1 July 1992 – 30 June 1993
Summary of All the Previous Year’s Meals – with Statistics and Links to Some of the Recipes!
For an introduction to what these Menu Diary posts are about, please click HERE. And for the reasons why you really should read this series, please click HERE.
Introduction
In the last entry of The Menu Diaries No.15, here, Trenna speculates about what meal we were having the most often. Well as it turns out, and as I now recall, a few days later Trenna did the research to work it out!
Here’s what she found.
Restaurant Meals
It looks like I had 14 restaurant meals and Trenna 13. The Rumah Batik, at 7 times was far and away our most popular diner. As I’ve explained we would just drop in after doing the shopping on Thursday nights. The Duchess Room at the Windsor Hotel in South Perth came in second.
Take Away Meals
We had 28 of these, and that doesn’t count the times we had Red Rooster or HJ’s for lunch. Indian Take Away meals and Fish & Chips were tied for our most popular, with Hungry Jacks coming in next. In later years Hungry Jacks was banned in our household as an evening meal.
Away From Home Meals
There were quite a few meals we had “away from home”. These included ones when we were away on holidays, when Trenna was in hospital, at the Sunday Sessions, Bachelors’ Dinners, and a few times when invited to other people’s places for dinner.
Favourite Home Meals
Trenna’s gone through the previous year’s Menu Diaries and found out that Pan Fried Fish Fillet was far and away the most popular home cooked evening meal. We had it 18 times in one year.
I’m sure that is because we did our grocery shopping near a really good fish monger. And that Trenna was trying to look after my heart health.
As I’ve mentioned, this meal really dropped off the radar in more recent years.
However, in 2022, the process of writing up these Menu Diaries has reminded me of it and I’ve had Pan Fried Fish Fillet 4 or 5 times in the last couple of months (recipe here). I’ve really enjoyed it, and it feels a bit healthier than some of the meals I had been having. It must be all those omega-3 fatty acids!
Chilli Con Carne (with Basmati Rice, Sliced Green Olives, Sour Cream, and Grated Cheese), and Puttanesca Spaghetti were the next popular with 10 appearances each.
The runners up were Roast Lamb, Frankfurts and Noodles, Chilli Spaghetti, Saffron Chicken (always part of a bigger, multi dish banquet) and then Steak & Kidney Pie (once every 2 months on average).
For the Record
Of course, when Trenna did this list in July 1993 she had no idea that 29 years later it would be going on the Internet.
She was doing it because she was curious about what the results would be; she knew that I would be intereted and that we would discuss it (and we did); and she was looking to see if there was something she could learn from our meals that could help her manage this area of our life even better.
Enjoy!