Lightening Online

Here lies the sad attempts of my slow cooker cake experiment. LOLOL. It actually tastes quite nice (other than being a little burnt around the edges). BUT, it stuck (even though I did spray oil in there first). Me thinks some greaseproof paper or alfoil lining the pot might be a good idea.

The good news is that I did indeed bake a cake in the slow cooker. I need to do some experimenting and fine tuning with the high and low settings to see if I can in fact bake it without burning the outsides. Otherwise, we can just trim those bits off.

I do have a reason for attempting this *other* than electricity cost (and being able to bake in summer without heating up the house). When we do our 3 month trip in the caravan, we are not likely to have an oven (oven’s aren’t common in caravans these days and we’d prefer the cupboard space). I would like to take my slow cooker with me anyway (since it provides such easy, fuss free meals) so this would be a bonus if I could bake in it.

Funnily enough, this reminds of some of my disasters when I was a new bride. My DH had a single mate who would drop in from time to time and I’m sure every time he came I would have some kind of disaster in the kitchen. One time I attempted an apple cake in the microwave (my 1 and only attempt to bake a cake in the microwave) and it was sitting on the bench looking a little like the photo above (only not brown) when he dropped in one afternoon. It’s a bit of a joke between us. I can cook….honest!!!! Just not everything I make turns out quite how I’d planned.

As for the above disaster. DH turned it into a masterpiece by making some chocolate sauce, heating it up and serving with chocolate sauce and cream. Waaaayyyyyy too yummy for my waistline! The kids don’t seem to mind eating up the rest of the *bits* either. So, not too much will go to waste (only to waist).

To tie this back in with my kitchen electricity usage audit posted earlier today - total cooking time in the slow cooker was around 2 hours so cost approximately 4c. To bake a cake in my oven would have cost around 30c (plus heating up the house).

IF I do better with my next attempt, I’ll be sure to proudly show off my efforts. If not, you may never hear me say another word about baking a cake in a slow cooker.

I find one of the most satisfying feelings in the world is knowing we have a fridge full of fresh, healthy fruit and vegetables. That can prove to be a challenge out here where fresh anything is hard to come by. Of course, the vegies in our garden rarely make it to the fridge. I prefer to harvest them right before cooking or eating. So I hope the time will come when a fridge full of fresh vegies is less of a satisfaction than a garden full of fresh vegies. But for now I’m very much a novice gardener so I have to settle for the next best thing - being able to actually buy fruit and veg that is reasonably fresh.

While we were away we were near some market gardens and I’ve found a little shop that seems to hold lovely fresh produce at reasonable prices. So I did quite a big spend up. Even bigger than last time when I spent almost $50 there. This time the total was closer to $60 but I did buy a few “treat” items so that would easily account for the extra $10 spent.

“Treat” items were:

* punnet of strawberries for $1.99
* a whole pineapple - this is the first time I’ve ever bought a whole fresh pineapple. I hope it is nice - it sure smells nice!
* seedless red grapes (price wasn’t cheap but was okay and the kids really love them)

My biggest bargains were:

20kg carrots for $3.80 - I usually pay nearly $2 per kg. These are “juicing” carrots but we often find they taste nicer (sweeter) and I don’t mind having the less “nice” looking carrots when they’re so much cheaper. Now to find ways to use up 20kg of carrots! LOL. I’m thinking I’ll grate a heap and freeze to add to spaghetti bolognese sauce etc.

Bananas for $2.20 per kg. Cheapest I’ve paid for bananas in years!

Apples - bought 8kg and they ranged from $1.50 for 2kg to $1.90 for 2kg. Here I pay $5-$6 for 2kg usually.

What else did I buy:

* 20kg desire potatoes. The lady at the shop tells me that these last longer than white potatoes
* 2 large sweet potatoes
* whole cauliflower
* 2 large zucchini
* 2 head broccoli
* 1kg bag tomatoes
* half a dozen lebanese cucumbers
* 4 lemons (at DS’s request - he eats them like they are!)
* 2 cobs sweetcorn

Think that is all. Anyway, it seemed like quite a lot of food for just under $60. Thankfully we had the camper trailer with us - couldn’t have fitted those large bags of carrots and potatoes in any other way!

Now I just need to make sure I use it so that it isn’t money wasted.

