Frugal food for hot weather

As I type this, the rain has finally broken the heat wave and for once I am not uncomfortably hot and sweaty! It has been a few weeks since I have published a meal plan, so it’s about time. This week I will focus on frugal food for hot weather.

I have to factor in lots of home grown courgettes and tomatoes. The latter taste amazing – really sweet and delicious. They are head and shoulders above those you buy in the supermarket.  Since I bought cheap tomatoes that tasted of fish (yes, honestly!), I only buy those on the vine, but they still aren’t as good as home grown.

My low carb diet has gone down the pan in the past few weeks. This is mainly because we had three events in the same week that made it tricky not to eat carbs, so I decided not to worry too much about it. However, as a result, I am tired and achy again. So, as well as being frugal food that is easy to prepare and eat during a heat wave, it needs to be relatively low in carbohydrates.

I am not doing full keto, as I struggle to keep my carbs down low enough to go into ketosis. This isn’t a major worry for me as I lose weight anyway and feel better just by cutting out sugar, potatoes and wheat. I might eat some rice from time to time though, as that doesn’t seem to bother me.

Frugal food for hot weather

Saturday

I bought a ton of fish a few weeks ago from Iceland and we are still eating it. It’s not the best quality, but I have found that if it is defrosted first it is easier to judge the cooking time. Fish is so easy to over cook and cheaper frozen fish can get quite chewy.

Tonight we will have the mystery white fish fillets (basa I think) in parsley sauce with broccoli and carrots. Mr Shoestring will have mashed potatoes with his, but I will give that a miss. 

Strawberries are great at the moment and inexpensive, so we will have strawberries and cream for dessert.

Sunday

We will probably get up really early and hit the boot sale if it’s not chucking it down. At the moment it looks as though it will be sunny until the afternoon.

This means an easy dinner will be needed, so I will use some yellow sticker chicken breasts and make a marinade using the Cajun seasoning I picked up recently. I think it came from Aldi, and it says that it can be mixed with oil and added to meat.

I will roast some courgettes, tomatoes and peppers to have alongside this, with olive oil and garlic. Onions would be good, but I just can’t stomach them!

Monday

I love smoked mackerel, so will have some with a big salad. Tomatoes from the greenhouse, of course.

Lidl do a really lovely lemon and herb mackerel, so I will pick some up when I go shopping.

Tuesday

We have pork chops in the freezer from a family size pack I bought last week, so these will be easy with kale and carrots for me and the addition of spuds for Mr S and his mum. I often cook for her as she has dialysis on Tuesdays and gets really tired.

Wednesday

I plan to use a few more courgettes with a courgette and tomato eggy bake. We had this last week and it’s so easy and tasty. Sometimes I leave the eggs out and serve it with a simple baked chicken, but will see what we fancy. I might just go for the veggie version.

Thursday

I am eating with daughter no 1 tonight. She has a brilliant little grill that we often cook on at hers. We will have some halloumi cheese done on that with large field mushrooms and some corn on the cobs.

Friday

Just me for dinner tonight. As ever, I usually feel tired and lazy by the end of the week, so will have my favourite Friday dinner of cheese omelette and salad. This is brilliant frugal food for hot weather. Eggs are cheap and it takes no time to make at all.

If there is bacon hanging around, some of that might go into the omelette too.

Snack attacks

Lidl and Aldi are absolutely brilliant for their selection of nuts and seeds at very reasonable prices. I will stock up on these as our supplies are running low. They are an excellent healthy low carb snack choice.

We are also partial to cheese. I like it chopped up with some of our delicious little tomatoes and some olives. Mr S loves crackers with his, so I will pick up some Ryvita.

Greek yogurt and berries are another mainstay. If blueberries are on offer I will buy those, but sometimes they are too expensive. Melon is another good choice for me.

So that is this week’s meal plan of frugal food for hot weather. It will probably turn freezing cold now!! (Actually, I don’t mind if it does….).

What are you eating this week?

I am joining in with Katy Kicker’s meal planning linky. Check out her meal plan this week too. You can see more of my favourite food ideas and recipes here.