Healthy food on a budget: day 7

For the last day before my next shop the kids had buckwheat, almond meal and cacao pancakes spread with almond butter as their main lunch item and dinner was a leftovers fish pie.

For the fish pie I cut my 500g of frozen hoki into large chunks and put them in the bottom of an oven safe dish. Then I threw whatever I had in the vege bin that needed to be used up on top. It ended up being cherry tomatoes, capsicum, leftover roasted cauliflower and some grated carrot. I added the juice of a lemon and some salt too. For the topping I boiled some potatoes then just before draining I added 1C of frozen peas. After draining the water I added the zest of 1 lemon, 1/2C grated cheese and a pinch of salt. I mashed it roughly, spread it on top of the fish and vegetables and popped it into a 180 degree oven for 45 minutes. Easy :)

My shop today was $129 and I managed to get all of what I need. The rest will be used to replenish the fruit bowl later this week.

Allergy friendly food can be really expensive, but I hope I've shown you that it is possible to eat well on a modest budget. All it takes is some planning and a bit of creativity to get the protein part of the meal to go as far as it can.  Happy cooking everyone!

Healthy food on a budget: days 3 - 6

Day 3:

Lunch was chicken quesadillas with chicken (from roast chicken), cheese and home made ketchup.

Dinner was spaghetti bolognese using the 500g beef mince I had in the freezer with 2 sticks of celery, 2 carrots and 1 C of mushrooms minced up and added into the sauce.

Day 4:

Lunch was chicken quesadillas again with a fruit salad

For dinner we were invited to a friend's place for pizza, but if we were home I would have used the fish in the freezer to make a fish pie.


Day 5:

Lunch was leftover corned silverside sandwiches

Dinner was roast chicken, roast parsnip and potatoes, roast cauliflower and steamed broccoli

Day 6:

Lunch was a chicken sushi salad using one breast from last night's chicken, a GF vegan piece of date cake, a GF vegan chocolate chip and raisin cookie, some apple and some crackers,

Dinner is a vegetarian curry using sweet potato, pumpkin and coconut milk.

Tomorrow will be the last day before shopping day rolls around again so I will be making my menu plan and shopping list. So far we have added the following to my $150 shop using the remaining $50 I had in my budget:

Bulk box of soy milk $20

Two rolls of toilet paper $2

Cat food $4

Almond meal / Cacao powder at the co-op $15

Still under budget - just!

* As a real life mum and not a food blogger I have trouble taking photos of the for we're just about to eat given that a) it's usually night time and the light is bad and b) my kids are hungry and impatient. So these aren't my pics except for the lunch box one. I will endeavour to go back and add links soon :)

Healthy food on a budget: day 2

Remember that roast chicken I cooked and portioned up yesterday? Well today is when the magic of the pre cooked chicken happens!

Lunch for the kids was a quick job. They each had a drumstick and a chicken wing, a GF oat and raisin cookie (Freedom Foods GF oats), a small piece of GF brownie, some white corn chips and some strawberries.

For dinner we had a Mexcian quinoa bake. This is one of my favourite week day meals because it's quick and doesn't dirty up too many dishes. My ten year old daughter Jemima made this meal last night. It's a nice and easy one to get kids in the kitchen.

To a large bowl add:

1 jar of pasta sauce or salsa

2 drained tins of kidney beans

1 C frozen corn kernels

1 C grated cheese (optional)

1 diced capsicum

2 C cooked quinoa (or rice, or pasta)

1 pre cooked chicken breast and 2 thighs, chopped roughly

Mix it all up then pop it into an oven safe dish. Cook for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

We like this meal with guacamole and crushed corn chips on top. Like nachos, but a bit healthier.

* this makes enough for our family of four plus two decent lunches for the following day.

Healthy food on a budget: day 1

Today the kids had fruit, some vegetables, some white corn chips, some organic raisins and some sticky coconut rice pudding.

For dinner we had corned silverside, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and sauerkraut. I used half of the silverside which was just under $7. The pic isn't mine, I forgot to photograph it before we ate it all!

For lunch prep I roasted a free range chicken and cut it up as follows: breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings. A whole chicken is just about the best value around when it comes to good quality meat.
This is how I'm using this week's chook:

Plus then you're left with the carcass which makes great stock for the freezer!