I’ve been busy making pies this morning. My 9 year old was wanting me to make *real* pies this time. My first attempt was chicken and vegetable pies (which were yum in my opinion but not so yum according to the kids) and my second attempt was steak and mushroom (which went down slightly better with the kids). So today I’ve been making *real* pies with mince and gravy.

Hopefully they won’t notice that I’ve added TVP and red lentils to the mixture. LOL. I actually made up the mix in the crockpot yesterday. Today was making the pastry and rolling it out and assembling the pies. It’s a bit time consuming but I don’t really mind. To me it’s worth it to know what has gone into my pies.

This time I used bought mince but from now on I’m thinking of making my own mince. I bought a large beef roast on sale recently and chopped it up and put it into my food processor and it made lovely looking mince. The smell almost put me off meat for life but it’s nice to be confident of what we’re eating. I do have a couple of packets of bought mince that need using though so one of those went in the pie filling.

Here’s a picture of my “pile of pies”:

Like all good bloggers, I hid the ones that didn’t look quite as good on the bottom of the pile. LOL. I don’t know why I get so hung up on perfection. After all, there is something so clinical about food that all looks *exactly* the same isn’t there. Here’s a slightly more close up view of my pies:

I’m trying to work out how much they cost to make. Most of my figures are approximate/guestimates.

For the filling:

2 cups TVP - 80c

1 cup red lentils - 30c

574g mince - 3.44

4 Tbsp gravy powder - 20c

2 Tbsp cornflour - 5c

hearty beef soup sachet (I didn’t have any beef stock) - 25c

1 Tbsp tomato paste - 20c

shallots - from the garden, cost negligible

salt & pepper - cost negligible

water - free

Total $4.99

I used just over half the mixture (froze the rest for another time) so approx $2.50 or slightly more.

Pastry:

250g butter - $1.10

2 3/4 cups plain flour - 30c

2 3/4 cups SR flour - 30c

Total for pastry: $1.70

Total cost for 20 pies: $4.20 so 21c each. Bargain!

If you want to make up the pastry you add 1 cup hot to butter and mix until butter dissolves. Then mix the lot together with the flour (I use a dough hook on my Kenwood). Then I shove it in the fridge to cool down a bit to make rolling out easier.

I made a discovery today with the pastry too. With using up the scraps, instead of trying to squish them together in a ball and then roll out again (which is hard as the pastry gets tough), I just overlapped all the rolled out bits and rolled them together. Was much quicker and easier and they seemed to stick together alright (just don’t use too much flour on your board the first time round).

I can’t vouch for how my filling recipe (if you can call it that) tastes as I haven’t tasted it yet. DH did a taste test last night and told me it tasted nice so fingers crossed it passes the family test at tea tonight. We’re having meat pies, chips and salad for tea tonight. It’s fake take away night tonight.

I think I must have been bitten by the cooking bug these past 2 days. Yesterday I made a big pot of tomato and vegetable soup (having some for lunch right now in fact). Also made an experimental batch of crumpets. Added more raising agents to try and get a lighter crumpet. I did succeed in a lighter crumpet but had very few holes so I’m still going to experiment with the recipe a little more. I also made the pie filling yesterday. Today I have made the pies and a batch of yoghurt as well as some spreadable butter (butter and olive oil whizzed together).

I’m looking forward to a nice quiet afternoon this afternoon!

Various circumstances have altered my week so that I haven’t yet done a grocery shop. I don’t have any other *need* to go into town other than to buy food so I’ve given myself the challenge to see if I can make it until next Tuesday without needing any groceries. Since I shopped Wednesday last week, that will be just under the fortnight between grocery shops.

Today is the kids last day of school for the term which gives me a little bit of breathing space in terms of finding suitable things for their lunchboxes. It does provide a little bit of an added challenge though in the sense that they tend to eat more during the holidays - particularly in between meals.

Here’s a bit of a run-down on potential problem areas:

FRUIT - Obviously this is something I would usually buy fresh each week. We have run out of bananas but do have 3 apples, 1 pear and about 2kg oranges in the fridge. Also some frozen stewed pear, a tin of pears and a tin of apples. So we *should* be able to manage on what we have left for the next 4 days. One thing I don’t want to do during this challenge is make compromises to our health.

