Lightening Online

Here goes with our Zucchini Lovefest! Thank you so much for all your wonderful submissions. We really have a great variety here. I don’t think I’ll have quite enough zucchini to try them all!!!!!

Honestly, if you can’t find something amongst this lot to tickle your fancy, well, I give up.

I hope you enjoy this “carnival of zucchini” the Zucchini Lovefest.

BLOG POST SUBMISSIONS

Kate over at Our Red House has some wonderful recipes for zucchini. She has some fantastic recipes posted from time to time so I knew there’d be some great inspiration from there.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I’ve been wanting to try this since Kate posted it but just haven’t really had the time or energy. It’s top of the “to do” list for today. If you’re lucky I might even post a pic later in the day.

And here it is……… 

It’s not all that obvious because I iced them AFTER I’d cut a piece off….but I did do a “Sephy” and sampled a slice before I took the photo.

And the verdict????  YUM!!!!  See, chocolate cake really IS good for you! 

Zucchini Fritters

Cheesey Zucchini Slice

Next we have

Zucchini Cookies submitted by N from Bad Human! Don’t Take Chemicals From Strangers saying “I never thought this recipe would be good because I never thought about sticking zucchini in a cookie but they are amazing.”

Kate from Picklebums has the following recipes

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Fritters

Lis from Altered Cutlery has

Zucchini Muffins

A savoury muffin option with bacon and cheese - they look good enough to eat!!! Oh, that’s the idea? Very good then.

Altered Cutlery is another great location to visit when you’re in need of recipe inspiration!

Sephy from Sephy’s Platzish has

Zucchini Bread

This one had me in giggles with the photo at the end with this caption “here’s the bread, minus a smallish sample”. That’s what I like to see. Recipes that are tried and tested.

Zucchini Muffins

A great alternative to zucchini bread. This is a sweet muffin recipe and the post comes complete with a physics experiment using the batter.

Tracy from Beyond My Picket Fence has Roasted Vegetable Salad

DIRECT RECIPE SUBMISSIONS

River has passed on this great recipe:

In olive oil stir fry finely sliced onion and shredded carrot until soft. Toss in finely shredded cabbage and chopped parsley, stir. Add small amount of water, put on a close fitting lid and let steam just until cabbage wilts. Toss in grated (shredded) zucchini, turn off the heat, let stand for a minute. The heat from the mix will cook the zucchini without turning it to mush. Great alongside sausages or chops. We’ve even had it with roast beef. Ingredient amounts are to suit your family.

LS writes:

One off the cuff which I use especially with those large zucchini’s (which my dad thinks are meant to be picked like that so I am used to them now)…. is a quick recipe that makes a nice saucey type addition to snags, snitzels, or just heated up like chunky soup. It also makes a nice type of stuffing if placed in a casserole dish , baked then covered with breadcrumbs. Yummo. My tastebuds are watering.

I cut the washed zucchini into rings about 1.5 cm wide (maybe cut in half if diameter is huge) , roughly dice onion and tomatoes (good for those ones nearly past due date or patchy skins) and place with a little oil and water in a saucepan along with some pepper, salt, and some mixed herbs or similar. Cover and simmer till soft or just cooked. Can thicken with cornflour or simply serve as is. I have also used this to add to spag bolog, and a pasta bake I make from basics. Noone ever notices.

You can always freeze this and use later… it last ages and is handy come casserole time in winter. You may need to add more spices though as it can go watery.

My mum makes a zucchini and pasta relish which is very tasty if one can handle the colour!

Katy sent in:

We love vegetable pie! The children especially. Grate 2 carrots, 2 zucchini, 1 cup cheese, 5 eggs, 1 cup flour, S&P, bacon or chicken if you’d like. Mix it all up in a big bowl, and cook on 180 for about 45 minutes. Yummy!

And here is tonight’s attempt at this recipe:

I didn’t get a chance to take a photo before I served the kids.  This is 1/4.  And it was pretty much a hit.  The kids were a bit dubious at first which is pretty normal.  But they each ate it all.  I think it’ll become an addition to our regular menu.

Cat from Fitcat says:

Grate zucchini, carrot, potato and unpeeled sweet potato. Add to a bowl of mince. Add a raw egg. Mush, mush, mush. Shallow fry in vegetable oil. Yummy!

Erin from Rantings From the Walking Dictionary writes:

We being non wheat/gluten eating as a family, dont often get nice things like gravy (i have gluten free gravy packet for DS but I cant stand it), however I found by accident that putting sliced zucchini in to cook in the meat juices after the steak had browned, resulted in my meat juices thickening up into a slightly runny gravy, that was totally wheat/gluten free (meat juices, zuchinni starch and a hint of salt) as well as being homemade (and the zuchinni homegrown too). So I had a bonus to my meal, gravy flavoured zuchinni slices, and actual gravy to go on the meat.

We also like dicing it up with some onion, tomato, pumpkin etc and sauteeing it (lol sounds fancy and hard work but its all just chucked in the frying pan and simmered in its own juices til soft and delicious lol) and then serving on top of rice with whatever meat/chicken etc we are eating.

Works well in savoury mince and in meat patties as well.

A FEW TIPS

• Apparently the best zucchini’s are those under 12cm (5 inches). They are the most tender. (ooops…..the big ones are GREAT for grating up in cooking though )
• When selecting look for those that don’t have withered ends….or better yet, pick your own and use straight from the garden.
• You don’t need to peel them. The skin is edible. If you want to hide them from your kids though….be warned, the tiniest of skin will alert the little critters. Grating without skin will ensure the entire zucchini is dissolved into whatever you are cooking….never to be revealled.
• Tiny zucchini’s are apparently nice raw (who’d have thought???)

TRAWLING THE WWW

If that aint already enough for you, here are some links I found on the net.

There are a massive number of recipes using zucchini on Basic Recipe. Everything from zucchini soup to zucchini cake to zucchini fries (???).

Zucchini recipes on About.com

This one looks totally good enough to eat!!! Zucchini Slice . I really love a good recipe with TOP photos!

If you’d like something a little bit different (including some recipe titles in languages other than English) you could try Recipe Zaar’s zucchini recipe list or perhaps some with an Italian flavour.

Just to finish off I had to add Chocolate and Zucchini. I’m yet to find any zucchini recipes on there but I couldn’t resist the title!!!!

If I’ve forgotten to include your link or idea, please let me know and I will add it in.