Healthy Food on a Budget: How to shop smarter

This week I thought I'd take you along on my weekly shopping trip. As you know we have three GF people, one egg free person and all of us are on limited dairy (cheese but no milk). This week I spent $150 for the four of us, which gives me $50 left in my $200 weekly budget for incidentals as the week goes on.

The first place we're going to stop is my favourite fruit and vegetable store - Todarellos in Katoomba. This place is fantastic. It's family run and even though it's a 20 minute drive I more than make up for the trip with the great value they offer. Stopping for your fruit and vegetables first is something I really want to impress upon you. If you go to the supermarket first you're likely to overspend and not have enough left over for produce. Fruit and vegetables shouldn't be an afterthought! Always, always seek out good value fruit and vegetables as your first port of call. I try not to buy mine at a supermarket because the value is better from an independent store or a farmers market. This week I spent $55 and I bought everything you can see below. 

This worked out to be: 1kg potatoes, 1 bag mushrooms, 1kg carrots, 3 parsnip, 4 brown onions, 2 red onions, 1 cauliflower, 3 broccoli, 2 kumara (or sweet potato), 2 bunches bananas, 5 pink lady apples, 10 oranges, 3 punnets of strawberries, 1 large bunch silver beet, 1/2 celery, 1 punnet cherry tomatoes, 2 avocado, 1 garlic and 1 bunch rhubarb!

Then I went over to Aldi to buy some things for the pantry. Here we have GF muesli, organic muesli, 2 jars pasta sauce, 3 packets of brown rice crackers, 1 packet GF spaghetti, organic coffee, organic chocolate, coconut, fruit and nut mix, organic raisins, GF flour blend 2 x rice milk and a GF chocolate cake mix. As you can see there are no muesli bars, chips, or loads of lunch box fillers here. I try to keep the pantry section of my shop to two supermarket bags. It's a good way for me to remember that the bulk of our food should be fresh produce and protein not packaged goods.

Then the cold stuff. Two free range whole chickens, about $10 each. 1 Corned Silverside, about $6. 1 packet of bacon $8. 1 block of cheese, about $5, and free range eggs, again about $5. I also had a packet of beef mince and 500g of frozen hoki fillets in the freezer and those will be part of this week's menu plan. They're worth about $5 each.

I also have this piece of pork roast left over from Saturday night. Last week I spent $17 on a pork shoulder and it will do three meals (roast pork, pork ragu lasagne and pork and vegetable pie). Buying a large piece of meat and dividing it into three meals is a great way to save money and it's always nice to know that the meat portion of your meal is already cooked for you.

Now I want to show you my pantry before I put any shopping away. You can see clearly that I didn't set off for the shops without anything left in the pantry. A huge part of eating well for less is planning and buying things when they're cheap. There are some things in here that I will always have, even if I'm not planning on using them right away. 

Up the top there you have tins which I buy every other week. Beans are 75c a tin at Aldi and I stock up once a fortnight. I get some of everything they have for 75c! I also stock up on the 55c tins of tomatoes while I'm there. You can also see coconut oil and coconut butter, pure maple syrup, popcorn kernels and some specialty flours.

In the white bins I keep nuts and seeds, pasta, grains and flours. On the top shelf to the right I have rice paper sheets, white corn tortillas and some nori for sushi salads. On the bottom shelf I have jars for different flours - looking a bit empty now because I'm due for a trip to the food co-op. I have chia seeds, dried beans and lentils and steel cut oats in here as well.

Right down the bottom I have herbs and spices and oils and vinegars. I restock this as things run out.

This week I thought I'd show you how I use the ingredients I bought for this week's meals so you can really see how it's all going to work. I know $150 a week isn't much these days, but I promise you that you can eat really well on a small budget like mine. Stay tuned!

One Week Allergy Meal Plan

Even if we had access to every ingredient under the sun I still think I would struggle with that all too familiar question - what should we have for dinner? Often it's coming up with ideas that's the hardest part, not the cooking. For the past two weeks I've been a bit more militant about my meal planning and it's really paid off. I've managed to spend less, eat better and feel way less stressed. That doesn't mean we're locked in to eating something we don't feel like however. I often swap meals around if I'm not in the mood for what I've got written down for the day. As long as you have all of the ingredients you're good to go.

Money money money!

