Shopped!

Buy it if you dare!

My veg box!!!

My dining room smelled like a greengrocers!  I hadn't realised just how, errr, sanitised, supermarket produce is.  Lacking in both smell and flavour.  

I finally feel re-inspired about cooking and have made some delicious food, with ingredients that I'd normally pass over....such as roasted beetroot with toasted cumin seeds and lemon.  I have also been forced to use up all of the veg instead of 'not fancying that tonight' and letting it go all limp in the fridge.  

Other lovely meals we've had include, roasted butternut squash and coconut soup with homemade cheesy garlic bread, stir  fried vegetables in oyster sauce with spicy cocnut shrimp fried rice, Baked potatoes with bacon and wild rocket salad, lamb shank curry with pilau rice, wholewheat spaghetti with spring greens, roasted tomatoes and sausages, spaghetti with buutternut squash and crispy bacon.

I have yet to cook the chicken (it's in the freezer still) as we went away for the weekend, and such a deserving piece of meat needs a sunday afternoon to do it justice....along with crispy roasties and lots of vegetables and lashings of gravy...mmmmm.....

Organic Food

Many years back (gosh, I'm actually old enough to say that!) I used to only buy organic.  The older two children were only babies still so didn't eat much, which is what you need to be able to feed a family organic food on a budget.  Not only is it more expensive, but the portions are much smaller.  I had to get used to not being able to afford it as they got older and other things took priority financially.  But it has never been far from my mind - every time I watch a program about how our chickens/pigs/eggs/milk are made/treated I start to calculate how I could afford to feed my family of four (now five) a diet of higher welfare, if not organic, food, before giving up when I realise that my shopping bill would increase by almost double.

So, I started to look recently, at how I could introduce organic elements into our diets and have decided that our meat, poultry and dairy should be the first to be 'converted'. And I have finally found a company that I am happy to give over my hard earned cash to provide us with local, organic or higher welfare meat and dairy, as well as vegetables.  Now, I have done veg box schemes before when I lived in Leicester.  And when we first moved to Oxfordshire I did one again for a short while.  My downfall is that I like to cook such a variety of food, that there isn't a box out there that can provide everything I need for a week that would be anywhere near affordable.  So I end up going to the supermarket for the rest - and then I spend more money on other things that happen to look good.... or are on offer.  And my hard earned cash dwindles yet further..... I am going to have to be very strict with myself, therefore, and plan my week's meals around the contents of the veg box.  The only things I will just have to buy extra are staples like garlic, ginger, chillies and onions if they aren't in that week's box. I will still buy our fruit from the local market or supermarket though.

Blog of note: I love the idea of food 'cycles' as mentioned in these blog posts.  It's something that I have done for years, but never to that extent.....I shall be definitely looking to find new ways of eeking out as many meals from the food I buy from A&C.

But, I am going to give it another go.  This time I will use Abel & Cole.  Not only because their boxes seem to offer the best value and quality for money, but also because they offer meat and poultry that, whilst not strictly organic (in that they don't have the official certification), are reared to the same standard as organic meat and are free range.   Their chickens also come with giblets - something which has all but completely disappeared from the supermarkets.  No more little bag inside the cavity that you could roast and use to make wonderfully rich, delicious gravy..... I want giblets!  I am already envisioning the lovely stocks I'm going to make :-)
I'm also going to try some of their buffalo mince and a large veg box.  If I commit to at least 4 boxes, the 4th will be free - I do love a freebie!

Slow roasted 5 spice pork

It was so yummy I had to take 3 photos!

I got a really nice piece of belly pork from the local butchers (on the bone) and let it marinate overnight in the fridge in some five spice powder, a few crushed pieces of star anise, salt and Ketjap Manis.  I then slow cooked it for approx 4 hours in the oven, on a bed of crushed garlic and ginger.  After the four hours was up I  removed the skin to make crackling (YUM!), then glazed the top with oyster sauce, before popping it under the grill to caramelise.

We ate it with stir fried pak choi (done simply with just some fresh ginger), some steamed rice and a pickled salad.  Ben, who is no way near as fussy as he used to be for a while, loved it so much he polished off two helpings :-)  We then had the leftovers the next day, shredded and stir fried with beansprouts and rice noodles.

By the way, I did have a little help with this dish - Jasmine washed and sliced the pak choi all by herself, and then made the dressing for the salad too..... a keen little helper in the kitchen she is!

Onion Bhajis

Yummy, scrummy and so easy (and cheap) to make.

