Everything we actually cook. Every recipe serves six — four for dinner, two for tomorrow's lunch. Filter by what you've got time for, what travels, or what's in the cupboard.
Every dinner is built the same way. Hold this picture in your head and you can invent a meal without a recipe.
| Part | What counts |
|---|---|
| Vegetables | Leafy greens, broccoli, peppers, courgette, aubergine, tomatoes, carrots, beans, peas, cabbage, cauliflower, salad, cucumber |
| Protein | Tofu, meat alternatives (Heura, Quorn, Beyond, Impossible), eggs, halloumi, feta, fish, prawns, chicken, Greek yoghurt, edamame |
| Carbs | Rice, pasta, noodles, bread & flatbread, potato, couscous, quinoa, bulgur, wild rice, oats — and lentils, chickpeas, beans |
| Fat | Olive oil, avocado, nuts & seeds, cheese, tahini, dressing |
Beans, chickpeas, lentils and potato sit in the carb column, not protein. If a meal looks light on veg, add a veg side rather than more carb.
We're not a high-salt house, so the punch has to come from elsewhere. Six levers, applied as standard:
And the rule that matters most: taste it before it leaves the kitchen. It usually wants more acid and more pepper.
Don't default to the same carb every week. Rotate through quinoa (the protein one), couscous, wild rice, bulgur, lentils, plus rice, pasta and potato. Freekeh stays in the rotation but isn't a go-to — its smoky flavour divides opinion, so when you use it, season harder than you think.
How dinner becomes tomorrow's lunch without anyone eating the same thing twice in a row.
Every dinner cooks six portions: four eaten that night, two packed for lunch the next day. On roughly half the nights Ryan also needs a packed dinner — that's a seventh portion, and those nights get a dish that reheats properly.
He has a microwave, so the saucy, sturdy things work: curry, bolognese, fish pie, tray bakes, shakshuka base. Save the crisp and the fresh — salads, anything griddled, bangers and mash — for nights everyone is home. Every recipe carries a travels well tag; filter on it.
Not every dinner has to carry the next day. Forcing it makes the week rigid and you get bored. Aim for about three lunches from leftovers and two assembled from the Lunch Kit.
A protein + the standing veg + a carb.
| Slot | Options |
|---|---|
| Protein | Good-quality quiche, cooked chicken, feta, boiled eggs, halloumi, tinned fish |
| Standing veg | The roast veg tray or the salad base — always in the fridge |
| Carb | Grain from the rotation, bread, couscous, leftover potatoes |
There should always be a tray of roast veg and an undressed salad base in the fridge. It's what turns lunch from a task into an assembly job, and it doubles as the veg side for any dinner that's looking thin. Roast a full two trays whenever the oven's already on.
Shop-bought shortcuts are fine, but two of them collide with our own rules, so choose carefully:
Order the week by what dies first, and leave the sturdiest for the night everyone's flagging.
| When | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First | Fresh fish | The most perishable thing in the shop — or freeze it the day it lands |
| Early | Soft veg dishes | Aubergine, courgette, rocket and herbs go first |
| Mid | Peppers, eggs | Both keep a good week |
| Any night | The batch one | Make double and freeze half |
| Last | Freezer + store-cupboard | Barely any fresh veg — survives the week and the tiredness |
The aim on every line is the best genuinely-available option — not the cheapest, not the most premium.
Effective > Environmental > Economic. A thing has to actually work first, then have the lowest impact, then be good value. Cost is always a consideration, never the lead.
Highest available welfare standard on all animal products — eggs, fish, cheese, dairy, chicken. This is the top driver and it doesn't bend. It extends past animals too: slave-free chocolate, no palm oil, kinder cleaning products.
Claims have to be true. "Happy cow" dairy is not a thing. Pick the genuinely-better option, not the prettiest packaging.
Minimise UPFs. The exception is meat substitutes, where there's no unprocessed alternative. Bread is the headline — minimal ingredients, no preservatives, no added sugar, bought fresh and separately.
Plenish only, oat and soy. If it's unavailable, flag alternatives rather than substituting silently.
Avoid single-use plastics and individually-wrapped things. Lean local and organic where it's a real option — but don't go without a staple just because it isn't local.
Buy brands where they earn it. Don't pay a premium for marketing: no detox teas, super greens, protein yoghurts or magic matcha at inflated markups.
