Bean Counting

2010-11-07T13:31:00.001+11:00

http://science.discovery.com/interactives/literacy/darwin/darwin.html

Colour me an idiot

2010-03-10T14:22:00.001+11:00

Currently in our household we are in a bit of a holding pattern. I'm so glad it's easy to switch into a 'back to basics mode'. With the cooler weather, our menus and meals are changing to match the seasons. We're making the switch over from salad to soup. Because one of my sons is such a soup monster, I checked over the soup products at the supermarket yesterday. A lot of the canned products of course are not economical, but the sachets of soup base caught my eye. They were on special, so I quickly grabbed one. Being in a bit of a hurry, I didn't do my usual ingredients check. I did see it needed meat to add to it. I'd spotted a tray of beef reduced to clear earlier, so I abandoned my trolley raced back to grab it.

McCormack's Soup Base

When I got home, I started to read through the instructions on the back of the packet. First you had to brown the meat and add that to the slow cooker. Next, cut up two cups of vegetables... what??? Okay, I was kind of imagining some dehydrated veggies in there, but ok. Brown them and add them to the meat. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the slow cooker.... Ok. Fine. By this stage I was seriously wondering what exactly was inside the packet. Well, foo me, because inside the packet was a small handful of red lentils (less than 200g, not even a BLEND of lentils) and a sachet of powdered beef stock and dried herbs. Seriously, for $2 it's just an expensive recipe. I already even have red lentils and beef stock. There was no way I needed to pay $2 for this piece of packaging.

Still it was an extremely nice soup and I'm amazed with myself in that I actually cooked it up while cooking tea last night, so halved my time in the kitchen! Next time I won't be using a packet to hold my hand.

Jamie Oliver on TED

2010-02-12T21:05:00.002+11:00

Weekly Report: Week 6 & 7

2010-02-11T23:12:00.000+11:00

Yes, I know that's a bit of a cheat combining two weeks but these two weeks have been a combo deal. I started using Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way by Leanne Ely.

I really love this book!!! There are a couple of negatives ( I must be getting fussy in my old age) but overall it's a great addition to any cookbook collection.

Now, I don't have and haven't seen any of her other books other than viewing them online, but my preference is for this book. I think the way the meals are made from scratch using fresh ingredients is much more like the style of cooking we are used to in Australia and NZ (it's not relying on cans of chicken soup or other processed foods that can be found in some American cookbooks). Also, another great thing is that she doesn't waste much time on the introduction or blat on about what a low carb diet is. She's written from the perspective that if you're interested in the cookbook, you already have prior knowledge about healthy eating.

The book is arranged into four seasonal section. Each section has six weeks worth of recipes (which is less than the eight in her first book). Each week has six main meal recipes. Each week has a shopping list of the total ingredients needed for the week divided up into the food groups you would find them in at the supermarket. The shopping lists are available on her website. it took quite a bit of digging around to find them but I got there in the end. You can download them as pdf files, which means you can print them off as needed to take to the shops. Good thinking Batwoman!!! (now if only there was an iphone app to match....) While you are at her website, you can also sign up for some sample menus. I don't know if the menu mailer would be seasonally adjusted for customers downunder, the books have a clear advantage in that you can choose which season to use.

Out of the twelve meals, so far I have managed six. It's not a huge hit rate but what we have made has been really good. There's a couple of reasons for not following the book to the letter. Firstly, she uses a good range of meats each week but I'm not big on pork so we've skipped those. Also the price of fish has been horrendous, so I haven't ventured there either. Plus our freezer is really well stocked with meat thanks to the shop I did in the first week, so I do need to use some of that. Now Ely never promises that her recipes are cheap, budget or economical in any way, so that is something to bear in mind. So this week when red capsicums were $9 per kg at the supermarket, I just couldn't bring myself to buy six of them to stuff. And that of course is the major disadvantage of having such beautifully prepared menu plans, it doesn't give you the flexibility to use the cheapest bargains. Being seasonal, most of the produce should be at it's peak but it's still pricier than flying by the seat of your pants.

I've loved having the pre-prepared menu and shopping lists to work with though. They make the meal preparation and planning so much less arduous. It's great to have new recipes to add to the repertoire and I have simply padded out the weeks with old faithfuls. The best news is that the meals have been delicious, filling and still healthy! The compromise here is that it's not a true budget option.

Food Cost Survey from NZ

2010-02-05T14:19:00.000+11:00

Food Cost Survey

This is an absolutely brilliant survey from Otago University. The results are crystal clear and very easy to understand. They undertake the survey every year in March and these results are from 2009. The results are split into cities and categorised by both number of people and three types of budget. So for the most basic budget I can see that the weekly cost of our family in Auckland would have been $280 per week (with Australian exchange rate that might be $230 Au, see note below).

