Meal planning Monday - the "It seemed like a good idea at the time" edition.

I don't use convenience foods. Not for me the ready meal, the packet sauce mix, the instant noodle. So what am I doing with all these in my cupboards?

Well, in every case, "It seemed like a good idea at the time". A good idea to pick one up after sampling it at a food show, or visiting an ethnic store, or a good idea to enter a competition where it was among the prizes, or pick up a pack in order to enter a competition featuring it.

So rather than plan individual meals this week, I've bought a big pack of chicken breasts and a selection of veg and salads - and also lifted out various tins of Chinese veg and coconut milk that "seemed like good ideas" too. And I've rounded up all the part used bags of rice and pasta in the cupboard. The week's meals are going to be "interesting", created out of what I can think up using these odds and ends. It's going to be rather like "Ready Steady Cook"!  Tonight there will be Malay Chicken curry, Indonesian vegetable curry and rice, and I will set some chicken to marinate for Chicken Tikka tomorrow and have a vegetable fried rice with it. After that - who knows? Maybe chicken in red onion and gorgonzola sauce with pasts and salad, or crispy crumbed chicken with lentils?

The one exception will be Thursday, when I'm going to London for the day to the Chelsea Flower Show, and Mark has a long day working further afield than usual, so on Wednesday I'll make macaroni cheese that can just be hated through when we get in.

Before I go, I'd just like to share that the Malaysian Chicken Curry Paste, Kari Ayam, is imported through their Hong Kong agent, Fok Hing trading limited. I don't know about you, but I'm laughing like a fourteen year old at that!

You'll find lots more meal plans, most of them much more structured than this, at At Home With Mrs M - why not share yours?