Just as the title suggests - this is a nice and EASY quiche recipe.  My in laws gave me this great recipe book from the Huon Valley in Tasmania (any Tasmanians reading this?  Big wave to you!).  It has a lot of FOOD recipes in it - as opposed to all that fancy stuff that no-one in our family will eat.  The page on which the quiche recipe is printed is covered in splatters and half falling out.  So it’s obvious it’s a well used page! 

EASY QUICHE

4 eggs

1 cup diced bacon

1/2 cup grated cheese

1/2 cup SR flour

1 cup onion

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup fresh milk

salt & pepper

Mix together, bake in moderate oven until set (about 45 minutes).

Lightening’s Variations and Comments:

* I usually make a double mix of this.  That works great in a larger size dish or 2 pie dishes.

* Add whatever vegies you enjoy in quiche

* This is one of those pastry-less quiches where it forms it’s own thicker base on the bottom of the quiche

* Instead of evaporated milk I use 1.5 cups full cream milk powder with 4 cups water in a DOUBLE mix (halve this for a single mix).  Works out cheaper and more convenient than keeping evaporated milk on hand.

Source: The Australian Huon Valley Recipe Book prepared by Cheryl Robertson, published by Southern Holdings Pty Ltd

This morning I made up Lisa’s fudge .  We had a storm and the power went out.  Trust that to happen to me on the only day I actually wanted to use the stove!!!!  LOL.  So, there I was stirring a pot over our camping stove (which I’m very thankful for ).  Of course, now I’m wishing I had a gas stove.  It heats up so QUICK compared to electric.  DH tells me it’s too much hassle (we’d have to have bottled gas etc).  Plus mine is only 3 years old.  *sigh*  Never mind.  We can’t everything in life that we want.  Thankfully I’d also written the recipe down (sort of) as I had no internet access without power either.

I was hoping it would be so rich that I wouldn’t eat too much of it.  WRONG!!!!  I’ve just cut it up and tiny pieces keep ending up in my mouth.  Somehow…..without any help from me whatsoever……  I think the walnuts I added have toned it down a little.  And my cooking chocolate was a dark chocolate (is dark what you’re supposed to use for that bit Lisa?).

Of course, in my usual fashion, I decided to have a play with the recipe.

Instead of using a can of condensed milk, I made up the homemade version (as I always do when a recipe calls for condensed milk).  I have no idea if 400g (as per recipe) is a can but I just used the quantity in my recipe and it seems to have turned out fine.

I wanted to make a sort of white chocolate/caramel version of the fudge.  So instead of using white sugar for the condensed milk recipe, I substituted in brown.

So make up condensed milk as follows (the easiest thing to do is make it directly into the saucepan you want to use for your fudge.:

1 cup dry milk powder

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup boiling water

3 Tbsp margarine

Mix together until smooth.

To this condensed milk mixture add:

500g white chocolate (or thereabouts.  I used what I had left which wasn’t *quite* 500g but it’ll do)

65g butter

tsp vanilla

Melt over slow-ish heat, stirring until all smooth and melted then pour into a 20cm square tin that you’ve lined with baking powder.

Mine isn’t quite set yet but I just pinched a bit and tasted it and this one really IS rich and very sweet.  If you’re not a lover of sweet stuff and white chocolate you probably won’t like it.  Hopefully my BIL’s do as they’re getting some of it for Christmas.

…or should that be making?????  Cos the oven certainly isn’t on today.  It’s warm and rather steamy here today with more rain expected tomorrow (making it even stickier!).  So I’m rather glad that my Christmas “baking” mostly goes in the fridge, rather than the oven.    I’m glad I’ve already finished with baking shortbread as that does need to go in the oven.

I’ve been given the job of “homemade treats” for Christmas Day this year.  My in laws know me well!  It’s great because I’m making a heap of treats for gifts anyway.

Naturally I had to start with the old Christmas faithful - Rocky Road!  Over a few days I’m working my way through whatever I get to….starting with the ones I REALLY want to get made and adding to those if I get enough time and energy.  So, here are my “recipes” I’ve made so far (not everything has a recipe so I’ll do my best to explain what I do).

ROCKY ROAD

1 packet chocolate melts (mine are 375g)

about 1/4 packet of copha (250g or 1/2 pound size pack)

1/2 - 1 packet marshmallows

red jube lollies (I didn’t have any this time so just picked out red, white and green jelly beans)

salted peanuts (you can use unsalted but I like the taste of salt and chocolate together, you can also leave these out)

Melt chocolate melts and copha using a medium heat in the microwave - 1 minute at a time.  Stir between minutes and continue until melted.  Add marshmallows, jubes and salted peanuts.  I add some of each until the chocolate looks to be “chock full” of stuff.  Pour into a tray lined with baking paper and set in fridge.  Cut into bite size pieces or whatever size you prefer.

Alternative suggestions: some people like coconut in their rocky road (I don’t).  You could also add something like rice bubbles instead of peanuts to make these a little more “kid friendly”.

HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE

My mum had the most awesome recipe for this that I can’t seem to lay my hands on.     Here’s the closest recipe I was able to find.

125g copha

125g icing sugar

6 Tbsp cocoa

4 Tbsp milk powder

pinch salt

Sift dry ingredients.  Melt copha and mix into dry mixture.  You need to work fast.  Pour into mini patty pans or into a thin layer in a baking tray.  Refrigerate.  If you make it in a slab, break into pieces when set.  You could also drop spoonfuls onto a tray lined with baking paper.

I made up a double mixture as that used a full package of copha.  About 1/3 was mixed with rice bubbles and the rest had salted peanuts added to it.  I was able to get some Christmas mini patty pans from Spotlight this year and used those.  This double mix made around 90 chocolates.

It’s quite a strong tasting recipe so you don’t want to overdo the cocoa, unless you prefer it that way! 

CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE BALLS

1 packet cream cheese

2 packets of chocolate biscuits filled with vanilla cream (eg oreos, delta creams….)

Blend in food processor, roll into balls and set in fridge.  Dip into white, milk or dark chocolate.

APRICOT COCONUT BALLS

1 tin/can consensed milk (or 1 quantity homemade condensed milk)

2 cups dried apricots (chopped/diced)

3 cups coconut

extra coconut for rolling in

Combine ingredients together, roll into balls then roll in coconut.  Set in fridge.  Makes approximately 60 balls.

This is as far as I have gotten so far.  I’ll be back to add some more if and when I get to them.

Yesterday I mentioned I made shortbread for our children’s teachers as end of year/Christmas gifts.  It’s a bit of a tradition in this household that each year I make a large batch of shortbread to use for gifts and also as part of our Christmas yummies for ourselves (and whoever we’re sharing Christmas with).