It is well worth reading the information package that goes with the survey results here, as it explains in greater detail the types of food included in each budget level. For example the most basic budget level includes only fruit such as apples, oranges and bananas. It also lists the types of meat and the serving sizes used for each person (teenage boys are allocated 2kg of potatoes a week, LOL!). If you want a quick reference list of the cheapest types of food to buy, this is it.

Unfortunately I cannot find similar data for Australia, which is a real shame. The closest I can find is the Choice Supermarket Price Report. While they may not give the same data, they do support what I have been saying about increased food prices:

Whatever the cause, there’s little doubt food prices in Australia have increased significantly in recent times. Australia has the tenth-highest food inflation of 30 OECD countries for the year to September. We may not be the worst off, but we’re unique among many OECD countries for having a rate of food price inflation that’s been consistently above our overall inflation over the last 10 years... But comparisons with New Zealand, considered reasonable given the similarities between our countries, show Australian food price increases are substantially higher than across the Tasman.

I would just like to add as an aside that the unemployment benefit in NZ currently is $317 for a family. How you are supposed to pay rent and eat, let alone afford extravagant things like clothes I'll never know.

Keptwoman and 2010

2010-02-04T15:32:00.003+11:00

So Miss Maccy is on a diet/tracking kick. I've been pondering what kick I'll be on this year.

Last year I wanted to get my grocery budget below $200 a week. I've admitted defeat on that with one of my sons suddenly turning into a human eating machine, consuming massive amounts a day and growing like a weed, and the other now eating the same quantities as an adult. If I can stick to $200 a week, I'll be doing great!

It's the grow-your-own year for me. I would like to be able to use something out of our garden at every meal. It's not possible yet but we are getting there as the garden matures. In the interests of full disclosure least you think we live on some kind of farm, currently we have 14.4 square metres of vegetable garden and a lemon and an apricot tree. I'd like to get that to 20 square metres and add 3 more fruit trees, and some berry canes. I aim to be organic-ish, with no nasty sprays etc. We are on water restrictions due to drought which mean we can only water 2 times a week, either by hand held hose or drip irrigation. Oh for a farm and ready water!

Also I'd like to use more local food, for environmental reasons mostly. So I need to try local markets and suppliers.

So I'll jump back in to the weekly competition next week, but I'll include garden spend too to keep me honest. I'll also aim to post gardening books that inspire, and recipies to use up the inevitable gluts.

I'd also like to really get a handle on some ethnic food, so I might play with some theme weeks where we only shop at an ethnic store, for lunches and dinners anyway.

See you in Week 7

Free Lecture on Diet and Nutrition

2010-02-03T18:58:00.002+11:00

From The Teaching Company: It's All about Calories

Weekly Report: Week 5

2010-01-30T22:49:00.000+11:00

Well I managed to keep the shopping fairly under control last week, which after CostCo is an enormous relief. I went back to the cheap fruit and veggies shop at Watergardens as well as quick shops at Woolworths and Aldi. All up $163.

One of the things our Woolworths did just before Christmas was a bit of a store revamp (well they completely rebranded from Safeway) but also they introduced self service check out counters. I love these but really they are no good for big shops. They also replaced the 100 year old shopping trolleys (carts) and replaced them with ones which need a coin to release them. The tendency therefore is to use the supermarket not as somewhere you go for a big shop, but somewhere you "pop in". Today I took note of the expiry dates on all the products I bought and noted that very little (I mean in the fresh foods) was dated to last beyond the 6th of February. To me it doesn't seem very fresh if the majority of food you buy expires in three days time.

Today I got busy in the kitchen baking some of the recipes from The Sneaky Chef. I made the choclate brownies using the purple puree. The purple puree does in fact have a lovely purple colour once frozen. The brownies look fine and taste great. The only thing I would note is that they have a slightly nuttier texture than the brownies we have made in the past - but this is due to the addition of wheat germ and rolled oats, so they are very healthy brownies indeed!!!

And this is my stack of orange puree in half cup quantities. I have decided that anything less than half a cup is not worth dealing with in a plastic bag. I also baked some of the Breakfast cookies which used up the remains of a packet of "best intentions" breakfast cereal.

Again, I haven't recorded our menu for this week as we've been all over the show and finishing up random bits and pieces from the freezer. This week I'm excited to be using the menus from Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way! It looks really great but the proof will be in the tasting!

Cheese Substitution Recipes

2010-01-30T19:11:00.000+11:00

Today I made up the Breakfast cookies recipe from The Sneaky Chef. I thought it was an ideal way to use up the left over "best of intentions" breakfast cereal. I also thought cookies were an ideal way for me to consume grains - I don't eat cereal as a rule being lactose intolerant. However, the recipe called for ricotta cheese. I did a quick search on ricotta cheese and decided in this case that firm tofu was going to be the best option (well, duh. Don't ask me why I couldn't think of that without the help of Mr. Google).