VEGETABLES - I have almost enough potatoes for 3 main meals so should be able to stretch to that. Monday night on the menu is tuna patties and I have 1 meal left of Deb potato which I usually use for tuna patties (that way I don’t have to make the mashed potato in advanced). I have enough yellow veg with several kg’s of carrots, a whole butternut pumpkin and 1 sweet potato. Also have 1/2 red cabbage and about 3kg of frozen peas. So that should get us through until Tuesday. Of course, my next challenge will be that next week I’ll have to stock up fully rather than adding to what I have on hand - fingers crossed lots of fruit and veg is on special locally next week.

BREAKFAST - Could pose a challenge. We are nearly out of most cereals. I have just made up some more muesli so that will help for DH, DS and myself. The kids often have toast in the school holidays but there is only 3 loaves of bread left so not sure how we’ll go there. Was thinking I’d make up a batch of crumpets but flour is getting low so I may have to choose between baking snacks or making crumpets. Need to investigate a little further here.

BREAD - 3 loaves of white bread left in the freezer. Do have a batch of Soy & Linseed in the breadmaker now. Hoping DH will eat that and leave the white bread for the kids. We tend to go through about 1 loaf a day so just need to make that stretch out a little. If I can come up with lunches that don’t involve bread, that will help.

SNACKS - I had been planning a bit of a bake up for the school holidays as the kids are constantly looking for something to eat. Being low on flour is a bit of a challenge. Do have plenty of ingredients to make yoghurt so will need to make sure I’m on top of that given it takes about a day by the time it sets and then chills. Also have plenty of popping corn. It’s really only a few days so we should be able to get by.

There is definitely no shortage of food in this house. No danger of anyone going hungry. I think the biggest challenge will be making sure everyone still eats a fairly healthy diet and being a little more creative than usual where they are a few gaps in what we’re used to eating for particular meals.

Actually, I’m quite looking forward to it. Don’t mind a bit of a challenge. The best bit is going to be the head start we’ll get on the grocery spending challenge for the month!

Here’s a list of what we’re planning on eating this month. There’s a few days missing and I deliberately haven’t included dates this month as we’ll be away for a few days (and thought it best not to publicise the exact dates we’ll be away). The only meat item I need to buy for this plan is 1 meal of fish. I do like to be at least a month ahead in my meat supplies as that way I can just buy meat when it comes up at a good price.

I’ve decided to give up on using the menu planning sheet from www.cindysporch.net as I find it too frustrating having to wait until a few days into the month to do my plan. So I’ve made up a basic table in Word and that’s working quite well. Today I made some changes and it was so much easier to just make the changes on the computer and then print off another copy.

I was just looking at last month’s menu plan. Only 11 changes made for the month. LOL. But that’s okay as it’s meant to be a plan not a straight jacket.

Anyway, here is the list.

Pancakes
Corned Beef
Corned Beef Hash
Pumpkin Soup
Southern Fried Chicken
Sausages in Gravy
Quiche
Tuna Patties
Spaghetti Bolognese
Mince & Lentil Loaf
Macaroni Cheese
Pizza
Turkey Patties
Toasted Sandwiches
Snapper
Beef Pie
Tuna Mornay
Tuna Mornay
Lamb Chops
Pasta Bake
Chicken Kebabs
Fried Rice
Soup
Fish Fillets
Roast

I tried something today that I’ve not tried before (at least I don’t think I have - not sure how reliable my memory is at the moment). On Tuesday I cooked Roast Beef in the Slow Cooker. It’s one of our more “decadent” meals - costing a little more than some of our other meals. That’s not the bit that I haven’t tried before. Read on….

I left the juices in the slow cooker overnight to set and yesterday scraped off the fat from the top, added a kettle full of water, turned the slow cooker back on and …. ended up with beef stock. Don’t laugh. It might sound obvious to some of you but it’s something new for me (you’ll have to humour me here). I added some soup mix last night and cooked that for a while. Then this morning I added some chopped carrot, celery, onion, potato and sweet potato (basically put in what I had on hand). I did add a single serve sachet of hearty beef soup that was in the cupboard (what I bought it for I have no idea so using it up seemed like a good idea) and a spoonful of minced garlic for extra flavour.