It can actually be a bit of a trial some years finding a day that’s not too hot (we’re in summer here in Australia) in order to crank the oven up.  But it’s worth it.  What surprised me when I first started making these was how cheap they work out to make in comparison to how expensive shortbread is to buy.

 So, if you’re looking for a frugal gift for someone that’s sure to “wow”, considering making something like this.

LIGHTENING’S SHORTBREAD

250g butter (real butter not margarine)

125g castor sugar

300g plain flour

175g arrowroot

pinch salt

Allow butter to soften to room temperature.  Cream butter and sugar together (try not to eat too much of the yummy sweet buttery mixture).  Sift in arrowroot.  Add salt.  Slowly mix together and add enough plain flour for the mixture to form a firmish dough.  You may not need ALL of the flour and in some instances you may need a little more.  Flour can vary in how dry it is - older flours need more moisture.  Form into a ball and place in a covered bowl in the fridge (or wrap in plastic wrap).  Make sure you disguise your dough or your husband will keep pilfering bits of it until there is none left to cook!!!!

When mixture has become firm, roll out and cut into desired shapes with a cookie cutter.  I have a small star cookie cutter which is just perfect for these (I find a small cookie gives them a more decadent look).  The easiest way I find to roll out the dough is using a sheet of baking paper on top of the dough which prevents the roller from sticking to the dough (saves you having to shake flour all over the roller every 5 seconds too).

Bake slowly in a moderately slow oven (around 160C) for around 20 minutes or until the shortbread turns a pale golden colour.  While still warm, drop shapes into a bowl of castor sugar, turning so that they coat on all sides.  Cool on a rack.

Some more notes:

* arrowroot is a fine flour.  If you can’t get hold of this you could try substituting with an alternative fine flour.  I used half arrowroot and half cornflour yesterday (wanted a double batch and couldn’t find the rest of my arrowroot) and they taste no different to me.

* I usually make a double mix and use a single 500g packet of butter (that would be equivalent to a pound for those of you overseas).

* salt is the magic ingredient so DON’T leave it out. 

* if you don’t have time for all the rolling, cutting and dipping in castor sugar, you can make this mix up in one or two circle dishes, bake and then cut into wedges while still warm.

Conversions and explanations for those not in Australia:

* plain flour is simply flour with no raising agents in it (we have plain flour and self raising flour as our most common baking flours here)

* castor sugar is more finely ground than regular sugar (still granular - not a powder - but the granules are much smaller)

* 175g is approximately 6.2 ounces or 0.38 pounds

* 300g is approximately 10.5 ounces or 0.66 pounds

* 250g is 0.5 pounds (therefore doubling to use 500g is approximately 1 pound)

* 160C is 320F

Conversions were made using online conversion.

ENJOY!   (I need a smiley with a little santa hat on!)

Acknowledgement: This recipe was originally a Tonia Todman recipe that I’ve tweeked to make it how I like it.  I *think* I’ve made enough changes to the original that I can now claim it as my own.  Feel free to pass it around….. recipes are made for sharing!   Of course, a link back here is always appreciated.

I made this recipe the other day. It never fails to be a hit in this house or anywhere we go. Personally, I’m not that big a muffin fan. Unfortunately I quite like these (unfortunately because then I eat more than I should). I had planned to take a photo to post but got lazy I’m afraid.

Anyway, here is the recipe. It’s a Tupperware one and I think being given a magnet with the recipe on it is once of the most useful freebies Tupperware have ever given me!!!! I always know where to find the recipe - stuck to the side of the filing cabinet. LOL. It certainly looks well used these days (the magnet that is, not the filing cabinet - you can’t tell how well used that looks as it’s covered in all kinds of crap).

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the recipe:

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

3 cups plain flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 1/4 cups milk
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup dark choc bits
2/3 cup white choc bits
120g butter, melted
2 x 60g eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 160C. Grease 5cm muffin pan. Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder into bowl (they suggest “mix-n-pour” as all tupperware recipes are designed for making in their products - as you would expect). Add brown sugar & choc chips. Mix. Add butter, milk and eggs. Mix. 3/4 fill each of the muffin moulds, bake 20 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in the tin before turning out.

Some notes from me:

* This is a rather large mix. Yesterday I made up a double mix and it was too much for my largest mixing bowl (which is a largish stainless steel one). Well, it just fitted but I spilt a bit as I was trying to mix it.

* One of the benefits of using the mix-n-pour if you have one is that you can see if all the flour is mixed in. Muffins should only be mixed until just mixed (not continually stirred or beaten) but it’s no fun to get half way through scooping the mix into muffin tins to find that the bottom half hasn’t mixed properly.

* The Tupperware “mix-n-pour” is a jug that has a lid with a hole in the middle (it has a separate lid). This recipe fits just nicely into that jug - unless you double it like I did then you’ll have no hope. LOL. It’s okay, I didn’t try to fit a double mix in the jug.

* If you’re feeling lazy you can substitute plain flour for SR flour and skip the baking powder. No idea on the exact difference it makes as mine are never the same twice regardless. But I do know it works fine (that’s what I did yesterday).

* I very RARELY bother sifting flours and I don’t think I EVER have for this recipe. I’m a lazy cook.

* They taste good without the while choc chips (okay, maybe not JUST as good, but still pretty good). I just add a whole packet of generic choc chips instead. Having said that, when I made them yesterday I made them “according to the recipe” as I happened to have white choc chips in the cupboard.

* If you leave out the cocoa and choc chips and add cinnamon and cut up apple - they taste really yummy!!!! I’ve also made them with jam but the jam does make them a little heavier - would be better I think to add a dob of jam to the top of each muffin before cooking, rather than mix it through. Some jams would work okay with cocoa in the mix and some better leaving the cocoa out.

Well, I think I have redeemed myself. Here is todays version of my “bake a cake in the slow cooker” experiment.

A MUCH better outcome wouldn’t you agree?

Here it is all iced with the most buttery, chocolatey icing…….

It took around 2 hours to cook in the slow cooker using a combination of high and low settings (high for 45 minutes then low until done). Test for “done-ness” with a skewer. It is hard to tell from looking at it as some moisture condenses on the glass lid and drops on to the top of the cake, making it look “uncooked” when it is in fact cooked. As long as you plan on icing the cake, that small amount of moisture won’t affect the outcome of your masterpiece.

This time I sprayed the crockpot/slow cooker insert with oil, then lined with baking paper and then sprayed that with oil before pouring in the cake mixture. Might have been overkill but at least it didn’t STICK!