I also discovered a couple of really great sites with cheese replacement recipes. The first one is from *gasp* About.com (who I normally avoid like the plague due to their idiotic top bar).

Cheese Substitutions.

The second is a recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. You can see their recipe for ricotta cheese replacement here.

If Woolworths are "the fresh food people"...

2010-01-30T10:07:00.002+11:00

... then how come all their fruit and vegetables are old and wrinkly and their potatoes go green faster than anyone elses?

Just saying.

The Bad News About Healthy Eating

2010-01-29T16:58:00.000+11:00

Over the past couple of weeks I have quickly come to the conclusion that it is possible to eat cheaply and it is possible to eat healthily but that they do not go hand in hand. There is a fantastic blog post here about the fact that "Healthy and Cheap are not Synonymous". As Michele says, "The truth is, it costs money and takes time to eat well. I wish doctors, nutritionists, the media, etc. would just be honest about it."

This is so true. Thinking about some of the cookbooks / diet books I've just read (yes CSIRO I am pointing at you) a lot of them have loads of information on what healthy eating is and making "better choices". I think the vast majority of parents know is that an apple is a healthier snack than a bag of chips (or crisps). Parents are not ignorant of the fact that junk food is, well, junk. But is is vastly cheaper to buy highly refined and processed foods than the unadulterated counterparts. How ironic is that?

I also want to quote from an interview on Amazon from the makers of the film "FOOD, Inc".

How are low-income families impacted at the supermarket?
Kenner: Things are really stacked against low-income families in this country. There is a definite desire of the food companies to sell more product to these people because they have less time, they’re working really hard and they have fewer hours in their day to cook. And the fast food is very reasonably priced. Coke is selling for less than water. So when these things are happening, it’s easier for low-income families sometimes to just go in and have a quick meal if they don’t get home until 10 o’clock at night. At the moment, our food is unfairly priced towards bad food.
And, in the same way that tobacco companies went after low-income people because they were heavy users, food companies are going after low-income people because they can market to them, they can make it look very appealing.
What can low-income families do to eat healthier?
Schlosser: As much as possible, they can avoid cheap, processed foods and fast foods. It’s possible to eat well and inexpensively. But it takes more time and effort to do so, and that’s not easy when you’re working two jobs and trying to just to keep your head above water. The sad thing is that these cheap foods are ultimately much more expensive when you factor in the costs of all the health problems that come later.
Pollan: It’s possible to eat healthy food on a budget but it takes a greater investment of time. If you are willing to cook and plan ahead, you can eat local, sustainable food on a budget.

I can win this competition by feeding my family sausages, pasta, and budget brand white bread but I feel like we are becoming a case study for a documentary like Super Size Me. When you are trying to eat as cheaply as possible you end up sacrificing things like:

variety
freshness
organically produced food
fruit and veggies in general
fibre

In Australia at the moment it costs approximately double to buy organically produced fruit and vegetables. Free range meat and eggs are 50 - 100% more expensive.

It's certainly neither easy nor economical to be green.

Supermarket Price War Will Save You...

2010-01-29T11:44:00.000+11:00

...$6 a week if you're lucky.

"Supermakrets Slashing Prices"

Seriously, how does this even get to be news that supermarkets have slashed up to 7c on some food items.

One of the cookbooks I got out from the local library last week was:
"How to Feed Your Family for $75 a Week"

What I like about this book is that when they price it out, they didn't go for the best bargains they could find (no, really). Instead they aimed for very average supermarket prices that you could find if you walked into your local supermarket. Admittedly some of the items are Supermarket "own brand" prices. I really like the fact that they have detailed the entire shopping list with prices for two weeks. However, my first thought looking at the prices they list is that equivalent price now is about $100. For example they have potatoes as $4 for a 5kg bag. Well I think the average price now for a 5kg bag of spuds is $8. Premium Mince beef they have at $6 per kg. Now that's a minimum of $10 - $12 (ok I note they bought it in bulk of 2kg which can reduce the price). They have capsicum as $2.50 per kg. Capsicum is one of those veggies that really fluctuates with the seasons. At the moment you could be paying up to $10 per kg. They have a fruit of choice at $1 per kg. Well, there's no such beast as that anymore. On special you can get some fruit for $2 per kg. As they have 6.7kg of fruit as the recommended amount, that's a difference right there of $6 -$7. After a bit of detective work, I discovered the book was published in February 2009. (The prices are most likely based on the prices from the end of 2008).

What this says to me is that in the space of a year, the average price for basic food products has increased 35% in Australia. Hello newspapers, don't tell me it's news that I'm saving $6 a week that the supermarket already got back on a bag of spuds and a packet of mince.

What it also says to me is that the least you can get away with at the supermarket to buy small serving sizes for four people, on a basic but healthy diet with NO food intolerances, is $100. And that isn't including anything like cleaning products, paper goods etc which are often a hefty whack out of the grocery budget.