I didn't have any gram flour (not so easy to find in a little town like ours) so I substituted for plain. Anyway, here's what I did:

Ingredients:
plain flour
chilli powder
turmeric
ground coriander
ground cumin
ground ginger
black pepper
salt
pinch of baking powder
1 large spanish onion, chopped
water
vegetable oil for frying

Method:
1. using approx 1/2 - 1tsp of all each of the spices and seasonings, add everything to a bowl except for the flour and water.
2. stir to coat the onions, then add approx 4 tbs flour
3. add small amounts of water gradually until you have a thick, sticky batter.  If it gets too wet, just add more flour - that's the great thing about this recipe, it's almost impossible to get wrong.
4. heat some oil in a pan (about 3 inches or so deep) and fry dollops of the mixture until golden on all sides.

Serve! (I served with some yoghurt and mint)

For our main, we had a quick potato and pea curry with boiled basmati rice.

Food Challenge - FAIL

Ok, so I knew from the outset that this challenge was nigh on impossible, but nevertheless, I am still disappointed to have failed.  Mostly because I know that with more prep and less emotional buying, I could have actually done it.  But various events and factors collided to make it just too tough.  I had unexpected guests, went shopping on the busiest day of the week (saturday) at the busiest time which was also the time when I should have been preparing that evening's meal, and on an empty stomach with a baby in tow who, although very quiet and happy enough, I was aware would need feeding and changing real soon.  Then came half-term holidays and I had even more unexpected (though very welcome) guests......I cannot have people in my house and not feed them.  I am a feeder I admit it!  So the food challeneg has filed.  But I have learned some very valuable lessons.  Here they are, not in any particular order...:

1. When I stuck to the budget, by the end of the week the cupboards and the fridge were bare.  But no-one had gone hungry and very little food was wasted.  When I went over budget, food was wasted and I still had food in the fridge at the end of the week that I then needed to find ways to use up without us getting too bored of eating the same things over and over.
2. £100 is too low a budget.  In order to make it succeed, you would actually need to do a 'store cupboard' shop probably once a quarter (or more often if you don't have the storage capacity) I found that I went over budget when I completely ran out of items such as olive oil (ok, I could have just used vegetable, but I just can't bear to cook certain cuisines without it!), flour, butter, sugar, tea bags....basically your basic grocery items.
3. The more food I had as a result of going over budget, the less organised I was in terms of menu planning and the less inspiration I had - hence the waste.

Overall though, despite the overspend, my shopping bill was approximately HALF what it normally is - even with the guests and holiday.  I'm therefore going to take the lessons I learned and try to be more organised with meal planning and when I go shopping, in order to keep my food shopping expense lower.  Why? Well, because this month I got to splash out on some really cool retro lunch tins for the kids, a cabinet from IKEA, and a few lunch dates (once I'd already blown the budget mind), not to mention hair cuts, cinema and Macdonalds trips for the kids and some beautiful baby clothes - all stuff I normally don't do too often because my food bill eats into my budget!

chicken, vegetable and rice noodle soup

This was basically a meal I made by winging it - but it was actually really tasty, and healthy to boot.  Also it's very cheap as I used only one chicken breast (on the bone) that I'd saved from a whole chicken I'd cut up.  I was pleased to see Ken Hom on This Morning talking about how chinese food is healthy because they use such little meat in comparison to the typical western diet.  Well I'm certainly sold on this concept and regularly use as little as one chicken breast to make a dish that feeds all 4 of us comfortably.

Anyway, I digress, here's roughly what I did:

Ingredients:
spring greens
1 chicken breast on the bone
chopped fresh mint and coriander
thumb sized piece of ginger
2 large cloves of garlic
a couple of carrots
a broccoli stalk (no waste on this challenge!)
pinch of 5 spice powder
soy sauce
salt

Method:

1. simmer the chicken breast in water with some salt until just cooked
2. meanwhile shred the spring greens, trim and thinly slice the carrot, ginger, garlic cloves and broccoli stalk
3. remove the chicken and shred the meat from the bone and reserve
4. add the sliced vegetables to the stock and continue to simmer, meanwhile heat some oil in a pan and fry the shredded chicken with a good pinch of 5 spice powder and soy sauce.
5. add the rice noodles to the stock and vegetables, then add the fresh herbs (in my case I had previously chopped and frozen them, but it makes no difference) and a good glug of soy sauce
6. ladle the soup and noodles into a bowl and top with some chicken
7. serve!