I used a double quantity of the following recipe:

CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE

1.5 cups SR flour

3 Tbsp cocoa

1 cup castor sugar

1 cup water

1 tsp imitation vanilla essence

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Chuck everything in a bowl together and mix until there aren’t *too* many lumps. LOL. You can mix until smooth but I’m a lazy cook. You don’t want to overmix it either.

This is a fudge cake so expect it to be a heavier, fudgier type consistency than a regular cake. I just tasted a bit and I think it tastes even better having been cooked in the slow cooker than when I cook it in the oven.

I love the oval shape as well. It would have come in handy a few years back when I made a football oval for DS’s birthday cake!

DH is happy because now I’ll be able to bake cakes while we’re away on our “big trip” in the caravan.

Mission Accomplished!

It was his idea that I attempt to cook a cake in the slow cooker in the first place. LOL. Works for me. Now I only have to use 4c electricity to bake a cake as opposed to around 36c. And bake in summer without heating up the house!

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!

DH has made me some crumpet rings by cutting up a large tinned fruit can. 6 fit perfectly in my rectangular electric frypan. I’ve been working on perfecting the original recipe I was given. The first batch I made didn’t have many holes in them. Then I found out from another person who makes their own crumpets that my recipe was missing the rising time.

Here they are - a batch of crumpets in my rings, just starting to bubble away.

And here they are, almost cooked. The verdict was that they now looked like bought crumpets (with the holes in the top) and they tasted like bought crumpets (well, better if you ask me). However, they still weren’t as light as a bought crumpet.

So, I intend to play around with the recipe a little more and see what I can come up with. What I still can’t get over is how easy they are to make. They are a little time consuming as I can only cook 6 at a time (and the recipe makes about 18) but other than that, they’re really so easy and so much cheaper than their shop bought counterparts. Plus I know exactly what has gone into them.

You can find the original recipe here if you don’t already have it. Just make up the mixture about an hour ahead of when you want to cook them. They can be eaten fresh (remember they still need to be toasted) or you can freeze them to use later.

I’ll let you know if I come up with a recipe variation that makes them a little lighter.

Chicken Wraps and Knitted Wraps. Not a good idea to get them mixed up either. Not sure my knitted wrap would taste all that great and I try hard not to wear my chicken wrap (although they do have a reputation for being a tad messy lol).

I’ll start with the knitted kind first. Here’s a few photo’s of my completed project. I’m trialling them in a small size this time. If you want to see the photo up close, just click on it and you’ll get a full page view.

This is the wrap I’ve just finished making. I used 1 strand of 8 ply black wool and 1 strand of black feathers yarn (held together as if they were a single strand). The loom used was the yellow loom (largest one) and used in a back and forward motion (as opposed to going around and around the loom) using all pegs. I wrapped using an “e” stitch (the only stitch I know how to do so far LOL) - wrapping 2 pegs and then skipping 1, wrapping 2, skipping 1 and so on. I just stitched until it was as long as I wanted then finished it off with the most basic method for finishing a flat item. A very simple project (which is what I wanted given I’ve just started).

Here is me modelling the wrap. I wore it to church this morning and it was beautiful and warm (we have a very cold church building). DD has decided she wants me to make her one as well.

You can wear it any number of ways. I’m getting the giggles here as I’m not used to being a model. LOL.

Now I’ve just gone silly. But what I was trying to show here was that it can be folded in half and worn as a regular scarf as well.

So there you have it. If you have any questions about the method for making one of these wraps, just let me know.

Now, onto CHICKEN WRAPS. Which we had for tea last night once I had the tortillas made. They turned out very yummy. I used a cut up chicken breast coated in a bought chicken coating called “Southern Fried Chicken”. One of these days I’ll hopefully figure out how to make it from scratch but for now it’s just babysteps, babysteps…one thing at a time. We added grated cheese, grated carrot and shredded lettuce (plus whatever dressings were desired - I don’t have any) simply as that’s what we happened to have available. Sorry, I couldn’t take a photo for you - they didn’t last long enough! LOL.

As I was making the Tortillas, I wondered to myself whether or not I’d bother doing them again. It was a bit time consuming. Mind you, I wasn’t in any hurry so I did enjoy just rolling them out quite slowly. The mixing them up and the cooking are both quick and simple. Rolling them out was the more time consuming and tiring task.

However, once I’d tasted one, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go back to bought Tortillas. I think I’ve grown up with preservatives in all my food and it’s not until you start to eat more “real” food without them that you realise how much of a taste they really have (the preservatives that is). As I was eating my first wrap, it was quite a strange sensation. It was like all of a sudden I could taste the preservatives in the bought ones (in my memory that is) by the contrast in taste with the freshly made ones. So, it’s looking like I’ll need to do a few more push-ups to build my upper arm strength ready for the next time chicken wraps are on the menu. LOL. Mind you, rolling them out wasn’t a bad upper arms workout in itself.

Here is the recipe, with my own adaptations made:

TORTILLAS

1.5 cups wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Combine dry ingredients into a food processor or electric mixer with dough attachment. Add oil then gradually add water until it forms a dough (I used an electric mixer with dough attachment and found I mixed the last of the dough together with my hands while kneeding - not sure if a food processor would be different to this or not).

Kneed for 5 minutes and then leave the dough to rest (for how long I’m not sure, I think I allowed about half an hour or so).

Divide into 10 pieces and roll into a thin round shape.

Cook quickly in a hot, lightly oiled frypan until they bubble and start to brown (takes less than a minute most times) then turn and brown on the other side.

If you’re not using them straight away - wrap in a damp teatowel to keep them soft. You can rewarm them wrapped in alfoil (as you’d warm bought ones) but I just cooked them straight before we ate them (DH made them into wraps as they came out of the pan - can’t get much fresher than that! ).

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has always kept a range of slices cut up in the freezer, ready to pull out at a moments notice when guests arrive or for taking to “bring a plate” type functions.

Her lemon slice is a favourite amongst all her family members and she’s quite well known for it amongst friends as well. It always seems to be the first to disappear on a plate of mixed slice.

I’ve never been a slice maker myself. Not 100% sure why. I bake cakes and muffins and biscuits, but rarely slice. I think I’ve always considered them a little more on the complicated side (one of the reasons I *really* like baking muffins is that I don’t have to ice them LOL). And often they have fruit and/or nuts in them which makes them that little bit more expensive and my children won’t eat dried fruit (and aren’t allowed to eat nuts until they’re 7).