The negatives about this book are that it's pretty small - a mere 64 pages an it is a two week plan only. After that I guess you just repeat the menu. Also, I found some of the quantities a bit light - 8 weet bix for 4 people for breakfast for example. And two pieces of toast on the days when it was toast (mind you they also serve baked beans or eggs on those days, so that is more filling). Also, the recipes are geared for people with no food intolerances as I said above.

The positives about this book - the tips to start with are really worth reading. I learned about which type of pumpkins are best to buy. They use ingredients readily available in Australia. They include economical desserts. For anyone in a "do or die" financial situation who had the incentive to stick strictly to this plan, I think it would be an extremely helpful guide an well worth the price. Of course, check your library first to see if they have a copy!

The CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for Kids

2010-01-27T23:11:00.001+11:00

The CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for Kids

Although this was not on my "hit list" of diet cookbooks, when I saw it at the local library I thought I'd better get it out to have a look at.

In Australia, the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet is one of the best selling local books ever. It sold over 650,000 copies in 2005 alone. While it was hugely popular, there were some critical reviews. I think it should also be noted that for a book to have sold so well, five years down the track you can't see the impact on the Australian population. Nobody is going to write a sequel "The Amazing Australian Diet" or "Why Australian Women Don't Get Fat". It simply isn't happening.

Although I approached the book with a sceptical eye, my initial reaction was positive. I have completely abandoned the idea of trying to count and track calorie intake (or Kilojoules) for three children. As far as I am concerned that is totally impractical and way up there with weeding flower beds with tweezers. If you've been reading along, you will recall that my train of thought was to find something to track but not really knowing what. With the CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for kids I thought I'd hit pay dirt!

The great concept (and yeah, not original to them by any stretch of the imagination) is to track how many serves or portions of food groups your children eat each day. For example, they say to "aim for 2-3 seves of fruit and 4-5 serves of vegetables a day". They then have a chart showing how much a serve would be equal to. In this case a serve of vegetables is equal to one medium potato or one cup of salad. They have recommended daily intakes for Wholegrain breads and cereals, fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy foods and oils.

I was thinking this was a much more realistic thing to track - but four serves of vegetables a day! Well, no wonder I was feeling our diet was inadequate. I eagerly turned the pages to find out how on earth you could get kids to eat four decent sized servings of veggies a day. I figured they must be having them at breakfast as well for sure. Well, that's when this book went back downhill for me. No matter which way I did the maths, on the suggested menu plan the veggies on any given day usually totally up to about two serves. Then there was a big section on how to parent your child - less tv, more running around, don't give them cordial to drink yada, yada, yada. The book finishes with a recipe section that I'm afraid really didn't present any new or radical healthy eating recipes. In fact, they are a poor cousin to the recipes produced by the Australian Women's Weekly cookbook series. (edited to add: complete forgot to mention the lack of nutritional information for the recipes as well in my haste to get to the rant below).

After being so disillusioned I then discovered this article and got really mad. It turns out the Australian government donated $3 million dollars to the production of this diet book. $3 million dollars!!! And it retails for $35! They are not exactly giving it away on the street corners. $3 million dollars, and according to the CSIRO website, they had FIVE dieticians and nutritional experts working on this. If you check out the website you will discover there are a small selection of pdf spreadsheets available to download as a supplement to the book. For crying out loud, for $3 million dollars you should be able to produce something a whole lot better than a book that doesn't even have a way to implement it's own advice, eight spreadsheets and a handful of bog standard recipes. WHERE is the iphone app?

So, in conclusion. Save your dosh - the government already gave at the door. If you want to find out more about serving sizes and recommended portions there is plenty of information available FOR FREE, HELLO AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT on the internet. Some other Governments who spent money on this actually got websites with interactive features even!
Great chart here of what a serving looks like
A colourful rewards chart for kids
A portions chart printable for kids
Create a personalised food group plan
And really for a fraction of the price you are much better off supporting the Healthy Food Guide.

Not quite Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-27T22:10:00.000+11:00

Well it would be wordless Wednesday but I do think this requires a little explanation. Today I got the Breville Mini Wizz from Harris Scarfe (where it was on special). The very first thing I have made is the purple puree from the Sneaky Chef cookbook. As you can see, it's not exactly purple. In fact after making it the immediate quote that came to mind was a line from Time Bandits,

Supreme Being: Do be careful! Don't lose any of that stuff. That's concentrated evil. One drop of that could turn you all into hermit crabs.

I can see straight away the importance of being sneaky with this stuff! In actual fact, it tastes fine. I made up the exact quantity of the recipe and it made five plastic bags of ¼ cup each. As that is quite a small quantity in each zip lock bag, I was able to make the bags quite flat to go in the freezer.

So far I'm impressed with the Breville Mini Wizz. At under $60 it is a good buy for a small food processor. I have long since given up paying hard earned dollars for food processors that don't last, so I don't have a full sized one. We do however have a blender so I will have to attempt making this puree up in that and seeing if it works as well.