NB. If I wasn't also cooking for the children I would have also added some fresh, sliced chillies.....

Choc chip banana loaf

I used this recipe, but added a few drops of vanilla essence, some ground cinnamon and approx 50g of dark chocolate that I chopped up..... oh, and because my bananas weren't overripe, when I mashed them I added a pinch of salt and a large pinch of soft brown sugar.

Yum!

Food challenge : Week 2

This week has been tough.  Firstly we were away in London celebrating the Chinese New Year over the weekend so I neither menu planned for the coming week, nor had time to shop beforehand.
So on monday i had to think on my feet and just go shopping.  I had no real menu in mind, I just had an idea of what meat/fish was left in the freezer and what staples we usually need.

I also had no computer so couldn't do all the fancy meal charts and shopping lists that I did last week.

I ALSO had a special request as Jasmine's friend came home with us after school on tuesday so Spaghetti bolognese had to be on the menu.

And finally Jasmine caught a sickness bug and is, as of the time of writing, still weak and not eating much of anything.  So each day I have just been winging the meals from what I managed to buy on monday and what is already in the freezer/cupboards.

I can't remember everything I bought and I lost the itemised part of the receipt from Lidl, but I know I bought spaghetti, milk, 20 eggs, butter, natural yoghurt, some of their cheapest teabags (uuurrrrggghhh, 'dust' comes to mind - but they were on 27p so I don't mind sticking them straight on the compost!), garlic, cucumber and a large tin of rice pudding.  I spent £6.49

In Sainsburys I bought:
crunchy raisin and oat cereal - £1.55
anya potatoes - reduced to - 50p
basics carrots (1kg) - 50p
broccoli - 48p
Spring greens - 98p
Bananas - £1.19
a couple of mushrooms (only I eat them!) - 26p
Almond flakes - 70p

And the menu so far this week has been:

Monday - stir fried greens, carrots and broccoli in oyster sauce with toasted almond flakes and egg fried rice
Tuesday - Spaghetti bolognese, followed by homebaked choc chip and banana loaf (pics and recipe to follow)
Wednesday - Asian style soup with rice noodles and chicken (pics and recipe to follow)
Tonight* - Tuna and rice for me, nothing for Jasmine (still too sick), scrambled eggs and rice for Ben (he doesn't like tuna) and nothing for Nick (he's out)

*disclaimer: I normally don't cook different things for different people but today is an exception because It's only me and Ben actually eating and I am low on options that he will happily eat and too tired to force him to eat tuna tonight!!!


Friday - I have no idea yet, but it will probably be a potato curry with rice, some onion bhaji's (though I'll have to substitute the gram flour as it is not budget friendly right now) and a cucumber and mint raita

Breakfasts have mainly been the usual cereal/toast/boiled eggs/fruit and yoghurt combos, whilst lunches have been instant noodles/leftover rice fried with veg and egg/sandwiches and fruit.  Basically whatever is in the fridge/cupboard.  Snacks have been fruit/toast/cake that I baked

Hopefully next week I'll have more time to do the proper charts and stuff to make all this more legible.

Total spend so far: £62.61 leaving me a total of £37.39 for two more weeks, including half term (when things will get really tough with two hungry active kids at home at lot to eat, eat, eat!)

Cake.....in a microwave?!

I kid you not....and it was surprisingly delicious.  I just googled for a recipe - there are loads.

Brussel sprout and potato gratin

I needed to find a way to use up the bag of brussel sprouts that I got from the reduced section in sainsburys, in a way that would make them palatable to a family that, quite frankly, has no real love for brussel sprouts.  And, apart from Ben who doesn't like 'bakes' of any sort because they invariably have creamy sauces and are topped with cheese, it was a big success!

I basically just sliced the sprouts, grated about 4 medium potatoes, minced a couple of cloves of garlic, finely sliced a medium onion, then mixed it all up in a large baking dish, seasoned it with salt pepper and some rosemary from the garden poured in a small tub of cream, topped up with a little stock (made from a cube) and dotted a little butter on top.  After baking in the oven under foil for about 1 hour or so, I removed the foil, grated some cheese on top and finished cooking it until the cheese was all brown and bubbly. Yum!

what I really like is that you could use pretty much any vegetable and potato combinations for equally delicious results.  Maybe potato and courgette, or the obvious potato and leek....or add some bacon to it.....mmmm