Then today when I was chopping up the leftover meat to make into a shepherd’s pie, I threw in a few bits of the meat as well. Mmmmm…. I’ve just had some and it’s very nice (even if I do say so myself lol).

I’m feeling pretty happy about the outcome of this experiment (which is an improvement on the outcome of some of my other experiments of late). Out of one piece of roast beef I usually try to get 2 meals (3 if it’s a bigger piece). With the soup, I now have 3 meals plus some lunches. Plus 2 feeds of scraps for the cat.

Finding ways to stretch meat that little bit further and make use of as much as possible (minimising waste) is one of the most effective ways I’ve found to cut our food budget down.

My 9 year old DS has been asking for chocolate crackles for a few weeks now. This past week I finally bought some copha and suggested to him that he could make them. He was stoked at that idea (quite enjoys being handy in the kitchen - must train him up a bit more, might make my life a little easier :-)).

Of course the younger 2 wanted to get in on the action too. Ordinarily I let them help me when I cook but since this was DS’s project, they had to be content with just watching.

DD has a Barbie cooking book and was asking to make something from that. We found a really simple but effective idea that all the kids could get involved in (I wasn’t keen to start any project that involved too much effort - Sunday afternoon’s are usually a quiet time in this household).

APPLE AND CHEESE SAILBOATS

Cut apple into 8 sections. Remove the core from each section. Cut triangle shapes from any block cheese (we used matured cheddar as that’s what was in the fridge). Then you use a toothpick to attach the cheese “sail” to your apple “boat”.

They looked quite effective, the kids had fun putting the pieces together (and counting that they had 8 of each item). At the end they had a nice healthy snack to munch on.

I’ll have to remember that for during the school holidays when they just need a bit of a distraction.

And I still had enough energy (just) to make some sausage rolls for tea. I’ve been meaning to make them for a while now and it kept getting put off. I think resting yesterday has probably paid off in the energy stakes. I can smell them now - must be about ready to come out of the oven. Mmmmmm….gotta love homemade sausage rolls.

I did it! I did it! I did it! Okay, I should probably not get *too* excited just yet as I do have 1 more shopping day left before the end of the month.

Yesterday I spent a grand total of $133.85 which leaves me $19.31 to spend next week. I should only need apples and a couple of loaves of bread so we’ll see what happens. AND I bought everything on my list except for glad wrap (not sure how I missed that one but it wasn’t urgent - just replacing my spare one). I also managed to get a few extras that weren’t on my list.

I was really pleased with the amount of fruit and veg I was able to buy. Sometimes I do well at the fruit and veg place down there and sometimes the specials are not so good. I spent $23.75 and got 5kg carrots, 5kg potatoes, 2 kg apples, a whole butternut pumpkin, 2 sweet potatoes and just over 1kg bananas. That’s pretty good going for what we usually pay.

I think I have enough powdered milk now to last me until the end of the year. I usually only use it in cooking. Last month I bought 4 packets because Coles had a Bi-Lo brand for $1 cheaper than the Coles brand and I figured they were just using up Bi-Lo stock and wouldn’t always have it. This time when I went it was on a clearance sale and only $3.99 (Coles brand is $5.99) so I bought the last 4 packets on the shelf. We’re going through it quicker now that I’m using it to make up Easiyo yoghurt so the savings will be very nice. I had to make some up in a jug this week as we ran out of milk the day I went to town (none left for my breakfast!). I’ve decided I don’t really mind using it on my breakfast. I don’t have a huge amount of milk anyway as I have hot water as well. Because I prefer a little lower fat milk, I made it up a little weaker than recommended so got an extra little saving there (more litres per packet). I may even continue to use powdered milk for myself. We’ll see.

On the topic of milk, I noticed that Coles UHT milk has increased in price. Their fresh milk worked out cheaper per litre than the UHT milk. This is the first time I’ve seen this so I bought 6 Litres of fresh milk as well as a carton of UHT milk. Only thing is, I’m hoping having fresh for a week doesn’t put the kids off the UHT milk. Time will tell I guess.

Within that total I was able to get 18 rolls of toilet paper. We usually use Kleenex Cottonelle (we’re fussy about our toilet paper) but about 12 months ago I found an Autralian brand recycled paper that we didn’t mind and was quite cheaply priced. Haven’t seen it since though. I found a packet in Kmart that’s not the same (but is recycled and Australian) and figured it was worth giving a go - and it was on sale for nearly half price ($4.00 for 18 rolls).