Weekly Report: Week 4

2010-01-26T22:48:00.000+11:00

Last week was CostCo week and that means... ARGH! So much for the budget! Last week our grocery bill was over $500. Despite this, I actually love CostCo because I despise shopping for things like toilet paper and paper towels. They are so mind numbingly boring and yet critical if forgotten. Plus they take up heaps of room in the trolley. Buying them in bulk means I pay a decent low price and don't have to worry about them for aaaaaggggeees. I was going to write an amazing post about how you can actually shop in a healthy way from bulk food suppliers like CostCo but the Professional Family Manager already did that over here. So, ditto what she said.

Last week I also took the opportunity to go through our pantry and do a bit of a pantry audit (how official does that sound?) and I've just finished the same in the fridge. There was a great conversation on Rockpool Homeschool last week. One of the questions asked was,

What’s something you eat only when the budget is really, really tight?

And really, the wining answer by a country mile was,

Whatever is in the bottom of the freezer - usually bought because it looked interesting, or super healthy, but then forgotten in favour of things we actually like.

I have to confess this is completely true for us. It explains why we had three sorts of brown rice in our pantry. It simply gets overlooked in favour of stuff that we actually like. So my pantry audit was getting rid of food that was past it's expiry date and stuff that was bought with best intentions but now only sends messages of condemnation. I'm not keeping things in our pantry and fridge that we "should" use and I've managed to cull it down to one container of brown rice. Now I can focus on food that we like, that is good for us and hopefully introduce a few new things to improve our diet overall.

Eat This! Not That! (For Kids)

2010-01-20T22:06:00.000+11:00

Eat This! Not That! For Kids!

Now on the one hand this is a brilliant little book (little as in the size of an origami square of paper, so portable but still a respectable 300 pages) and on the other hand, it is very, very American. After reading this book from cover to cover the question becomes not "why are people in America so fat?" but rather "how are there any thin people in America at all?" The range of junk food available to American consumers is astounding. Completely mind blowing.

As a diet book, or healthy eating guide, it's a little bit different to the others I'm looking at. It only has ten recipes in the whole book. The rest is straight shopping and menu selection comparisons. The picture below gives you an idea of what a typical page spread is like:

Despite the fact that the restaurants and food products are all American, there are enough similarities to make the book worth reading. There are also lots of great tips spread throughout the book. For instance I discovered that raisins help fight tooth cavities. According to the book they contain oleanoic acid, which kills cavity causing bacteria. What is a little bit bizarre about the book is that this tip was on the page spread for rating Subway Takeaways. Also, there is a little bit of contradiction within the book because later on on the pages comparing dried fruit snacks, it recommends buying prunes instead of raisins.

Big pluses for the book are the fact that it is extremely visual, really easy to read and has immediate impact. Although the title says "For Kids" the intended audience seems to me to be the parents making food choices for their children. Despite this, the book is appealing enough for kids to pick up and flip through (as my son did).

Unfortunately for us Aussies, the book measures energy levels in food by calories. I've not really paid much attention to calories before so when I went to check the values on food in my pantry I was a little bit surprised to discover we measure in KJs. What an enormous pain. Turns out kilojoules are the metric type measurement. Arrrrghhh. And it's some weird division thing like 4.18 to convert. Arrrrgghhhh. When 90% of the world's dieting information speaks using calories as a term of reference I think it's ridiculous not to have this on food labels. If the manufacturers have gone to all the trouble to work out the KJ's, then they can stick on the calories as well. Don't make the shoppers stand there with calculators working it out.

My recommendation - get it out from the library if you can, but it is well worth a read.

Back into it - or not as the case may be

2010-01-18T12:18:00.000+11:00

Well on the one hand I am very pleased with myself for getting my spreadsheets up and running again. I've re-started tracking our spending and meals costs. On the downside, I haven't yet started planning meals in advance. Un-planned meals leads to eating last minute expensive and unhealthy junk in our house I have decided.

I'm not going to bore you with all the details this week as it's not really very exciting reading. The main thing is that our shopping last week was OH YIKES $350 without going to CostCo. The meals averaged at $13.

What I am considering is if I need to record not just the cost of meals but also their nutritional value. I have to try and decide how much detail I'm prepared to record for this not to become a millstone around my neck so to speak. Also, what kind of information is going to be helpful? Does anyone track their nutritional values of meals? If so, how?

The Sneaky Chef

2010-01-17T19:33:00.003+11:00

The Sneaky Chef

Price: $18.45 Au from Book Depository

Visual Appeal: Light on photographs (only a small central section). She uses icons for each recipe but overall the visual appeal factor is pretty low for a cookbook.

