Tea Cake Saturday

I felt an energetic vibe this morning.

So I tidied my home, did some washing, went grocery shopping, sorted my photo collection, set up my printer and made an apple tea cake.

I've had more productive Saturdays, to be sure,  but few as yummy as this!

I've been terribly inspire by River Cottage lately and am feeling the urge to sort out my chook shed and buy more chickens.

My weekend in pictures... (again!)

The Type Who Enjoys Lists....

Before we got married Rhys and I had to go through a series of marriage counseling sessions with the minister who would be holding our ceremony.    I actually really enjoyed these sessions as they usually involved some exercise or test that would shed some light/give me 'light-bulb' moments about Rhys, myself and our relationship.   (Note - the minister stressed not to take these things too seriously as they are only tools to get a general idea about the important talking points for the sessions).

One such light-bulb moment was when the results of one test that showed that Rhys liked to live a less structured life while I thrive on lists, plans and structure.   Why this was a light-bulb moment to me I don't know because it should have been obvious. 

I love lists.   I'll write lists about anything - about things I want, things I want/have to do, things I have done, how I plan to do things to be done..... I can be outlisted and outplanned by no man.   The itinerary I made for my last trip to Japan was a thing of meticulously planned beauty.

So perhaps it shouldn't be a giant surprise that I keep a spreadsheet file on my computer called 'groceries2.xls'



It lists in different sections:

• What was in each of my food connect boxes and the price comparison to woolworths & coles for each one (still doin' well!)
• The information about the latest grocery shop - what was bought? for how much?  who was it for? was it for meals/stock/bathroom necessities/tools/junk food? 
• The total cost of my latest grocery shop and totals on how much I spent (and on what) and Rhys spent (and on what) as well as totals for how much was spent on meals, stocks and junk food. 
• Information about each of my grocery shops since February last year.  Where? when?  who went? total spent?  Cat total spent?  Rhys total spent?  Totals spent on meals, stocks and junk food?

Why bother with all of this ultra-anal-retentive-list-making?

The idea is that it is like a food diary of sorts and that over time you can see patterns or changes in behavior.

An interesting fact made obvious by my spreadsheet is that if I go shopping by myself there is nearly always $0.00 spent on junk food and snacks.  If Rhys or Dan joins me this figure usually changes for the worse!

Another interesting thing I've noted is how much my grocery bill has blown up since I've been eating properly.   But it's also interesting to note how much of each shopping bill is for what I call 'stocks' - i.e. herbs, flour, rice, sugar, sesame oil and other items that will last for a long time and provide for many meals.


But no matter how detailed the list I am not satisfied.  I want more.  My current system means that the finer details of the latest grocery shop is kept, to be overwritten next time I shop.   The broader details kept in the grocery register don't provide me with details like whether I purchased meat (which can really bump up the cost), what was the most expensive item I bought (because a 10L can of olive oil can make a total shopping bill go up drastically!) and other such details that I'd like to keep stored.

What I really want is a database which allows me to store information about each grocery shop linked to an overall register.  This would make the list-maker-detail-storer in me happier than Larry. 

My Sunday in Pictures.

What to make with just 5 strawberries

I was thrilled to see I had strawberries in my latest food connect box.  Then came sadness that there were only 5 of them.   Though smooshing a plain strawberry in the mouth is one of life's great pleasures, I wanted to use all five together in a worthwhile kind of way - enough to help out with a meal. 

What could I do with 5 strawberries that would make them worthwhile?

Then I was reminded of the breakfast episode of River Cottage Everyday where Hughie makes a breakfast thickie as a quick and tasty option to include oats in breakfast - not as porridge!

In go the strawberries..... some homemade yogurt with the last scrapings of my mulberry ice-cream and a generous handful of rolled oats.   Cover the lot with milk.

In goes the hand blender.....

And in a few short minutes I have a delicious breakfast thickie!

Meal Planning

I have started meal planning.  

It is a process that takes half an hour to an hour to complete, usually something I do on a weekend but I have found the amount of time and effort it has saved me has been worth the effort. 

I thought I might write a blog entry sharing how I go about doing this and why.

Why meal plan? 

1) It saves time by:

• limiting the amount of time I have to sit pouring over cookbooks, frustratedly asking myself questions like "what am I going to cook tonight?" or "what the heck am I going to do with chicken, two carrots and half a cabbage?"
• limiting the amount of time I spend at the supermarket.  I know exactly what I need to buy so I'm in and out.
• limiting time wasted in the evening defrosting food.  I know what I'm cooking in the evening so it was taken out of the freezer to defrost during the day. 

2) It makes me eat a better diet by:

• forcing me to consider my diet spread across an entire week.  I can see at a glance if I'm not getting enough protein and add/swap in a meat or egg dish somewhere in the week.
• forces me to consider lunches so they're not just an afterthought or skipped.
• enables me to consider alternative breakfasts instead of the same thing every day. 
• I get excited about mixing it up and making new things when I meal plan.  Prior to meal planning I found I'd get home and the frustration with working out what to cook had me making the same thing or nothing. 
• I now eat breakfast every day and cook dinner (or reheat leftovers/frozen cooked meals) every night.  No excuses. No takeaway.

3) It saves me from wasting food:

• I can consider how to use leftovers.  If I make tuna sushi for lunch one day I will plan to use the remaining tuna in a meal either that night or the next night. 
• I plan the meals based around the vegetables from my food connect box collected the Thursday before I plan.  
• It allows me to consider what veges are leftover from the previous week and how to use them first.

