Each week I publish my seven day simple meal plan. I love meal planning because it saves money, helps me manage my time and prevents food waste. All good when you are on a budget.
I don’t always stick slavishly to the plan. Sometimes life gets in the way and some meals don’t get cooked. Other times I swap them around. But on the whole, I find it hugely helpful to meal plan and write my shopping list from it so that I only buy what is needed.
Saturday
I recently picked up a book in the charity shop called the The Ultimate FODMAP Cookbook: 150 deliciously easy recipes to soothe your gut and nourish your body, but haven’t tried many recipes yet. Although I can’t say I follow low FODMAP eating strictly, if I veer too far off the principles my digestive system suffers.
I didn’t spot it when I picked up the book, but it is written by my old boss from when I worked in publishing eons ago. How funny!
I thought I would try her lemony chicken souvlaki, which sounds really tasty.
If you don’t know, a low FODMAP diet is beneficial to IBS sufferers. There are certain foods, such as onions, brassica, lactose, beans, etc that really aggravate the condition. I know what bothers me but sometimes I eat them anyway, which is silly really as I pay the price.
I have been bad lately, so I am reining it in this week. Mostly I adapt recipes – for example, I always replace onions with celery. If I eat chick peas or lentils I can only manage a small quantity and I use lactose free dairy products.
Sunday
I am going to try another recipe from my Simply Cook subscription – jambalaya (which I am sure is a song by the Carpenters!). My daughter has had this and says it is delicious.
It is a rice dish with chicken and chorizo and looks right up my street. I will leave out the onions though. We will either have salad or some form of green vegetable with this one.
Simply Cook dishes are so easy and quick to prepare – just the thing for a simple meal plan for the week. Cooking doesn’t have to be time consuming and complicated.
Monday
Eggs benedict with sweet potato chips and chopped chard. I know it is really lazy, but I picked up some cheese sauce mixes really cheaply in Home Bargains a while back. As Monday is always a busy work day, this will be a reasonably easy dinner.
Tuesday

Wednesday
Tortillas with loads of spicy roasted vegetables (the last of the courgettes – I found two small ones in the garden yesterday) and grated cheese. We will probably have home-made chips with these and salad if there is any left.
Thursday
Home-made tuna penne with black olives. We will have the remaining chard with this and some garlic bread from the freezer (no, I shouldn’t eat garlic….).
Friday
Nut cutlets (shop bought from Tesco) with whatever veg needs eating first and maybe some roasties done in the VonShef air fryer. I really like these!
So that’s my simple meal plan for the week. What are you having for dinner?
As usual, I am linking up with Katy Kicker for her meal planning linky. For more of my frugal food ideas see here.
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Although I don’t have IBS, I do have an odd digestion, so I did do the FODMAP diet a few years ago and it was very enlightening. I now don’t cook with alliums at all anymore, I use celery and asafoetida powder and I found that I am very sensitive to oils! All oils, I have to be very careful with the amounts I eat. Luckily I can eat chick peas because I love them and I don’t need to avoid gluten or lactose.
I managed to get a £1.50 ‘Too good to waste’ veg box in Lidl last week and I’m still eating it, so my meals will be based around that and whatever is in my freezer.
I’ve never managed to spot one of those – good buy.
I think our farmers market is about to the end of the season, so I am going to stop by and see what I can find for roasting. I keep saying, next year I will have a garden, but reading that folks are still pulling an item or two from gardens this late in fall, really has me wanting one.
Jambalaya sounds really good! Have a lovely week and thanks for linking up!
A lovely week and i know a few people with IBS and interesting to read what you can and can not eat. i do love a little bit of wholegrain mustard.
Ohhh I always use the cheese sauce mixes, I can not for the life of me make a sauce. Its always lumpy and gross! Ohhh and mustard mash is my fave! Have a great week x
I had no idea what the FODMAP diet was until now. Good luck with it.
All of your meals sound so good x
I find it super interesting to see what people with IBS have been consuming and what changes you have to make. For sure this is a good week of meal planning I can not believe you are still pulling things from the garden when the weather has turned
Oh, Jambalaya is one of my favourite dishes. I remember the song by the Carpenters too – my mum used to sing it to me when I was little!