Nutritional Value: Ok, if you read the reviews on Amazon, you will notice a lot of people complaining about the lack of detailed nutritional info and values for each meal. Personally, I tend to ignore those anyway, so it didn't bug me. What was news to me was the way you can combine foods like legumes and dairy to form complete proteins that are the nutritional equivalent of eating meat.

Specialised Equipment: Lapine recommends buying a small food processor (3 cup) for making the purees. A blender, small whizz stick or larger Kitchen whizz could all be used but for this book to be successful you would need some way to puree food. You could shortcut this as Lapine recommends by using baby food puree but that may be expensive long term.

Confession time - out of all the books I gathered on healthy eating for kids, this was the one I expected to like the least. Basically our library had a copy so I figured I might as well get it out. I was expecting it to be recipes like "add grated carrot to lasagne" and variations like that. This book is sooooo beyond that! So I was pleasantly surprised.

Second disclaimer: I skipped the first three chapters. You can read them if you like but being the kind of action gal I am, I wanted to get right into the details. Despite there being no specific nutritional information for each recipe I was impressed with the details about which foods to buy organically, which foods to combine and the actual reasons provided for using particular foods. I felt as a philosophy this was more helpful to me personally.

Key concept: Lapine uses a core of purees and blends to add to a wide selection of recipes. Looking at the contents for her other recipe books it appears she repeats these core puree recipes, so it doesn't matter which of the recipe books you buy or in which order - these are her basic building blocks.

Pros & Cons:

The amount of puree added to each recipe is not a lot, some reviewers felt the nutritional value was negligible.
Some reviewers felt that because the healthy ingredients were disguised, you would not actually be training your child to eat healthily. Personally I'm in the "build a bridge" camp where you have to take your kids from where they are now and build a bridge to where you want them to end up. Or as some people refer to it - heating the frog up slowly.
There is at least one other cookbook written by a different author of a similar nature. The cnsensus seemed to me to be that the other book was prettier to look at but Lapine's recipes tasted better.

Conclusion: I actually thought this book was a whole lot better than I expected. The local supermarket had bags of spinach reduced to clear in the weekend and now I'm kicking myself for not buying them - perfect for making up purees to freeze and add later to recipes.

Other books of note by Lapine:
The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue
I would actually recommend this one over the above int hat it deals with food allergies / intolerances as well as weight loss issues for kids. If you decide to buy one, perhaps start here.

The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man (in the Kitchen!) - Hiding Healthy Foods in Hearty Meals Any Guy Will Love

Homage to Hippo

2010-01-16T19:23:00.001+11:00

One of the places we ate in France was at the Hippopotamus Burger chain. It is one step up from McDonalds on the food chain and is of course more expensive. However, we all (kids included) enjoyed the change from the Golden arches.

Now, I know my last post was about my New Year's kind-of-resolution to eat lower carb and healthier meals and we will get there but this is an aberration to good to miss. A while back I bought some hamburger patties from Woolworths on special (note: a friend of mine buys her patties from a butcher for an equal or even better price and I have to say they were even nicer tasting, so don't forget your local butcher!) and hamburger buns from CostCo (the freeze nicely). I went to Woolworths again last night to pick up some salad. Not only did I discover discounted salad but they had brown sliced mushrooms reduced to clear and one type of pâte priced at $1.48. With that kind of incentive I decided I would make some hamburgers based on the style of burgers we enjoyed at Hippopotamus. In fact, they worked so well that when I asked my DH what he would like for tea tonight, he replied that he would rather like hamburgers again! As I had a few hamburger buns left over, I decided we might as well!!!

I'm going to note the steps below so that you can try these burgers for yourself and create a delicious adult treat this BBQ season.

1. If you are making your own meat patties, this is the first step.
2. Melt a really generous wodge of butter in a frying pan (non stick is good). Minimum of 25g. Slice your Mushrooms and then fry over a very low heat. The secret to beautifully caramelised mushrooms is that they need aaaaaages over a really low heat. At least 20 minutes. In the last five minutes add some crushed garlic (from a jar or fresh, up to you).
3. In a separate pan, heat a small amount of olive oil. Finely slice one smallish onion and again fry very gently over a low heat. Keep an eye on both the mushrooms and the onion and stir them quite often so they don't stick or burn. Yeah, yeah, if you are not a purist you can fry them in the same pan. (depending on your oven, you may need to heat your grill now)
4. Start cooking your meat patties to be ready when the mushrooms are finished. I gave ours 7 minutes in our grill press (as we have no BBQ - I know! Shock! Horror!).
5. About two minutes before the end of cooking time, slice the buns in half and lightly toast under a hot grill. (Takes about a minute under mine).
6. When everything is cooked, assemble as follows. Swirl on the bottom bun mild mustard (currently we've got Honey Mustard but American would work too) and Tomato sauce (ketchup). Spread across the bun with a knife. Place the meat pattie on top of this. Spread the meat pattie with a really generous layer of pâte. On top of this layer the mushrooms and then sprinkle with onion. Place the top of the burger bun on and enjoy!!!!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-12T21:41:00.000+11:00

Hey everyone!!!