Food challenge week 1 Analysis

Hmmmm, well things kinda went well and they kinda didn't.  Firstly, I veered off menu (as mostly happens when I menu plan anyway), but didn't buy anything extra, just used my ingredients in a different way.  We didn't have the chicken puff pie, but an aubergine curry with some of the leftover roast chicken thrown in instead.  And instead of chilli with sweet potato, we had it with rice.  The other issue, was that I ran out of bread and milk halfway through the week.  Cue a trip to the local tesco.  I then also ran out of butter and all types of oil!!!  I was going to top up on all of that just before the challenge, but that felt a bit like cheating so I didn't.  I managed to make everything last until the penultimate day, then had to use nothing when I made the chilli, other than the last scrapings of butter from the dish.  Adding to all that I commited a minor misdemeanor and bought us some of those big fat chewy white choc chip cookies you get from the supermarket.  Kerching, another £1 added to the spend

So, the total spend after the first week, including extras, was 48.54 leaving me £51.46 for the rest of the month......

Food challenge week 1

And the shopping list:

the pineapple, lettuce, aubergine and brussel sprouts were in the reduced section...pineapple has been cut up and frozen, the rest will keep ok in the fridge for now....

so that's a grand total spend of.......drumroll......£43.49

Now, "how on earth is she going to stick to £100 for a whole month if she has spent almost half in the first week?"  I hear you ask.... well, my plan was to stock up on certain items that were on offer at the start, and just topping up each week with fresh fruit, veg, bread and milk.  So I now have a budget of £18.83 to spend each week for the next 3 weeks.  It also means that our total meat for the month consists of: a whole chicken (approx 1.4kg), 2 packets of chicken drummers and thighs* (containing approx 4 drumsticks and 2 large thighs each), a packet of pork loins steaks (5 in the packet) and a packet of minced beef (777g).  Meat is now a luxury and I will be using it as an ingredient (as I have said before).  I will be making a little stretch a very long way.....

* I was on rota to cook a meal for a lady at church who has just had a baby.  I therefore used 3 of the large thighs from the two packets and deboned them.  I then chopped them up and made a caribbean chicken and potato curry, and some rice and aduki beans cooked in coconut milk (from storecupboard items).  It looked pretty substantial and would easily feed us four, so I think it'll be plenty for her and her husband and toddler.  As for the other thigh, I also deboned and chopped it up, marinated  it in soy sauce, ginger, garlic and oyster sauce, then used to make saturdays meal for us.  It was more than enough with the beansprouts and chopped veg (even some leftovers actually!)

As for the rest of the meat I bought, I divided the mince into 3 portions of approx 250g each and froze them seperately.  The pork chops are in the freeser and I will use the chicken to make 2 meals and some stock (to freeze for soups etc).

As you can see from the menu above, we will be eating leftovers for our lunch (me and Nick).  This is usually what we do anyway.  I haven't got a lot of bread in my shop, so I will bake some by hand from the bread flour I already have.  Snacks will be either cheese and crackers (already got the crackers), or homemade cake (already got flour, bought the eggs, sugar and margarine), fruit or veg sticks.

Anything else mentioned in the menu that I haven't bought whilst shopping, is stuff I already have in my cupboard/fridge/freezer.  I planned the menu around those items to keep the shopping bill low.

So anyway, I think that covers it.  This week the fridge and cupboards are overflowing, it remains to be seen if we will have such bounty available when the budget shrinks next week.......

Yoghurt marinated roast chicken

As a practice for my upcoming challenge, I decided to see how far I can make a whole chicken last.  Sadly I forgot about the stock I made in the slowcooker using the carcass and had to throw it out, but on the saturday I used one of the chicken breasts to make chicken and broccoli in blackbean sauce with stir fried noodles and beansprouts.  It was delicious and the kids both heartily approved - Ben even had seconds (practically unheard of!) In order to have even the slightest chance of completing the challenge, I need to make meat less of the 'main deal' and more of an ingredient, and find ways to bulk out our meals without using so much.  So this is what I did with the joint portions of the chicken.

Yoghurt marinated chicken

Ingredients:
2 x chicken thighs, 2 x legs, 2 x wings - skinned
few tbs of low fat yoghurt
roughly 1 heaped tsp each of paprika, ground cardamom (my most prized spice), ground coriander, ground cumin and black pepper
pinch of turmeric
couple tsps salt (you need extra to compensate for the yoghurt and lemon)
juice of a lemon
1/2 tsp chilli powder (optional)

Method:
slash all the pieces of meat with a sharp knife and put in a bowl.
In a seperate bowl mix together all the rest of the ingredients.
Pour yoghurt mix over chicken and mix well to coat all the pieces.
Cover and leave to marinate overnight in the fridge.
When you are ready to cook it, bring it out of the fridge and let it come back to room temp, before putting in a pre-heated oven.  Drizzle with a little olive oil and cook on about 180 degrees for approx 40 mins or until cooked and the juices run clear.

