'm not going to worry about how much wine I'm drinking, etc. However, I may try to be circumspect over amounts eaten. Or maybe not.

MONDAY

fasting

  Egg for breakfast, green salad + a bit of protein for lunch, Chickpea & Chorizo stew for dinner. The recipe is for butterbeans, but Mr FD doesn't like butterbeans, so I'm substituting chickpeas. I may do some cous cous as well...the recipe is only 183 calories per person, so I think I've got some calories to play with!

TUESDAY

 Mushroom & spinach stroganoff - the recipe is just for mushroom stroganoff. I'm adding the spinach, to up the vegetable content. For lunch I'll have soup, 1 slice of bread with some pork, a brownie and fruit. The soup is Curried Carrot.

WEDNESDAY

This is Mr FD's cooking day, but as he is usually knackered when he gets in, I try to make it an easy one for him. I'd planned a Hairy Dieter's Roasted Cod recipe, but in Carrefour last week there were Two for One sustainably fished prepared-and-ready-to-roast white fish (hake?haddock?) in trays. So I bought two, and popped them in the freezer. So Mr FD will have to prepare some  vegetables for roasting too, and stick everything in the oven. Not too onerous, I hope.

THURSDAY
Not fasting today

I'm not fasting today, as the organisation that I do a little work for, CIFOR (  Chambre de Commerce & Industrie Formation), are having a get together which includes a buffet lunch. I don't want to find myself being madly tempted and feeling I'm missing out, so I'm going to just "be careful" and have soup for dinner. I will cook pasta and mushroom/pesto sauce for Mr FD.

FRIDAY

Every other Friday I teach until 7.00 so I don't get home till 7.45. Mr FD is in charge of cooking again those evenings. He's not so knackered either, as he hasn't been on his IT course on Friday. He's going to be cooking Chicken & Spinach curry from the 5:2 recipe book, which we'll have with some rice. 

We eat a lot of spinach as I always have a bag of frozen spinach in the freezer. It's really easy to pull out a few blocks, defrost them in the microwave and toss into a sauce/soup for extra greens. And as spinach is great to help to avoid macular degeneration (which my mum has) it's good to try to add it to the diet wherever possible!!

SATURDAY

I think we might treat ourselves to the Hairy Dieter's steak and mushroom sauce from last Sunday's planning. 

SUNDAY

The Hairy Dieter's are providing today's recipe as well: Lamb Tagine which I'll serve with some cous cous and maybe some green beans from the freezer. 

Source: MyfoodMyway

Thank you all so much for your comments! It's lovely to read them all.

Pompom: I hope that your no-wheat-or-dairy does help your sinuses. Is this something you've tried before? Mr FD sufferes a bit from sinusitis, especially after a cold, so I'd be interested to know what you find.

Trish: Apparently plateauing is a recognised part of the dieting "timeline" - although very disspiriting, I know! Keep on going, and don't give up. Or, maybe, give up for a week and then surprise your body into dieting again. That might wrk (and even if it doesn't, you've had a nice week of "letting go"!)

Angela: Sorry to be the Tempter! Though at only 130 calories, those brownies aren't that bad! You could make the pieces even smaller and then they'd be even fewer calories!!

Andrea: The Brownies are yummy! So much so (Angela - don't read on!!) that  I just had to have a second one!!

Jane and Chris: Like you, cat cartoons (and lolCats) are always a winner with me. Our favourite game with the cats at the moment is playing with a tiny laser. It gives a red dot of light which they adore chasing. Now Bib and George have learned that if they sit in front of the TV so we can't see it, we'll get the laser out to tempt them down! Bib even recognises the little metallic chink of the key-ring attached, so her ears swivel round and she perks up immediately.

Kezzie: Five litter trays = four cats. Advice is that you should always have one more litter tray than you have cats, so that no cat is "terrorised" out of using a tray. Mind you, our horrors seem to imagine that the cellar floor is one giant litter tray. Sorry, that might have been too much information!

Finally, here is a Zentangle cat I designed. If I made cards out of it, would people be willing to buy some to support the charity Spanish Stray Cats?  I guess the price would be the equivalent of 2,50€ each + p&p.

Please let me know via the comments if you'd be interested.