Can there be such a thing as a Free Lunch?

I'm getting round to planning what I'll be growing in the veg patch and at the allotment this coming year, and it struck me that I still seem to have a freezer full of last year's allotment harvest. Time, I decided, to use it up - after all the whole point of growing veg is to eat it! So, building on my 'lunch from the lottie' idea, I'm trying to see how many times I can put together a 'free' lunch using fruit and veg that have either been grown by us, given by friends or through Freegle, or foraged. Obviously any meat, bread, cheese etc will have to be shop-bought so there'll probably be a lot of vegetarian meals. Here's how Week 1 went...
First up, Monday; a minestrone of sorts with tomatoes, broad beans and cabbage from the freezer and carrots gifted by someone from the allotments with a bit of dried chilli and a sprinkle of last year's dried oregano

Tuesday; leek and potato soup with, you guessed, leeks (fresh from the allotment) and potatoes (last year's from store). I also used some veg stock and freshly ground pepper, but if I was been really strict it could probably survived without them.

 Wednesday; ham salad. Obviously NOT home grown ham but I had cabbage, beetroot and blue winter radishes in store, fresh rocket in the garden, dried apples from a bag of windfalls picked up through Freegle and chutney made with a cucumber glut last summer.

Thursday; sandwiches - tricky as I can't grow grain for flour for bread, and I don't have a cow to milk for cheese, but the onion and beetroot were homegrown and the cucumber chutney mainly was.

Friday; chilli of sorts with beans dried not last year but the one before, tomatoes and courgettes from the freezer, and onions and dried chilli from store. No peppers as I didn't grow enough to freeze any, but it was still ok.

Saturday; sandwiches again. I've soon discovered that it's easier to cook a free lunch, than have 'free' sandwiches. Still, I picked some rocket, added some already cooked beetroot and a red onion from the store to go with tuna.

Sunday - another quick sandwich day so I just grabbed the first things to hand in the fridge - nothing 'free' at all. For dinner, though, there were potatoes from store and runner beans and cauliflower from the freezer, so maybe things evened out on the day.


Now to start planning for next week.....