The quality floor. Carrefour being the cheap shop is not a licence to buy the budget line on things we actually taste. Tea and biscuits both got flagged as feeling low-rent. Buy a proper brand on anything that reaches the table.
| Shop | What for |
|---|---|
| Waitrose | Plenish, named brands, anything welfare- or quality-led — chicken, eggs, fish, cheese, dairy — and the specialties (gochujang, House Foods tofu, Shin Ramyun) |
| Carrefour | True commodities and household — tins, oils, cleaning, paper, water, produce |
Verified like-for-like, Carrefour runs materially cheaper on commodity staples: milk 30–50%, dish soap ~27% per ml, toilet paper ~30% per roll, chicken ~15%.
Where things live, how to keep them alive, and the rules that never bend.
| Zone | What lives there |
|---|---|
| Top shelf | Leftovers and ready-to-eat. Nothing raw. |
| Upper-mid | Dairy — yoghurt, cheese, butter, milk |
| Lower-mid | Cooked food, tubs, tofu, eggs (eggs on a shelf, never the door) |
| Bottom shelf | Raw fish and meat, sealed, on a tray — always below everything else |
| Crispers | Veg in one, fruit and leaves in the other |
| The door | Warmest and most variable: jars, chilli oils, juice, cans, water, wine |
| Freezer | Ice up top; frozen veg; batch meals (dated); flavour bases — mash, garlic, herbs, soffritto; fish; bread and the eat-first bag |
The cooling element sits in the back wall, so that surface runs coldest and grows a little frost. Anything pressed against it freezes no matter what the display says — it's depth, not the thermostat.
The fix: keep leaves, herbs, berries and yoghurts in the front two-thirds of the shelf or in a crisper, with a 3–4 cm gap off the back wall. Push jars and cans to the back instead; they don't mind the chill.
Line a lidded box with a dry sheet of kitchen paper, tip the leaves in loosely, lid on, into the crisper. The paper takes up the moisture that turns leaves to slime — swap it when it's damp. Don't wash leaves until you eat them; wet leaves in storage rot in half the time. Whole heads beat bagged.
Wash at the point of eating, not on arrival. A 30-second cold rinse and a rub takes off most surface residue. Reserve the bicarb soak (1 tsp in a bowl of water, 12–15 min) for thin-skinned things eaten raw — apples, grapes, strawberries, peppers, spinach — and do it right before eating. Anything you peel needs nothing at all.
Berries are the one thing worth washing on arrival: a bath of 3 parts water to 1 part white vinegar, drained and dried thoroughly, kills the mould spores that turn a punnet fuzzy in two days.
Soft herbs — coriander, parsley, dill — last a fortnight stems-down in a glass of water with a loose bag over the top. Basil hates the fridge; keep it on the counter.
Bananas, tomatoes, unripe avocado, onions, garlic, potatoes, whole citrus. And keep apples and bananas away from leaves — the ethylene they give off ripens everything nearby.
Between 5 and 60°C bacteria double about every 20 minutes, and in Dubai heat the clock runs faster. Everything below is just keeping food out of that band. The two-hour rule: chilled and frozen shopping is back in the fridge within two hours — one if it's been in a hot car. Use a cool bag.
Hot water thaws the outside into the danger zone, and starts to cook it, while the middle is still frozen. Bacteria bloom on the surface. Three safe ways only: in the fridge overnight (best); sealed in a bag under cold running water, or cold water changed every 30 minutes; or microwave defrost followed by cooking immediately. Cook it the same day it thaws.
Always below ready-to-eat food, so nothing can drip down. Separate boards and knives for raw, veg and cooked. Never rinse raw chicken — it sprays bacteria round the sink.
Don't leave it out for hours, and don't put a steaming pot straight in. Split it into shallow containers so it cools quickly. Eat cooked leftovers within 3 days, reheat once, piping hot through.
Rice left warm grows a toxin reheating won't kill. Spread it out to cool, fridge within the hour, keep one day, reheat once until steaming.
Leftovers, batch bags, anything not obvious. If nobody knows how old it is, it gets thrown — which is the waste we're trying to avoid.
Wipe spills immediately; a leak of raw juice is the actual risk. Shelves and door seals weekly, a full clear-out monthly with warm water and a little bicarb. An open tub of bicarb at the back handles odours. Check it's holding 1–5°C with a fridge thermometer — the built-in display is often wrong, which is half of why things freeze.
Two habits that beat any system: an eat me first tray at the front of the middle shelf, and a freezer amnesty once a month where dinner comes entirely out of the freezer. First in, first out.
Anything marked store 2–8°C goes in one lidded box marked MEDICINE on a middle shelf. Not the door (too warm, too variable), not the back (it mustn't freeze), and out of a toddler's reach.
Dubai tap water is desalinated and treated to standard — safe for Ringgit, same as for us. Wash the bowl daily; the slippery film is bacteria.