Meals of the Week, July 20th - 26th, 2025

 

 

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to my weekly, Meals of the Week Post. On Sundays I like to share with you, my dear readers, a roundup of all of the meals that I have enjoyed as my main meals over the last seven days.  That's a whole lot of tasty.

I also share the recipe links so that you can make these things for yourself and provide menu suggestions that you may or may not want to adapt!

I do live on my own now and cooking for one can sometimes be a challenge.  After many years of cooking professionally for a family and for my own large family, I now find myself in later life, having to cook for only one person. To that end most of my recipes these days are tailored to make only a few servings in order to cut down on waste. They can certainly all be doubled however.

Like many of you, I am on a limited budget as well. I do have to watch my pennies and try to cook and eat within the perimeters that budget allows for.  That doesn't mean that I have to eat poorly, or that I have to eat out of tins and cheap frozen dinners that are loaded with fat, salt, sugar and preservatives!!

This roundup does not include my breakfasts. Sometimes I will have some toast, or some of my homemade granola with some Greek yogurt for my breakfast.  In the winter I will have oatmeal.  More often than not I will enjoy a simple protein shake as I sit and work at my desk. I get the mix from Good Protein. My favorite one is their Orange Creamsicle. 

It also doesn't include my suppers.  I eat my main meal around the middle of the day and then I have a light supper/lunch early in the evening.  That is what suits my diet and my digestion. I will eat my main meal later in the day if I am eating with other people, but generally speaking I like to eat my main meal much earlier in the day so that I am not going to bed with anything heavy on my stomach. My supper could be some fruit or a salad, sometimes (but not often) a sandwich, or a cheeky bowl of cereal if I am feeling particularly lazy. I love rice crispies with bananas, or multi-grain cheerios.

And without further adieu here are the delicious meals that I enjoyed over the past seven days. I did eat Sunday Dinner at my sister's (as I usually do) and have provided a suitable substitute for that. It was also a very warm week, so my meals tended to be a bit lighter than usual.

I hope in reading this you will be inspired to want to cook some of these things for yourself!  Enjoy!

SUNDAY, July 20th - Family Sunday Dinner at Cindy's

Most Sunday's I go to my sister's for Sunday Dinner.  I enjoy those meals. It is a chance to spend some time with my father and my sister always cooks a lovely meal. This week was no different. She cooked a beautiful Chicken Pot Pie, along with Smashed Roasted Potatoes and green beans. It was delicious.

In it's place I am sharing my recipe for Individual Chicken Pot Pies,  the recipe makes four delicious six-inch pot pies that I am sure you will enjoy. You can either feed them to four hungry people or if ou are a small family like me, enjoy one and freeze the others.

MONDAY, July 21st - Pastrami & Rye Panzanella

It was quite a warm day on Monday and I fancied a dinner salad for my supper.  I had seen this delicious recipe for a Pastrami & Rye Panzanella in one of my cookbooks and just happened to have all of the ingredients in my refrigerator to make it. I even had some light rye bread.

This was a delicious mix of fresh cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, celery and Pastrami tossed together with fresh basil and parsley leaves and a delicious red wine vinaigrette dressing.  This was really delicious.  It made for a lovely light supper when I didn't really feel like cooking. For the hearty eater you could add a baked jacket potato.

TUESDAY, July 22nd. - Mini Quiche for two

I had not made a quiche in a very long time. I love a good quiche for dinner every now and then. They were a very popular item in the grocery shops in the U.K. You could buy all different kinds of quiches. I have always much preferred to make my own, however. The shop bought ones were always mostly pastry (and not a good pastry) and very skint on the filling.

For this I downsize my favorite recipe, making a small six inch deep mini one. With ham and cheese, plus the egg it is quite hearty. I took half over to my next-door neighbor Sheila who declared it totally delicious when she returned my container the next day.  I used my Butter/Lard pastry recipe for the crust.  I think homemade pastry is so much nicer than anything you can buy ready-made.  

For the heartier eater you could add some chips on the side and a salad.  I enjoyed mine with a mix of veggies.

WEDNESDAY, July 23rd - Croissant Turkey Club Sandwich

Still hot and muggy and so I didn't feel like making a heavy meal. I enjoyed a Croissant Turkey Club Sandwich, which is always a real treat for me. It has all of the tastiness of a regular club sandwich, tucked into a crisp and flaky croissant roll.

A large fresh croissant layered with thinly sliced deli turkey, crisp smoky bacon, sliced tomato and crunchy shredded lettuce.  You could also add a slice of cheese if you wanted to. Harvarti is awfully nice with this.  (I loved the Harvarti we used to get in Germany.) I skipped the cheese this time.

This time I enjoyed my sandwich with a few cheeky potato chips, a rare treat.  I buy my potato chips in these large boxes of small single serving sized bags. That way I don't have to worry about them going stale before I can finish eating them, plus it keeps me in check, and I eat a more reasonable amount!  Potato chips are my nemesis.

THURSDAY, July 24th - Lamb Chops with Honey & Thyme

I had not really cooked myself a truly decent meal all week and so on Thursday I took a couple of lamb chops out of my freezer and enjoyed them dusted with some fresh thyme, salt and pepper and then pan fried them in a mix of oil and butter, along with some lemon zest. They were then lightly glazed with some Honey and Thyme.  Delicious.  Tender. Juicy.

I love lamb so much, but good local lamb can be very expensive. I like to snap it up when I an find  it at a reasonable price. On this occasion I made some simple mashed potatoes and cooked some peas and carrots to enjoy with them. I was in lamb chop heaven.

FRIDAY, June 25th - Bacon & Potato Hash with Cheesy Beans

This makes a great weeknight supper, especially during the warmer months. You don't need to crank the oven on or anything. It cooks simply on top of the stove. I love fried potatoes. I love bacon. I love hash, and I love baked beans.  This was, as always, a pure and utter comfort food meal for me!

Quick, easy and incredibly delicious! I really enjoyed this!  Some crusty bread would go well on the side to mop up all of those cheesy juices from the baked beans, but I made do with a salad. Coz I am trying to be good, well most of the time anyways. Sigh . . .

SATURDAY, July 26th - Quick Naan Bread Pizzas

These quick and easy pizzas use a simple Naan Bread base and go together very quickly. You can use either a plain Naan bread or a garlic Naan. Both work very well. They are brushed with some of the oil from a jar of marinated artichoke halves and then topped with a variety of cheeses, the artichokes and plenty of green olives, with some fresh thyme leaves.   A salad on the side and I was a very happy camper.

I think I got the original recipe from one of the small BBC Good Food cookbooks that I collected while I was living in the U.K. They were always loaded with great recipes taken from the magazine by the same name, which was my favorite cooking magazine over there.

And those were my meals of the week for this week. I think I ate rather well and I even kept everything within my budget! Well, except for the lamb chops anyways. If you have any questions or suggestions just leave a comment below!

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com  

 Thanks so much for visiting! Do come again! 

 If you like what you see here, why not consider signing up for my newsletter and/or subscribing/following me on Grow. You can also bookmark my recipes via the Grow platform. Check out the heart on the right hand side of the screen.