I was also pleased to be able to get a Carpet Cleaner I saw advertised on TV the other day which I wanted to try. DH said he needed some anti-dandruff shampoo this shop and I thought that might have made things a bit tight (his bottles of shampoo are usually around $8-$10). He’s been using up various natural shampoos I’ve bought to try on my own hair but needs an anti-dandruff one every now and then. Fortunately he likes to switch around the brands he uses so this time I bought him a new brand to try (which was a little cheaper). If he doesn’t like it - no problems, I’ll buy the more expensive one next time. At least he’s the type of person that’s willing to give things a go. I also bought new toothbrushes for the kids (only needed 2 as I had 1 spare one in the cupboard) and toothpaste.

Probably the thing that *saved* my budget was a lack of meat on special. I did buy a roll of fritz but that was the only meat I bought. It wasn’t urgent as I’ve been able to get some meat throughout this month and our local specials can often be as cheap as I can get meat elsewhere (other than chancing upon super specials).

I think DH has a sheep that he wants to get killed in the next month or so which will boost our meat supply somewhat. It’s been over a year since I’ve had a sheep. We don’t tend to eat it all that often (think it’s on June’s menu once) because it does seem to have a higher fat content than other meats. It costs me less than $30 (butchering fees) to get a sheep so that does help with the budget a little. I had someone ask me recently if my $100 a week spending includes meat. Well it comes pretty close. We do get the occasional sheep for a discounted price but then some people have access to regular fruit and vegetable bargains or eat regularly at their parents place (I know my SIL and her family go to her inlaws every Sunday for instance). So I figure the bonus we get with the sheep is not really much different.

One thing I’m finding with Coles is that I need to be very alert when I’m shopping. They now have 2 ranges of generic brands and it’s not consistent which of the two are going to be the cheapest. I have to keep checking and comparing prices which is annoying and draining. I have learnt though to send DH off car shopping or whatever he feels like doing. When he comes shopping with me he likes to be *helpful* and then I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing. He still gets to be helpful though - by packing it all in the car!!! When I’ve done a big shop on my own I’ve really noticed the difference with having to pack it all away in the car myself. Now that we don’t have the dual cab ute I have to be more careful with how things are packed in the back of the car (we now have a Pajero) to get them to fit. Some of my big shops have been one of those double trolleys full as well as a single trolley overflowing. So we’re talking BIG shop. The joys of living in a rural area. With my regular dental treatment and having to take DS to an orthodontist, we’ve been finding lately that we’re in a regional centre more often so I haven’t had to do a *massive* shop for a while.

Anyway, all in all I’m really happy with how the grocery spending is going. This month I have bought 4 litres ice cream, 2 packets of corn chips, 4 packets of Tim Tams (um ah, no wonder I’m not losing weight at the moment) and some donuts so we’re not going without our treats either.

The thought of Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) is kind of terrifying to me. It just seems like hard work. But I don’t mind the idea of doing mini cook-ups. It’s nice to have some meals in the freezer that have been at least partially cooked and give me an easy meal when I’m busy or not feeling great. It saves on buying take away or prepackaged type meals as well.

Last week our local supermarket had roast beef on sale for $5.99 a kg. I’m always on the lookout for beef priced under $6 a kg so I grabbed 2 big ones. One of these I’ll cook in the slow cooker as a roast. The other I’ve diced up and cooked in the slow cooker with some of the cream of mushroom soup I made. Boy did the house smell good yesterday while it was cooking! Usually when I do something like this I have in mind to have some for tea the same night and then freeze the rest when it’s cooled. I knew it wouldn’t be ready in time for tea last night though so we had to put up with the smell without even getting to eat some of it. LOL.

This morning I divided it up into meal size portions. One of the benefits of cooking up a bulk lot of meat is the way I tend to get a “free” meal of meat from it. I usually work on around 500g of meat (without a bone) feeding us for a meal. I cooked up 2kg of beef and made enough for 5 meals instead of 4. I’m not inclined to put aside 100g per meal of meat but when I cook it up in bulk like that it just seems to stretch to the extra meal. This works out to around $2.50 (including the cost of the mushroom soup ingredients) per meal for our meat portion. Bargain!