I was planning to make a couple of slice recipes up today. We need to take a plate of dessert for our family service at church tomorrow and I needed to find something I could make with ingredients in the cupboard. I knew I’d spotted a chocolate weetbix slice on a thread on the Simple Savings forum and thought I’d try that. We were also given some lemons last week and free lemons always makes me think of making Grandma’s Lemon Slice.

For some reason the urge to bake hit me at about 5pm last night. That would have worked out okay except for the fact that I couldn’t get the lid off my new food processor and had to wait until DH got home to pull it off for me. Not to be perturbed I went ahead and started my baking while DH finished tea off. Talk about a circus in the kitchen. Kids everywhere (some days I’m SURE we have more than 3 LOL) and benchtops covered in cut up salad (I’d already started preparing the hamburgers for tea before DH got home), an electric frypan, food processor and numerous baking ingredients. I got the lemon slice made and in the fridge before tea, then made the chocolate slice between main course and dessert (while the kids were still eating). That cooked while we had dessert and then after tea I iced both slices. Absolute madness!!!! My excuse was that I could reuse most of the dishes for both slices and cut down on the number of dishes piling up with the tea dishes. In reality, when I get an idea in my head - I find it hard to change course. Full bore ahead! LOL.

I have just sampled both slices and they are waaaayyyyy too more-ish. Maybe that’s the reason I don’t regularly make slices? Here are the recipes if you want to try this at home:

GRANDMA’S LEMON SLICE

1/2 tin condensed milk
4 oz margarine or butter
1/2 pound crushed biscuits
1 cup coconut
rind of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon (use the other half in the icing)

Melt condensed milk and butter together. Crush biscuits and mix with coconut and lemon rind. Mix together all ingredients including juice of 1/2 lemon. Spread in a slice tray and refrigerate until set.

Make up lemon icing using juice of other half lemon and ice when set. Sprinkle top with extra coconut.

If you’d like to make this recipe even cheaper or you find you don’t have any condensed milk on hand - you can make your own! Here is the recipe (thanks to Hillbilly Housewife):

SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK

1 cup dry milk powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
3 Tbsp margarine

Milk until smooth. Makes the equivalent of 1 can of condensed milk. Remember the above recipe only uses half - I just halved the ingredients as I made this so I had the right quantity for my lemon slice. Alternatively you can make a double batch of the lemon slice but I didn’t have 2 packets of biscuits to do that with.

EASY CHOCOLATE SLICE
3 crushed weetbix
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup SR flour
1 cup coconut
4 tsp cocoa
4 oz butter

Melt butter and add to other ingredients. Press into tin. Cook in moderate overn for 15 minutes. Ice while warm with chocolate icing.

This is GREAT if you get a craving for chocolate and don’t have any on hand. Mind you, as I was typing the recipe I realised that I read the cocoa as Tbsp not tsp so mine is probably a little more chocolatey than the actual recipe. LOL. Lucky you can never have too much chocolate eh?

And don’t do what I did and try to ice it straight out of the oven. It’s very soft when it first comes out of the oven. Let it cool a little like you would biscuits before trying to ice the top.

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.

And I don’t mean the kind that NSW has just suffered through!!! How awful!

I’m talking about my big day in the kitchen on Saturday. Once upon a time I used to do a bit of a baking session once a fortnight and try to make enough to last the fortnight (that’s getting more of a challenge as the kids get older). But recently I’ve discovered the enjoyment of just doing one thing at a time and I’ve tended to extend that to my cooking. A big baking session often involved having several projects on the go at once and trying to co-ordinate all of that. Just making one thing (whether it be a cake or a batch of biscuits or whatever) seems so much more peaceful and pleasurable in comparison.

But for some reason Saturday I decided I was going to make a number of things. Back to my busy, multiple projects type session. Actually, it wasn’t too bad. Mostly I just worked on 1 thing at a time (other than the bread rolls which take a lot longer).

PROJECT 1: FILL UP THE CROCKPOT WITH VEGETABLE SOUP

My aim was to have this ready for lunch on Saturday but I slept in so things were a little crunchy still by lunchtime. LOL. Not to worry, it was mainly for lunches for this week. Had my first taste test today (we were out all day yesterday - Sunday) and mmmmm….yummo! I have never been a fan of homemade vegetable soup before. But using a tomato base for the “stock” seems to suit my tastes well. I never use a recipe so my soups never taste the same from one time to the next.

Here’s a rough outline of how I made it:

* put jar of passata into crockpot then fill jar with water, shake and add that to crockpot. Add beans (already soaked - I use about half a packet) and a couple handfuls of soup mix. I add whatever I tend to have in the way of pulses to the soup whether it be dried or tinned, beans, peas or lentils (or a combination of). Chuck in some diced onion and crushed garlic (I think I used about 1/4 onion and a healthy teaspoon of crushed garlic). You can add whatever seasonings you like really. We’re fairly basic eaters when it comes to seasonings. I usually let that cook for a little while to get the beans etc going. You wouldn’t need to do that if you were using canned (which are a little more expensive) or if you’ve precooked the beans/peas.

* chop up whatever vegies you happen to have - this time I used carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes plus cut up the smaller stems of the celery and the stems of the broccoli (sometimes I’ll chop and freeze celery and broccoli stems and throw in next time I’m making soup - it’s a good way to use up the bits most of the family don’t usually eat). I also added a couple of generous dollops of tomato paste and topped up with a bit more water. Then leave to simmer away for however long.

I love the way soup is so cheap to make, healthy to eat and hard to go wrong with. It’s such a yummy and comforting food to eat on cold wintery days (just like today!).

PROJECT NUMBER 2: CRUMPETS

You know, I didn’t even know it was possible to make your own crumpets until a couple of weeks ago. DH and the kids love crumpets (I’m not such a fan but will eat them). I tend to buy them occasionally as a treat when they’re on special. I find they work out a fairly expensive way to feed the family so we don’t have them all that often. So when I saw this recipe for crumpets posted on the simple savings forum by Paula (the legend) I thought it was well worth the try. I couldn’t believe how easy and cheap it was. They were a hit with the family (although I’m still experimenting to work out how to make them with holes like the bought ones). Even without holes, they still definitely taste like crumpets (in my opinion they’re nicer than bought crumpets). The most time consuming part of the recipe is cooking them but DH is going to try and make me some rings (by cutting up a fruit tin) so that I can cook more at once which will make things progress quicker.

Here’s the recipe:

Dissolve 1 Tbsp yeast into 3 cups warm water. Stir.

Combine: 4 cups plain flour, 2 Tbsp baking powder, 1.5 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp sugar in a bowl.

Add yeast mixture to dry ingredients and beat to a smooth batter.