I recently asked a few friends what they usually spend on food per week and was surprised that there was so much variation. Some thrifty friends got away with $150 pw and others spent upwards of $400. So other than family size - what makes one family spend so much more than others? I think a lot of it has to do with food choices - whether you have allergies in your family or prefer to buy organic or premium products. I know I would spend less if I could buy the 90c spaghetti instead of the $2.99 GF packet. That doesn't mean that allergy families are doomed to spend their every cent on food though. In this post I'll share with you how I manage to feed our family of four (plus cat) what I think is a pretty good diet on a budget of $200 pw.

The list

Ok. The shopping list. I know, yawn right? But it's essential. I like to make an occasion out of my weekly meal planning time. I get in bed, surround myself with cookbooks, make sure I have a cup of tea and something nice to eat - and I get to work. I give myself a time limit otherwise I'm likely to spend all day in there. I used to just plan dinners, but once I started planning breakfast and lunches it all really started to come together.

I write down what we'll be having for breakfast/lunch/dinner for each day of the week and then work out my shopping list from there. The lunches are for the kids and I only plan their main item for their lunch boxes as they always have fruit/crackers/home made muffins or biscuits etc.

Down to business

This week I hit the fruit and vegetable shop and spent $45 on produce. That bought me a huge box of good stuff. Markets are also great if you have one handy. I have trouble co-ordinating market days with when we run out of food, so they're not an every-week option for me.

For meat I bought:

2 whole free range chickens ($11 and $9)
1kg bag of frozen wild caught hoki fillets ($9.99)
1 large packet of GF bacon ($7.99)
2 x 500g grass fed and finished beef mince ($5.99 each)
Total meat spend: $49.96

My other groceries were staples like tea, cheese, butter, soy and rice milk, rice crackers, flours, Orgran buckwheat pancake mix, almond meal, cereal, coffee and lots of tins of pulses and tomatoes. If I spot a bag of old bananas going cheap at the supermarket I always buy them and freeze them for cakes and muffins.

Total spend for the week $180 I keep the extra $20 up my sleeve to replenish the fruit bowl during the week.

What we ate!

This week I mainly used a new book of mine "Save with Jamie" by Jamie Oliver. Most of the recipes can be found online and the pics are from the Jamie Oliver website.

Prep:

On shopping day I roast the largest whole chicken and then cut it up as follows: drumsticks, thighs, wings, two breasts - and popped it into the fridge.

Day 1:

Breakfast - Buckwheat and almond meal pancakes with banana and maple syrup
Lunch - Chicken drumsticks and wings
Dinner - Mexican chicken salad (using one breast and two thighs, chopped) with corn chips

Day 2:

I put the chicken carcass left over from roasting the bird the day before into a slow cooker and covered it with water. I let it cook all day and then used the stock that night.

Breakfast - Rice porridge with grated apple
Lunch - Sushi salad
Dinner - Chicken and pea risotto using one chicken breast from leftover roast and chicken stock. I roughly followed the recipe on Save with Jamie for this one.

Day 3 (a weekend day for us):

Breakfast - Bacon and eggs / hash browns for the non egg eaters
Lunch - Cauliflower crust pizza
Dinner - Nachos - using one of the mince packets and lots of beans and vegetables to bulk it out. Freeze leftovers.

Extra: I also made a sweet potato and BBQ beans dish during the day. I used a recipe I found in Save with Jamie and I portioned it into freezer bags for my husband's lunches, or if we need a quick dinner.

Day 4 (a weekend day for us):

Breakfast - Bacon, eggs and/or hash browns
Lunch - Roast vegetable salad
Dinner - Jamie Oliver's 'JFC' crispy chicken - using the other chicken I bought (cut into pieces) with sweet potato fries, corn and salad

Day 5:

Breakfast - GF weetbix, banana and rice milk
Lunch - Leftover nachos with corn chips (nacho meat in a thermos)
Dinner - Fried fish fillets using 500g frozen fillets with sweet potato fries

Pic from: The Nutritious Kitchen

Day 6:

Breakfast - Banana and peanut (or non nut butter) on GF toast and a smoothie
Lunch - White corn quesadillas using white corn tortillas
Dinner - Spaghetti bolognese using remaining 500g mince meat.

Day 7:

Breakfast - Buckwheat pancakes with banana and maple syrup
Lunch - GF mini pizzas
Dinner - Fish pie using 500g of frozen fillets. I used another Save with Jamie recipe but didn't use any seafood other than the 500g frozen fish I had.