I served this over a bed of rice which I had cooked with lemon, and sprinkled fresh coriander all over it, a garlic yoghurt sauce and peas and broadbeans with mint

We could all have eaten twice as much as was on offer, but cutting down on our portion sizes (me and Nick) would not be a bad thing.....

Garlic yoghurt sauce

Great with grilled/barbecued/roasted meats.....

Ingredients:
natural, plain yoghurt, whisked
1 clove garlic, minced
tbp fresh chopped coriander leaves (or mint as a variation)
salt to taste
tbs olive oil

Method:
gently sautee the garlic in the olive oil and add the coriander, taking care not to burn the garlic (it will become bitter and unpalatable)

add the yoghurt and gently heat through until warm, then season with salt.  Do not allow the yoghurt to boil as it will curdle.

Peas and broadbeans with mint

This was a side dish that accompanied yoghurt marinated chicken.

Ingredients:
frozen or fresh peas
frozen or fresh broadbeans, shelled (I didn't do this as I was pushed for time, though I do much prefer them shelled)
1 banana shallot (or small onion), diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
handful of fresh mint, shredded
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
sautee the shallot/onion in some olive oil until softened, then add the garlic
add the peas and broadbeans and cook until just done
stir in the fresh mint, leaving some to add on top when serving (so it doesn't all wilt in the heat)

Serve!

A fantastic variation would be to add some crumbled feta - with some warm flatbreads, it could also make a lovely light lunch....

£100 food challenge: Setting the scene....

So, I feel I should make a few things clear in preparation for this challenge, namely that:

1. the kids have school lunches so I will not have to include their lunches during the week in this menu.  However it will include both mine and Nick's weekday lunches, and all weekend ones. 
2. during the challenge, there will be a half term holiday.  During this week, I will have to factor in lunches and snacks for the kids during the day.
3. We are away 5th-6th of February visiting family and attending the chinese new year celebrations in Trafalgar square and London's west end.  I will, for obvious reasons, not be including the food eaten during this time in the challenge.
4. I have a pretty good store cupboard including, amongst other things; a variety of dried beans, bulgur wheat, wholegrain rice, LOTS of spices, dried lentils and odds and ends of pasta. In the freezer I have some frozen berries we picked last autumn, some frozen apple sauce we made, a few wild Alaskan salmon fillets, a couple of tubs of cannellini beans I cooked up in a batch, various assortments of vegetables and some home made chicken stock.   Whatever I haven't used up before the start of the challenge will definitely help me to achieve it!

With all this in mind, I am already collating ideas and recipes - I still think it's gonna be nigh on impossible, but I WILL give it a good go......

February Food Challenge 2011

£100 budget for food for one month for a family of 4.....

Yesterday, whilst preparing a whole chicken for roasting, I boasted to Nick that I reckon I could feed us all for a week from one chicken....I was actually completely exaggerating somewhat, but he somehow turned that into a challenge and told me to see if I could feed us all for a month on a measly budget of £100.  Well, I like a good challenge me, so despite reservations as to the actual probability of being able to stick to such a minute budget (especially with food prices rising as quickly as they are), I have been mulling it over ever since.  And I must say, I am quite intrigued to find out if I could really do it.  Technically I could just feed us all beans and rice, rice and beans for the next month and stay well within budget, but that's not any fun.  I want to see if I can do it bearing in mind the following:

• the food has to be balanced (in terms of healthy/some treats)
• the budget has to include ALL meals, drinks and snacks
• the food has to be able to satisfy two hungry, growing children (who eat most things, but are suspicious of others), a permanently hungry, lactating mum and a dad who works out 5 days a week and walks/cycles to and from work every day.
• the food must be interesting and varied, drawing influences from various types of cuisine - as this is how we like to eat normally

So, my budgeting and cooking skills are going to be tested to the absolute limit with this one I think!  Though my recently restocked storecupboard will undoubtedly help.....

For the sake of ease, the challenge will run from one pay day to the next, therefore it will begin Saturday 29th January and end Friday 25th February. Each week I will post my menu, shopping list and total spent - along with some recipes and reports on how we are doing.

First post will be coming up soon......