Cook in greased egg rings in frypan (3/4 fill each one). Egg rings make them slightly smaller than regular round crumpets. I think the cut up tin will make a better size. If you’re not worried about having them perfectly round you can just add dollops of mixture to frypan.

The original recipe I have suggests cooking slowly for 10 minutes, adding the lid of the frypan for the last 2 minutes (which just finishes them cooking on top). I found using setting 5 on my electric frypan gave me the best number of holes in the top. I’m still experimenting with this so I’ll let you know how I go next time I give them a try.

This made enough for our family for 2 meals (about 24 crumpets in total) served with soup.

* Just a note - you still need to toast these, just as you would with bought crumpets.

PROJECT 3: CUPCAKES

Well I’m sure you don’t really need a recipe for these. The kids did have a great time scooping them into the patty pans. For some reason my kids will eat a cupcake whereas they won’t eat a slice of regular cake. So they make a great lunchbox filler (if any make it until tomorrow to go in the lunchboxes). I can’t believe how cheap they are to make - between 5 and 10c each. There aren’t too many things I can find (except popcorn) that work out quite this cheap as a lunchbox treat.

PROJECT 4: BREAD ROLLS

I use my breadmaker to make the kids bread rolls for school. They give them a nice break from sandwiches and work out quite a bit cheaper than 2 slices of bread. One lot of dough in the breadmaker gives me 12 rolls which works out to around 10c each (might be a little higher now that everything seems to have gone up). The cheapest loaf of bread I can buy here works out to around 30c per sandwich (just under).

PROJECT 5: PITA BREAD SNACKS

My DS has decided that these are the best thing since sliced bread! They’re pretty easy to make and don’t work out all that expensive. I buy the pita bread when it’s on sale for $1.99. I know in the city it’s sometimes possible to pick up a pack for as little as 99c which would make this recipe even cheaper to make! The main thing I like about it is that it’s a lot healthier for the kids to crunch on than chips. You just cut the pita bread up into pieces (whatever size and shape you like) then separate each slice in half and place on an oven tray with the cooked side down. Spray the whole tray with some cooking spray and then sprinkle on seasoning of choice (I use a chicken seasoning). Cook in the oven until crisp. One packet of pita bread makes quite a large container full.

PROJECT 6: CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP

Well I wore myself out completely on Saturday so project 6 had to wait until today. DH has been picking quite a few mushrooms from the paddock. Just recently I’d seen a recipe for “Cream of Anything Soup” (thanks to the same Paula who provided the crumpet recipe). With free mushrooms (and DH had already eaten some so I knew they were safe) I decided to try my hand at making cream of mushroom soup. I use the tinned variety when cooking steak in the crockpot as a kind of gravy and it comes out yummy, yummy. Again I couldn’t believe how quick and easy this recipe turned out to be. I now have what I’d estimate to be 10 tins of cream of mushroom soup (which I will freeze when it has cooled) for the cost of around 2 cans (on special).

CREAM OF ANYTHING SOUP
4 cups powdered milk
1.5 cups cornflour
0.5 cups chicken stock
4 tsp onion flakes
2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp pepper

Mix together and store in an airtight jar. To make up soup use 1/3 cup of mixture in 1 mug hot water.

As I tend to do with recipes I just adapted the above idea to suit what I had on hand and what I wanted to do. I used 1/4 fresh onion chopped up since I bought some cheap recently (and it didn’t matter as I didn’t need the recipe to stay dry as is the intention with this recipe). Then I shook in some mixed herbs as that’s what I happened to have in the cupboard. I added 12 cups water and chopped up some mushrooms and threw them in. Then cooked on the stovetop until it thickened. I’ll freeze it in margarine containers ready to be thrown in the crockpot whenever I need it. With not having to pay anything for the mushrooms, I’m estimating that each “tin” of this soup has cost me around 25-30c to make.

Thus endeth my big cook up. After having DH’s grandfather and 2 aunties visit this morning (which was lovely I might add) and being out all day yesterday, I’m a bit on the tired side. So this afternoon is “take it easy” time.

Feels like I’ve had a few of those recently - disasters in the kitchen that is.

I’ve been trying for 3 weeks now to adapt a recipe for chocolate custard (yogo style). The first week I made it is was too thick. The second week it was too thin (now we’re starting to sound like Goldilocks and the 3 bears lol). This past Friday I managed to spill it all over the microwave. I then gave up on using the microwave and tipped it into a saucepan to finish cooking. Then it ended up with lumps in it. The consistency was closer to what I was aiming for though. LOL. One of these days I’ll get it right. In the meantime we’re going through quite a lot of cocoa.

Today I tried to make some chocolate fudge brownies to take to church tomorrow. It’s been a while since I’ve made this recipe. My poor tray that is just the right size for this recipe must be on it’s last legs. It warped in the oven and I ended up with one corner that was well and truly cooked (to crispy) while the middle was still doughy (have to admit the doughy bit tastes yummo though!). Then I pulled it out of the oven and left it to set for just a bit too long and it stuck in the tin (yes I did grease it first). LOL. Thankfully I have managed to salvage enough pieces to make a plateful for tomorrow. The rest of the odd bits I’m sure the family will happily consume without complaint.

And just in case anyone would like the recipe, here it is. I originally found this recipe on the Hillbilly Housewife website when I was searching for frugal recipes. Not sure I actually consider it one of my more frugal recipes (especially if you need to buy the egss) but it certainly tastes delish! (warning: best to make when you want something to share as it is very moreish and eating the whole tray isn’t recommended for anyone watching their waistline! ).

CHOCOLATE FUDGE BROWNIES

1 cup melted butter (or margarine if you prefer)
2 cups sugar
4 medium eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups plain flour

Melt butter. Whisk in sugar. Add eggs and beat until fluffy. Add salt, cocoa and vanilla. Still well. Add flour and stir.

Bake in greased 9×13 inch pan (approx 20×30cm) at 180C for 25-30 minutes. Tip out of tin (before it gets stuck lol) and when cool cut into whatever size pieces you desire. Dust with icing sugar or leave plain.

* You can also add walnuts as a variation. I must try that sometime as I’ve read recently how good walnuts are considered for your brain (and mine needs plenty of help at the moment lol).

I gave this recipe a try this week much to the kids excitement. It took less than 5 minutes to throw together so was very quick and easy.

Melt 3 cups marshmallows and 50g butter together. Pour over 2 cups of rice bubbles and stir together. Flatten into a small slice tray (you could use a plastic container or whatever). I then sprinkled some rainbow choc decorations I had leftover in the cupboard on top. You could also sprinkle with choc chips. Another variation is to add 100s and 1000s to the mix.