So that's week one. Looking at it, it does look a little starchy in some places but overall it was a menu that everyone was happy with and used some good wholesome ingredients. Because I try to eat low starch as much as I can I will often have more salad and meat/less potato or pasta. Thanks for reading and I hope my menu plan is helpful for your family.

Steamed Rice and Chicken Buns with Asian Noodle Salad

GF, DF, EF

Asian food can be tricksy when it comes to allergy friendly cooking. My kids love the bold fresh flavours of asian food so tonight I decided to try out something new. Not only was it new, it involved a dough. I have a history of GF dough flops so I was a bit nervous about trying this one. As it turns out, it was pretty easy and they came out really soft, sweet and delicious. The recipe looks a little long, but most of it you can prepare and leave.

The chicken (filling for the buns and for the salad)

500g good quality boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 C water
1/2 C balsamic vinegar (GF)
2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/3 C GF soy sauce such as tamari
1 clove garlic
1 bunch of asian green such as bok choy washed and chopped finely

Mix together all ingredients except the chicken in a shallow pan and place on medium heat. Add the chicken and simmer for approx 20 mins until the liquid has reduced and is sticky. Keep turning the chicken so that both sides are nice and brown. When the liquid starts to go sticky remove the chicken and add the greens to the sauce. Continue simmering until the liquid reduces further and becomes a glaze. Chop the chicken and place in a bowl then add the greens and remaining sauce.

For the buns:

1 Tbsp dry yeast
1 1/2 C luke warm water
1/4 C honey
2 C glutinous rice flour (this is GF despite the name, and found in Asian supermarkets)
2.5 C fine rice flour
1/2 C olive or vegetable oil
Sesame seeds

Place the warm water, the yeast and the honey in a bowl and stir until dissolved. Whisk in the 2 C of glutinous rice flour and cover the bowl with cling film. Place in a warm spot for 30-40 mins until the mixture is bubbly.

Add the 2.5 C of rice flour and the oil and stir until combined. Knead with your hands and form into balls a little bigger than a golf ball. It's not going to be a smooth elastic dough but never fear - it'll work. Wet your hands if that makes it easier. I got around 10 balls from my dough. Place the balls onto a tray lined with baking paper.

To form the buns press each ball with the heel of your hand to form a disc. Add 1 Tbsp of the chicken mix and fold the edges around the chicken. You're meant to pinch it to seal but my dough was rather cakey and difficult to handle so I made a ball as best as I could using wet hands. If there are some cracks just smooth them over, and if some sauce leaks out don't worry about it! You can see from the pic below that it's a dry dough rather than a traditional elastic wheat based dough. You can use this recipe for dumplings as well by rolling it out thinner and placing filling inside before folding it over.

To cook the buns place a bamboo steamer over a wok or large pan with water covering the bottom of the pan. Line the steamer with baking paper and use some spray oil if you have some. Place 3 - 4 buns in the steamer at a time, making sure that they don't touch each other or the sides of the steamer. Place the lid on and steam for 15 mins. Don't peek! But do make sure the pan doesn't boil dry. Keep topping it up as you go. Keep the first batch of buns warm while you make the second. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if you wish.

For the salad

1 'cake' of vermicelli noodles (rice)
2 carrots grated
1/2 cucumber peeled and cut into batons
1 bunch coriander leaves
Sesame seeds

Place rice vermicelli noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water.

Add vegetables, coriander, sesame seeds and remaining chicken in a bowl. After 10 mins add the drained noodles. Run a sharp knife through the noodles in the bowl a few times to chop them up. Toss everything together.

There we go! And you thought you'd never be able to eat dumplings or steamed buns again.

Vegan Roasted Tomato and Eggplant Stew with Millet (from Veganomicon)

VG, GF

Yesterday the weather was a bit cooler so I decided to use up an eggplant I had in the fridge in the form of a stew. I'm eating a lot of vegan dishes at the moment and really enjoying them. My absolute favourite vegan cookbook is Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It has everything you need to know about vegan food in it and is great for beginners.

So, back to my stew. After I decided to make it I realised that my cookbook is with a pile of precious things at my husband's work due to the bush fires we've had here recently (see, I told you the cookbook is good - it made it into the "must take" pile!). We evacuated on Wednesday and now we have things scattered about all over the place so that if the fire hits our house we'll still have a few important bits and pieces. Another thing that's been evacuated is my DSLR camera. The pics of this post were taken with my phone, so my apologies. Without my recipe book this is an adaption of the original using other blog posts I found and my memory.