I know!!!! Long time no hear from us, huh?

It's taken us a lot longer to get back to reality after our big adventure than we expected. Also chuck into the mix a perfect storm combo of computer and net disasters, blah, blah, blah.

Anyhoodle, I totally got out of the habit of logging to cost of our meals and shopping and blogging. Then we got distracted by CostCo being open and all and TOTALLY shot our budget anyway...
But now it's a new year and time to get back on track.

Put your hand up if you set yourself some New Year's resolutions. I have a confession to make, I've always maintained that I am not a N.Y's resolution type of gal. I've always gone "bah humbug" to setting resolutions just because it's the first of January. However, this year, what I've come to realise is that while I don't believe in the "I'm going to loose 5kg" or "I'm going to give up watching Australian Idol this time, I swear" type of resolutions, I do reassess a whole heap of things. I also don't set goals per se. I think my right brain kicks in and has a tantie. I just can't get excited about goals. It's a shocker but true. I do a different type of refocusing. Normally I have to write it out on paper, using quite a few separate pages to spread my ideas out. January is major for us not just because it's a new year, but also because it is the start of a new school year. Therefore we are starting new curriculum or programs, plus new after school activities etc.

So as part of my major life re-think over the past few weeks, I've been considering what we eat. After we came back from Europe (admittedly it was only 7 weeks) everything seemed to have increased in price. Meat was more expensive and the price of everything seemed hideous. Wine for instance was incredibly cheap in France. Yes it really was the same price as bottled water in some instances. In fact, bottled water was significantly cheaper than over here, even taking into account the exchange rate. Another example, in the UK we bought the most fantastic birthday cake for our middle son. We walked into Asda, went to the cake section and my DH pointed straight to it. It was £8 (so about $14 Au). It was bright yellow, with a black and white happy birthday ribbon and on the top was a relief depiction in marzipan of the Stig from Top Gear. That's right, we got the most amazing Top Gear birthday cake for $14. You can't even get a specialty cake made in Australia for under $30 and it would be rubbish in comparison (well, maybe nicer to eat if you got it from the Cheesecake Shop, but certainly less impressive to look at). Part of the rethink then is the fact that maybe $10 a meal or less is too difficult given the increase in prices.

A big factor I've been pondering recently is that my two boys have started to look quite chubby. They've put on a lot of weight. I've always thought we ate quite healthy meals and avoided a lot of junk food. They weren't big as babies or young kids so it's a very recent thing. In Europe although I lived on chocolate, croissants and champagne (it was hard, hard I tell you) I still lost weight. Our daughter has also lost her baby fat and grown taller. The boys however are a different story and as a parent, I'm concerned.

I am wondering for us if trying to eat so cheaply is wining the war but loosing the whole battle campaign. We still need to eat within our means but I need to make some changes. (And just a re-cap, I personally am lactose intolerant, so dairy is quite minimal in our whole diet).

The first thing I did was to do a bit of research on Amazon and then try to track down some books in local libraries and on Book Depository. I've narrowed it down to four for my reading list. I've got

Trim-Kids: The Proven 12-Week Plan That Has Helped Thousands of Children Achieve a Healthier Weight

And

Sneaky-Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods

out from the library.

I've ordered

Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way

from Book Depository,

and

Carbohydrate-Addicted Kids: Help Your Child or Teen Break Free of Junk Food and Sugar Cravings--for Life!

from Amazon Market Place.

I'm logging this weeks meals and costs as usual but I've also got a new goal, to see if we can eat healthier, better meals that train our kids to eat and live well. If you've struggled with weight issues wioth your kids I'd love to hear what worked for you too.

Costco is here

2009-10-16T09:39:00.009+11:00

Miss Maccy and I are back in town and ready to start bean counting again. To celebrate we took an excursion to Costco last night to check it out. This is the first Costco to open in Australia. It actually opened before we went away but we had a couple if holidays to organise at that point.

Here is Miss Maccy with part of our haul. I filled my trolley for $400 which is pretty spectacular given the size of it.

Here are a couple of specific price comparisons:

On the left I have two jars of Best Foods Mayo (my favourite!!) the small one was $5.49 for 405g at Woolworths. The Costco one is $1.9L for $9.69.
To the right is Peanut Butter. The small one was $7.99 for 780g at Woolworths, the large one is 1.3kg for $5.99. Kraft are Australian peanuts, Skippy are American, I aim not to buy Chinese peanuts.
Tinned tomatoes: $9.99 for 12 cans. At .83 for a can of only tomatoes (no additives or preservatives) this beats the $1.20 ish I've been paying at the supermarket for an equivalent product.

So; over all verdict is that Costco is well worth a monthly visit from me to stock up on the non perishables plus long keepers like potatoes and pumpkin. The food was good value, high quality at a good price.