Set in fridge then cut into whatever size pieces you like. I cut mine into small bar shapes (like a slightly smaller version of an LCM bar).

The most expensive part of the recipe was the marshmallows (I used a generic brand). Next time I make it I’m going to try making my own marshmallow and see how that goes.

UPDATE ON GROCERY SPENDING

I’ve finished my grocery shopping for May and ended up spending a grand total of $496.06! This is my highest monthly spend so far this year but did include a 5 week month and a fairly large stock up shop so I’m still happy with that. The best bit is that the fridge and cupboard are both looking healthily stocked. I’ve just calculated that my total grocery spend so far for this year is $2198.95 which when averaged over the 22 weeks comes out at $99.95 a week. That is a result I am absolutely STOKED with. It was a bit of a fun challenge to try and get my average spend to under the $100 a week average. All the time I’m enjoying the challenge, I intend to keep going with it. At the point it becomes “no longer fun”, I’ll know it’s time to move on to something different. In my opinion frugality should be more about creativity than deprivation.

It’s been a tough week this week so I haven’t quite made it back to talk about how the Vegetable Lentil Loaf went on Saturday. Sorry about that.

I served it with brown gravy in an attempt to “disguise” the lack of meat. It went down okay with DH and I although we’re still struggling to get used to the texture (a bit like the chickpea patties). The kids were a little bit less than impressed. My 9 year old’s comment during the dinner conversation was “I’m going to be the healthiest kid in my class”. It was said in a way that suggested being healthy wasn’t his most favourite thing in the world. LOL. I told him I’d be quite happy for him to be the healthiest kid in his class. As I’ve been introducing new foods I’ve been talking to the kids about the importance of eating healthily and having a wider variety of foods in our diet.

DH has suggested that I use some mince in it next time to kind of disguise the texture a bit. While it will then no longer be vegetarian, we both feel it’s more important to increase our intake of beans and legumes and reduce our intake of meat, rather than strictly try to eat vegetarian meals. So we need to find ways to do this that we’re all going to enjoy, rather than “suffer” through. Personally I think it’s just a matter of adjusting our taste buds. But slowly, slowly is the way to go here so I don’t have a revolt on my hands. LOL.

There was a little bit left over and I had a couple of slices cold for lunch the next day. It was delicious cold!!!! DH tried it cold but wasn’t quite so impressed. He did heat up a couple of slices and had it with a plate of salad for lunch though - so obviously he didn’t really mind it. There was one thin slice left so today I diced it up and chucked it into a pot of soup I’m making.

In case anyone is interested, here is the recipe. It is my own adaptation of a recipe that was posted on one of my yahoo groups. I seem to have this problem with making a recipe exactly as written - always have to change it a little bit to make it “mine” (or to suit our tastes).

VEGETABLE LENTIL LOAF

3 cups green lentils (the original recipe says brown but I couldn’t find any)
2 carrots, grated
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup breadcrumbs
200g tomato paste
1/2 onion, grated (if you like chunks of onion you can dice it)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 180C
Grease loaf pan
Process/blend half lentils until smooth (I just stuck my stab mixer into the whole lot a few times so they were partially blended)
Mix ingredients together
Press into tin and bake 30-35 minutes
Leave to stand in tin for 5 minutes before turning out

This week I also cooked up some diced steak in the crockpot. I added a tin of beef and vegetable soup I had in the cupboard plus some gravy mix and cornflour. The first night we had a steak pie (by adding a sheet of puff pastry). I then added some red kidney beans (some that I’d prepared earlier lol) from the freezer to stretch it a bit and made some of that into shepherds pie. The kids didn’t bat an eyelid at the beans in the shepherd’s pie. DH proclaimed that one a success! I really quite enjoyed it. So we’ll do that one again.

Today I’ve been making up a big batch of vegetable soup in the crockpot. I started with some yellow split peas and added a tin of pureed tomatoes that I had in the cupboard as well as some onion, garlic and mixed herbs. Later I added some chopped carrot, potato and sweet potato which were the vegies I happened to have on hand. I added another frozen container of red kidney beans and also wanted to add a can of chickpeas. When I grabbed the can of chickpeas and opened it, I discovered it was a can of cannelinni beans. So they went in as well as the can of chickpeas. Taste tested some this afternoon. It is delicious!!!! Such a comforting thing to have for lunch on a cold day. And is filled with lots of goodies. The crockpot is almost full so that’s about 6 litres of soup. Will freeze some I think. Haven’t worked out how much it cost me to make but I’m guessing not very much.

Can you tell I’m having lots of fun finding ways to add beans, peas and legumes to our daily diet? I’ve almost used up all that I bought last shop so will have to stock up again soon.

I’ve done quite a bit of pottering in the kitchen this week. Trying out a few new recipes and generally having fun.

I made custard from scratch for the first time and that was a great hit with the family. I’m gradually trying to decrease the number of colours and additives in our diet so this is one more step along the road. For anyone wanting a recipe, here it is:

CUSTARD

heat 300ml milk (around 2 min on high in the microwave)

combine:
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp cornflour
2 Tbsp sugar
few drops vanilla

Use a small amount of milk to mix it together.

Pour hot milk into this mixture and stir well.

Heat on high for 2-4 minutes, stirring every minute.

Next time I need to remember to double the recipe as this wasn’t quite enough for our family of 5.

I also made a chocolate custard recipe this week. We found it a little bit strong and a little bit firm in comparison to the yogo’s that the whole family loves. So I’m going to play around with the recips a bit more and I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

YOGHURT

I love finding new ways to create the same things for less money. Of course, that has to be balanced up against time and hassle factor as well so I’ve never been real keen to make my own yoghurt from scratch (even though it is definitely the cheapest way to make yoghurt).

A few years ago I bought myself an Easiyo yoghurt making kit. It’s almost foolproof as you just add water to the Easiyo sachet, shake and then pop the whole thing into the provided thermos with boiling water added. It works out cheaper than store bought yoghurt. I usually have to pay anywhere from $3.50-$5.50 for yoghurt here (depending on sales). With the Easiyo I can make yoghurt whenever we want it for just under $3.00 a kg.

I have tried a few suggestions for ways to make the Easiyo yoghurt a little cheaper but so far haven’t had much success and had returned to making it with the full sachet and putting up with the cost.

This week I came across a new recipe for the Easiyo and decided to try again. This time it seems to have worked much better and has gone down really well with the family.