Sometimes I add some beans to the meat to stretch it even further. I decided against that this time as I’ve been adding them to so many things lately and it’s nice to have a change every once and a while. They are cheap and very healthy though. And go quite nicely with the steak and gravy.

I tend to use this precooked meat in either a shepherd’s pie (with mashed potato on top) or in a pie plate with a single sheet of puff pastry on top. I think I’ll also make some individual pies as well. I’m sure they’ll go down well as a warm weekend treat.

I remembered something about cornflour as I was making this too. It doesn’t like being cooked twice. Next time I make cream of mushroom soup I think I’ll cook and freeze the mushrooms and just make up the cream of anything soup either at the time or as a dry mix in advance. It didn’t really turn out to be a problem as I usually need to add cornflour when I’m using the tinned variety anyway. It just didn’t stay thick once it had been cooking for a while. Not cooking the actual cream of anything soup in advance will actually turn out to be less effort for me anyway.

These past couple of months we have been making our first attempt at vegie gardening. Actually it’s technically not our first attempt. We did try to grow some tomatoes and herbs at our last place with very limited success. This is however, our first attempt here and our first attempt at “serious” vegie gardening.

It took him a little while but in April DH finally built and filled in a small vegie patch area for me. He’s built a frame for the second area but our soil here isn’t real good and so we plan to buy in some compost to fill the second plot. We do have our own compost heap but I think it might take me a decade to make enough compost. LOL. With chooks the compost is only growing very slowly - especially at this time of year when growth of lawn and weeds has slowed down considerably. I have started to fill in the bottom of the plot though. Started with some cardboard boxes (recycling) and have shifted a pile of grass clippings and some partly decomposed hay that I found around the place (outside of our house yard). When it’s done I actually want to try square foot gardening in that plot (rather than planting in rows).

I would love one day to be able to grow most of our own fruit and veg. That has to be a long term goal as we only have one struggling to survive orange tree at the moment. Babysteps, babysteps. No point in buying any more fruit trees until DH has the chance to dig up some of our clay and add gypsum or whatever he plans to do to give the soil better drainage. I also like the idea of using the chooks to help compost and fertilise sections of the garden. That will require some more building by DH though so I guess it’ll be a while before we get that happening.

So far I have discovered that I can grow lettuce!!! Well, it’s a start but we can’t exist on lettuce alone. LOL. We’ve been using on the lettuce for about a month now and it’s been lots of fun to actually eat something from the garden. I changed the menu plan tonight to have Tacos while we can still eat the lettuce from the garden. It was quite funny to have DH pop out in the middle of dinner to pick a bit more lettuce as we’d eaten all he picked before tea. Mmmm…freshly picked organic lettuce. Don’t think we can get much healthier than that. It’s so great the way you pick some leaves of lettuce and the plant just grows more. I’ve heard you can only do that a certain number of times before the leaves start to get bitter but so far so good. As soon as the frosts set in though I think that will be the end of the lettuces until the end of frost season. My lettuce seeds cost me a whole $1.10 to buy and so far we’ve saved ourselves buying at least 3 heads of lettuce at $3.50 each. So at least we’re well ahead there.

Unfortunately lettuce is the only thing we’ve managed to successfully grow so far. There’s no problem with getting the seeds to pop out of the ground. In fact, I’ve had a lot of satisfaction seeing those tiny seedlings emerge from the soil. I never imagined that gardening could provide such a buzz!!! But we are fighting a losing battle with BUGS - they keep eating my seedlings! I have found some organic methods for deterring bugs (and shhh - did use a bit of poison stuff we had on hand - so much for my organic gardening) but with all the drizzly weather it’s hard to keep up. I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to keep fighting or give up for now. I know my grandmother (who was an avid gardener) used to say she couldn’t be bothered with winter vegies because of the amount of bugs around.

Our peas started off well and they haven’t been consumed by creepy crawly things. But they have developed some kind of disease that’s affecting them from the ground up and so they are growing very slowly. Some of them are flowering so *maybe* we’ll get a few peas yet. Whether we’ll get enough to make it worth our while remains to be seen.

Well, I’m not giving up yet. We’re new to this and we’re still learning. Gotta expect a few hiccups along the way. I must admit it’s been a lot more fun (despite our setbacks) than I ever thought it would be.