The first step to this stew is roasting some eggplant, garlic and red capsicum on a tray. I heated the oven to 200 degrees C and put 1 eggplant sliced up, two capsicum halved and seeds removed, and some cloves of garlic with the skins on onto the tray. I sprayed a bit of olive oil over everything and popped it into the oven for around 25 mins.

This is it when it came out. Yummo right? Then I put the capsicums into a plastic ziplock bag and sealed it up so that they steamed. This is to make the skins easier to peel off.

While that was happening I sautéed a diced onion in some oil and then when it was turning brown I added 2 cloves of minced garlic.  After that I added 1/2C vegetable stock, 1 tin diced tomatoes, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 tsp salt. Once that was all happening I added the eggplant, squeezed out the garlic from the skins, and added the peeled and chopped capsicum. The last step was to add a drained tin of chickpeas. You can add a little more water at this stage if it's too thick.

Once it was all mixed up I let it sit for 20 mins off the heat with the lid on while I made the millet. 

Millet is a really yummy GF alternative to couscous. We buy hulled millet from the food co-op and  use it in place of rice or couscous with a casserole or a stew.  You can add flavouring to it or vegetables for a complete meal or have it cold as a salad. It's cooked using the absorption method with a 3:1 ratio of water to millet. Once it's boiling turn the heat down as low as it'll go and place a lid onto the pot. 1C of millet takes me around 20 mins to cook. Check it regularly so that it doesn't catch on the bottom. Once the water has almost absorbed take it off the heat and leave it for another 5 mins or so with the lid on to steam then fluff with a fork.

We served it with a little parsley over the top. 

The kids had the stew and millet and also some beef which I covered in rice milk and then rice crumbs. Even though I'm eating vegan food a lot I still want to give meat to Ben regularly because he's already on such a restricted diet, and he needs the protein.

I got a great deal on some organic beef from Coles, this will do 3 meals for the kids.

Ingredient list:

1 large eggplant

2 red capsicum

olive oil

garlic

1 onion

vegetable stock

1 tin tomatoes

1 tin chickpeas

salt

paprika

oregano

millet, polenta, couscous or rice

No cheese cheesy bake.

VG, GF

It seems that the older I get, the more intolerant of dairy products I become. It's almost at the point of no return for me now, with even a tablespoon of cows milk in a cup of tea leaving me feeling queasy. For the most part I don't miss it at all because I have a horrible association with it after many nights sweating and feeling incredibly nauseous. The one thing I do miss however, is creaminess.

I've been having a play with nut creams and tofu lately and tonight I made a no cheese cheesy bake. This is gluten free but you could substitute the gluten free pasta with normal wheat pasta if you choose to.

Ingredients

GF pasta shells
1 jar of organic tomato pasta sauce
1 tin of diced tomatoes
1 packet of tofu - try and buy organic because soy beans are a crop that can be exposed to heavy use of pesticides and fertilisers as well as some being genetically engineered.
1 C raw unroasted unsalted cashew nuts
3/4 C - 1 C soy milk (again, try for organic)
2 zucchini's or spinach
Salt and white pepper
Olive oil

Let's Cook!

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until just cooked. Meanwhile, cut the zucchini into rounds and cook on a tray in the oven with a little olive oil at 180 degrees centigrade for around 15 minutes or until soft.

To prepare the creamy cheesy element of the dish blend the cashew nuts with 3/4 C of the soy milk until smooth. Add the tofu broken into chunks and blend it together until it makes a thick cream, about the consistency of ricotta cheese. Add a little more soy milk if you need to. Season with salt and a pinch of white pepper.

Mix the pasta sauce and tin of tomatoes together in a bowl.

To assemble the dish brush some olive oil in a large rectangular oven proof dish then add a layer of tomato sauce. Add a layer of pasta on top of the sauce then dot 1/2 of the nut tofu cream on top of the pasta evenly. Add another layer of tomato sauce then the zucchini overlapping the pieces as you go. Lastly add the remaining pasta and finish with a final layer of tomato sauce and the remainder of the nut tofu cream.

Cook for 20 minutes in a 180 degree oven (fan bake works best) until golden and bubbling.

You won't taste nuts or tofu, but what you will have is a lovely creamy texture and a healthy no meat protein boost. Even better, my kids loved this meal and didn't miss the meat or cheese at all.