If you have an Easiyo maker here’s the recipe:

1 1/3 cups powdered milk
1/3 cup sugar
tsp vanilla (make sure it’s imitation with no alcohol in it as the alcohol will kill your bacteria)
2 Tbsp Easiyo sachet as a starter (shake pkt first to make sure the yoghurt culture is evenly mixed through the pack before you start or you could get it all in the one batch and none left for the next one)

BISCUITS

Made a variation on plain biscuits by adding plum jam to the mix. They certainly smelt good while they were baking! I love how versatile basic biscuits are when it comes to using up bits and pieces you have in the fridge/cupboard. It’s amazing how much cheaper this basic biscuit mix is even compared to plain generic brand biscuits. Of course, it does then depend on what you add to the mix as to the final cost. I think I might use up the last of my custard powder mix in my next batch.

TURKEY DRUMSTICKS

I bought my first ever turkey drumsticks this week while they were on special. They were just under $3 each and weighed about 1kg. That’s some drumstick! I’m trying to add some turkey to our diet as it’s supposed to contain tryptophan. Not necessarily a real frugal meat so it’s a bit of a new challenge. I cooked the 2 legs in the crockpot then chopped all the meat up fine and made up 3 meals worth of turkey patties (similar to chicken patties). We haven’t eaten any yet so the proof will be in the tasting. I also made a container of stock. So that will give us 4 meals for $6. Can’t complain about the frugality of that figure.

CHICKEN KEBABS

The kids really love these but at $1+ each they’re a bit on the expensive side for us to have very often. This week I bought some chicken thighs on special so I’ve made up a meal (which is 13 kebabs for our family). Cost to me was around $5 which is quite a bit cheaper than $13+ and we’re less likely to come across any horrible bits that haven’t been cut out of the chicken like we do with the bought ones. I was working out an hourly savings rate for this. It took me around 15 minutes to cut up the chicken, thread it onto skewers and marinate. At a saving of $8 for the meal that’s around $32 an hour post tax money. Well worth the effort for me.

UPDATE ON MY BEANS & LENTILS CHALLENGE

I tried using the leftover Cannellini Beans in my lunch time salads the other week and really liked that. I think so far the Cannellini Beans are my favourite for adding to my salad.

Tonight we’re having Vegetable Lentil Loaf for tea. This is my first experience with green lentils (they’re cooking in the crockpot right now) so I’ll let you know what we think of it. Fingers crossed it’ll be a new dish we can add to our reportoire.

GROCERY SPENDING UPDATE

My final grocery spending figure for April was $419.83 so I was really happy with that. I did some calculations and so far my average for the year is $100.17 per week. This is down slightly on an earlier average calculation of $102.80. My challenge now is to see if I can bring that average weekly spend figure down to under the $100 mark.

May has 5 shopping weeks (I usually shop Wednesdays) so my goal is to see if I can spend under $450 with 5 shops. I’m not expecting that to be real easy so we’ll see how we go. First shop for May I spent $57.75 - so far so good. I will have an opportunity to do a pantry stock up later in the month so there’s where my biggest challenge is going to lie.

Well I was quite happy with our grocery spend of $398.93 for February, even if it is a shorter month. January’s groceries came to $441.27 so that was good too. I feel like we’ve made a reasonable start to the spending for the year.

Today I made a spaghetti type sauce in the crockpot:

600g mince (cost $4.00)
large tin tomatoes (approx $1.00)
2 tins beans (usually used dried beans but didn’t have any soaked or cooked and I’ve started keeping a few tins on hand for convenience sake - costs a little more than dried but still a cheap way to bulk out meat) ($1.60)
grated zucchini from freezer
2 large spoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons minced garlic
couple of handfuls of oats to thicken it a bit

This will do us for 3 meals so works out pretty economically. Tonight was Taco’s and the kids couldn’t gobble them down quick enough. I’ll probably use 1 lot with spaghetti. I tend to use wholemeal spiral pasta rather than spaghetti as it’s easier for the kids to eat - they love it. The 3rd meal with either be lasagna or a repeat of one of the other meals depending.

I love it when I can cook 2 or 3 meals of meat at the same time. Makes for an easier workload down the track.

It will be interesting to see what March’s grocery bill ends up like.

I’ve been experimenting a bit lately with trying to improve the quality of nutrition in our diet. We don’t do too badly but like most things there’s room for improvement. One area we haven’t been doing too great in until recently was the use of refined (white) flours and sugar. So I’ve been trying to gradually find ways to replace these.

This is a recipe that I came up with recently when I was trying to find a low-fat, low-sugar cake to serve to visitors. It’s actually a cake but with a heavier texture than most cakes. You could bake it in a loaf pan but I use a square cake dish and it’s not as deep, more like you’d expect a slice to be. You also get smaller pieces that way so you’re not consuming “too much”.

HEALTHY APPLE SLICE

2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 dessert spoons honey (fairly generous ones)
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup apple sauce
2 fresh apples peeled and chopped

The best part about this recipe is that you basically chuck it all in a bowl and mix. I didn’t add the apples until the rest of it was mixed together though. I have a salad server with a hole in the middle of it that I find just right for mixing the ingredients together. I’m sure any spoon would be fine though.

Topping: Once the batter was in the pan I sprinkled the top with oats and cinnamon before baking (did you know that both oats and cinnamon are good for diabetics?).

It takes about 40 minutes in my oven on around 180C but you might have to experiment a bit with your own oven - no 2 ovens seem to be the same. One good thing about it is that if it’s undercooked a little it’s not so noticable as it’s a heavy-ish texture already. You don’t want to overcook it though.

Once it’s cooled you just cut it up into pieces - all pretty easy really. I love the fact that it doesn’t need icing.

Here’s the recipe I adapted it from:

FUDGE CAKE
1.5 cups SR flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup castor sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp imitation vanilla essence
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Whisk ingredients together and bake 35-40 minutes at 180C. They use a ring tin in the recipe. You could use whatever you have. I’ll often double this recipe if I want to make a cake or I’ve used it for making a kind of brownie (again in my square pan). If I’m making “brownies” with it I just dust the top with icing sugar. Otherwise you can ice it with chocolate icing.

You’ll notice this recipe doesn’t have egg, milk or butter/margarine in it so it’s suitable for people with allergies to these things. Just make sure you don’t ice it with butter icing if you’re going to give it to someone with dairy allergies. Not having these ingredients also makes it lower in fat (and you can lower it more by substituting half the vegetable oil for apple sauce like I did for my apple slice) and also fairly frugal.

Happy Cooking!

Jodi