4) It saves me money by:

• I create my grocery shopping list from my meal plan (as well as items I know need restocking).  I don't waste money in the supermarket picking up things that I don't need.
• I have lunches planned each day so don't spend any extra money buying lunch. 
• by minimising food wastage I am also saving money. 
• I have a plan and the will to stick to it so I don't cave from exhaustion at the end of the day and buy take-out food anymore. 

 Yay!  Wins all around!

So how do I food plan?

I have a lovely meal planning pad from KiKi-K.  This might be familiar to Metanoia, who I sent another copy of the same pad, and to Grosby who received a portion of my pad for her use.   When my pad runs out I will probably have to get creative and make a set of papers with some ink stamps... or print some out.

But for now I use my KiKi-K pad which shows a kind of meal-planning matrix with the days of the weeks as columns and the meals of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks) as rows.  There's a space at the bottom of the rows that I also utelise... but more about that in a bit.

I consider what plans I might have for the week ahead and write in any commitments or plans I know in advance on the meal plan sheet.  (e.g. I'll put a cross through dinner to indicate I won't be cooking it and write the reason  "Bob's birthday party" beside it.)



Am I away from home for any of these meals?  Do I have dinner out with Dajana one night?  Will I be at Mum & Dad's place for dinner sometime?  Will I be late home on a night and therefore need a very quick and easy dinner or perhaps a frozen meal?   Will I be leaving for work very early on another morning?  If so, no scrambled eggs for breakky that day!  It's not a perfect world and plans change but it's a good start!


I sit down with a handful of my cookbooks.   Though there are some books that tend to always find their way into the mix (Donna Hay's 'no time to cook' and Australian Women's Weekly 'Creative Cooking on a Budget') I try to keep it fresh by switching the books around.  Recently I've also included my ipad - abc ifood app, River Cottage app and Australian Womens Weekly cookbook app.  

I have my shopping list beside me and a list of the veges I know are in my fridge/kitchen. 


Then I start to plan - usually I mark in breakfasts first, because they aren't connected to any other meal.  I try to ensure I don't eat the same thing two days in a row.  I know breakfasts on weekdays are rushed so I don't plan for anything fancy - I leave that for weekends.

Next I plan dinners - keeping in mind what vegetables need to be used up first.   I flick through cookbooks and i-pad apps to find recipes that use those kinds of ingredients.   I also keep in mind that I need to keep a range of protein in my diet.  Often, I'll find a recipe to cook the meat/chicken/fish I have or want and then find a separate recipe for a vegetable side - or just make something up!
 
Once dinners are planned I can fill in lunches.  If dinner the night before will leave me with leftovers I put that down for lunch the next day.   If dinner the night before won't allow leftovers I plan for something else easy to put together in the morning, like salad, sushi, a basic bento box or an easy instant cous-cous. 


And the extra line at the very bottom I mentioned?  If a dinner will require something to be defrosted in the morning, something to be made the night before or something to be soaked or marinated throughout the day I will write it in the extra space.   It's usually just one word like 'FISH' or 'CHICKPEAS' and it serves as a simple reminder for me in the morning.



Oh yeah... and one last point... where I have based a meal on a recipe (or more than one) I will record in shorthand the book and the page the recipe is on.  I then leave those cookbooks used in the kitchen for quick and easy access! 

This week's meal plan on my fridge - because of changed plans on Thursday lunch I now have extra gnocchi leftovers and will need to do a reshuffle of dinners, probably ditch the pizza planned for tomorrow night and eat the leftovers then.

Important Points to Meal Planning

• Be flexible.  Recognise that plans change or you may forget to put the chickpeas out to soak in the morning.   Recognise that you may come home very late from work totally wrecked and not want to make fiddly scotch eggs...
• Build flexibility into your plan where appropriate - I almost never plan lunches for weekends.  My Sunday is very sketchy in the above plan.
• Have back-up meals in the freezer - for those nights that you come home wrecked! 
• Mix it up but don't plan meals that are too fancy for the time or effort you can afford.  Keep really fancy-pants meals for weekends when you'll have the time to prepare. 
• Do keep in mind which vegetables need to be used first.  Don't leave the banana smoothie for breakfast until a full week after your shopping... your nanas will be grossed-up by then.
• Consider the ways of getting the best and most from your ingredients.  I tend to never cook a steak because that steak will feed me one meal only.  If I cut it up and use it in a stir-fry or a casserole it will make two meals or more.
• Don't be afraid to chop and change recipes and get familiar with ways to substitute ingredients.  If you have a bunch of kale when a recipe calls for silverbeet or spinach, use the kale!  No white wine but you do have a can of Guiness in the fridge throw in the stout!  
• Know your usual suspect ingredients and keep your fridge/cupboard stocked.   I've discovered that I usually need cream at least once a week and can't live without olive oil.  I go through thyme like you wouldn't believe...  

Do you meal plan?  Is your process similar to mine, more/less meticulous?  What things do you consider when meal planning?

Food Connect Box 3

My latest food connect box contained the following:

2 large imperial mandarines
3 oranges
3 kiwi fruits
2 avacados
1 small bunch shallots
1 bunch rocket
1 butter lettuce head
1/2 celery bunch
4 carrots
1 large head broccoli
1 large eggplant
4 apples
1/2 red cabbage
5 strawberries
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
2 lemons
1 bag mushrooms
3 pieces ginger
3 potatoes
3 small sweet potatoes
1 bunch kale (?)

It has been interesting to put these things together into meals, especially the more unusual ingredients I haven't ever cooked with before (like yacon and kale).