I've just gone through my entire trolley of groceries and worked out how much it would have cost at Coles Online. My $399 trolley would have cost $560 at Coles. Now obviously this doesn't take into account sales, and on a product by product basis, some may be cheaper in a supermarket sale. Also the meat was fairly much on par or not much cheaper, and the veges were cheaper but only a few products were drastically so. I definitely think it's worth the trip in, the savings will more than cover petrol, parking and road tolls.

I think it should be mandatory to follow it with dinner at Bhoj Indian restaurant around the corner which was so thoughtful as to list all the food that is gluten free or dairy free at the back. Plus the food was great!

We are on hiatus

2009-08-28T07:55:00.001+10:00

Miss Maccy is currently lazing around an Italian Villa, the luck of some folks huh!
I am soon to be strolling Central Park in New York.
So we are on hiatus for 6 weeks. We'll see you when we get back, I'm sure we'll have lots of saving goals to make up for all the spending!

Keptwomans Week 16 Round Up

2009-08-19T08:55:00.000+10:00

Total Spend: $176.38

Main Meals:
Only 6 this week as we were out Friday night.
Stir Fry Veges and Rice $3.47
Scratch it $2 (nominal cost, basically foraging left overs and toast)
Bean Chilli and Salad $6.58 I am pricing this with tinned beans but we used dried, so it would have been cheaper. I have discovered that cooking beans from scratch (soaking and boiling) is a stinky, stinky process. In the end I stuck the crockpot outside so it wouldn't stink out the house. The meal was delish!
Mince and Mash $3.70 I do love Coles clearance mince, boy does it make for a cheap meal!
Bangers and Mash $3.70 Ditto to Coles clearance sausies. Can you tell that once again I was utterly lacking in inspiration.
Goulash $13.35 The meat was expensive, did a bunch of leftovers though, I ate it all weekend.

Average $5.46

I'm a bit slow on doing this this week, and Miss Maccy has gone away, so the comparison chart will have to wait a loooong time. Suffice it to say: I won, again. Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaa.

CostCo opens Monday Morning

2009-08-15T13:59:00.000+10:00

On Monday (17 August) CostCo will open their doors at 8am in Melbourne. To get in you either have to be a member or a guest of a member.
Today they sent out an email with some opening specials that look really quite interesting! I hope they are going to have more specials later in the year because five minutes before you get on the plane is not the time to be stocking up on soap, detergent, meat or eggs *sigh*

The email specials include:
1kg of eggs for free
$8 off Tide laundry detergent (hello American brands! Wonder if we will finally see things like dryer sheets? Ooooh and what about the stain removing pen you can buy in the States? I need one of those...)
$5 off Cascade Dishwasher tablets (packet of 90)
Up to $70 off a set of Tyres. Handy!
ARGH I answer my own question - they have both the dryer sheets and $3 off a pack of Tide to go Stain removing pens... OK. Now I need to go. Bother-that-cat that would be very handy for travelling...

MIss Maccy's Week Sixteen Roundup

2009-08-14T23:20:00.000+10:00

Wow. On the one hand, I cannot believe four months have just zoomed by! On the other hand, it feels like we've been eating this way forever now! I think we've probably saved over two thousand dollars just on food alone in these 16 weeks. And now we are off to Europe and we get a chance to check out supermarkets, markets, bakeries and more over there. I can't wait!!! Just four more sleeps to go for us now.

I'm also really looking forward to getting back from Europe and having a lot more head space for trying out new recipes. Plus it will be well into Spring produce and time to put salads back on the menu. Right now I have our chest freezer in the garage defrosting (right on schedule). When we get back I'll need to restock it.

I missed going to our new fruit and veggie place this week but I didn't think it was going to be worth the trip. Supermarket prices looked quite evil in comparison. I have to confess, I got suckered into buying some grapes at $10 per kg. In fact I bought quite a few snackie bits and pieces that I wouldn't normally buy - stuff to munch on, on the plane, stuff to have in the house when we get back etc.

Total Weekly Spend: $192.23

Weekly Meal Average: $8.49

This week it was mostly tried-and-true-no-brainer-favourites

Fried Rice $8.80
Juniper Berry Chicken $9.15
Sausages & Risotto $11.32
Carbonara Pasta $5.78

The week did get off to a funny start though. On Sunday we had a large roast beef with the intention of using half of it for Shepherds pie. Except that I got a little bit distracted while making the shepherds pie and put potatoes in the oven to bake. Which meant there was no mashed potato topping for the shepherds pie - so it was kind of naked looking!!! The total cost for both those meals was $19.38.

Tomorrow night I am trying out a new tuna and creamed corn pie recipe. And then we have one turkey and one chicken meal (which yeah, will probably be juniper berry chicken).

If I don't manage to pop in over the next few weeks, I will be back in October to tell you about outr food adventures overseas!!!