I was determined to put more fresh fruit and vegetables in my diet this week but I was also still getting back into the swing of meal planning, although with Christmas so near that may not properly bed in until sometime in January.

Here is the list and the receipts

Lidl had a cherry tomato mix and pears for 59p each so I snapped those up too!Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Once I unpacked the shopping, there was just so much food. On Sunday, I made a batch of hamburger buns and froze 20 because they are handy to have, my plan was to use some stuff from the freezer and lots of veg.

Lunch that wasn’t leftovers was an egg roll and vegetables, I also took a pear and a clementine into work every day which worked as breakfast/snack and ate some of the fruit that work provides on Monday and Wednesday. Fruit became my breakfast/snack everyday.  I was determined to eat more vegetables this week so roasted veg (aubergine, onion, peppers and cherry tomatoes with capers is my standard mix) with flatbread and balsamic vinegar reduction (sounds posh, isn’t, just put some balsamic in a saucepan and boil until it’s syrupy!) was a brilliant dinner and the leftovers were lunch the next day.By Wednesday, I was beginning to tire and had a very easy dinner of baked potato and coleslaw. I took a quarter of each of my red and white cabbage, about 5 carrots and two small red onions and sliced & grated them (I love my magimix!), I soaked the onion in red wine vinegar to take some of the bite away.  I didn’t have any mayonnaise or any inclination to make any but I did have some of a bottle of Pizza Express Salad dressing, so I used that and felt virtuous about using something up! It wasn’t the most pretty dinner or lunch the next day but it was just what I wanted.Thursday is often a ‘make it up using any leftovers day’  and that’s pretty much what I did. Onion+cabbage+leftover baked potato+bean thing that needed to be used up+egg+cheese and cooked in cast iron pan = dinner.

Kathy asked me over on Friday, did I mention how much I love it when other people cook? I do, we had pizza, it was great.

I felt like it was a good week for food, that I ate well and didn’t waste anything, it didn’t feel like I was in a December ‘eat all the things’ place that often happens in the run up to Christmas, which was down to having good food in the house and being aware of when I was actually hungry and in need of food and when I was eating to distract myself. The one food thing this week that has nothing to do with the budget is that I didn’t drink enough fluid, so that’s my goal for Christmas week, drink lots of water!