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.

Gluten Free Vegan Seed Crackers

Anyone else totally sick of rice crackers?? I may have just the thing for you.

These seed crackers were a pleasant surprise. I've always shied away from making crackers because I don't have the best history with rolling out GF doughs. I imagined everything sticking and the crackers not holding together at the end. Amazingly, these crackers are so simple to make and they're just about fool proof. It's hard to find a good GF cracker especially if you're also needing them to be egg free.  We had these with cheese and chutney last night and then the kids had some in their lunches today with some homemade hummus. My kids aren't huge fans of seeds so the fact that they loved these felt a bit like a victory.

The recipe is from Wholefood Simply and I made it exactly as the recipe suggested, except that I omitted the vanilla and found I had to cook mine for longer to get them to go crispy. I think it was due to my tray not being large enough so they were a bit too thick.

Here's the recipe:

Preheat an oven to 175 degrees C or 350 degrees F

In a food processor put:

1/2 C chia seeds
1/2 C flax seeds
1/2 C pumpkin seeds
1/2 C sunflower seeds
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Pulse a few times to break up the seeds then add 1 C water.

Keep blending on a slow speed until the mix thickens up.

Line a tray with baking paper, spread the mix over the top thinly using a spatula. The recipe suggests using another piece of baking paper on top so you can roll it out but I didn't need to, I just used a spatula to spread it evenly.

Place in the oven for 30 mins and check if they're crispy. If they need more time put them back and check every 10 mins until they're nice and hard. Mine took 50 mins total. Cut into squares or break into pieces.

Enjoy with your favourite topping or on their own. They'll last in airtight container for a week (but they'll be long gone by then!)

Lazy Sushi for School Mornings

My kids love sushi and it works for me because it's naturally GF, filling and nice and healthy. But when I think about making it, it seems way too hard - especially on a school morning. I know, I know, it's not really that hard. But on a school morning it never hurts to make things just that little bit easier - yes?

So this is my lazy sushi. I'm pretty excited about this because it's so fast and my kids love it. When Ben in particular brings home an empty lunch box I'm always happy.

Firstly, the rice. Buy your sushi rice (has to be sushi rice) from an asian supermarket not a normal supermarket. It's much much cheaper that way. I cooked mine in a pressure cooker - 2 C rice with 2 C water for 7 mins on low. Then I mixed in 3 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar (check for GF status) with a fork and left it to cool.  This was enough for two lunches for two kids, with some left over which I froze for next time.

The next thing you'll need is a rice mould. I bought mine for $2.80 from a Japanese shop but I bet there are loads of them online too. If you don't have one you could also just make balls from the rice or try to make the rolls with your hands.

These two halves fit inside a plastic frame  - so you put one half in the frame, fill it to the top with rice (pressing down firmly) then put the other half on top face down and squeeze. The frame slides off and you remove the two halves of the mould to reveal three rolls like this:

Then all I do is cut or rip a piece of nori and wrap it around the outside. I've also seen them with sesame seeds sprinkled over the top but my little guy wasn't so keen on that. The whole thing takes less than a minute.

My daughter likes filling in her sushi and it didn't work too well when I tried to do layer of vegetables in the rice mould. So instead I made her a sushi salad. Just add whatever you like to your sushi rice, rip up some nori and dribble over some GF soy sauce.

There we go - lazy sushi. No rolling, no bamboo mats! Have a great day everyone.

School lunches - Planetbox Review.

Last week an exciting online purchase arrived at the front door. It was my long awaited Planetbox lunchbox. Well, Ben's lunchbox actually. These things are expensive and because you can't purchase them in Australia I also had to spring for a substantial shipping cost as well. It was with a lot of thought that I finally hit the 'confirm' button at the checkout!

Was it worth it? I can honestly say that it was. We bought the Rover complete set which came with an insulated lunch bag, magnets for the top, two dipper containers and the stainless steel bento style lunchbox. I also bought the cold sleeve which you can freeze and pop into a pocket inside the lunch bag to keep things cool. The lunch bag also has a spot for utensils and two pockets on the outside - one for a drink bottle and one for the big dipper container. Ben chose a black bag with space magnets but there are lots of options, and thankfully the accessories aren't too expensive on their own so you can change them as your child gets older.

The insulation and the cold sleeve were two reasons I really liked the idea of this lunchbox. Because it's metal it cools down really quickly and stays cold. That's important because we live in a hot climate and without sandwiches to fall back on I am often packing meat or rice for Ben's lunch. I've never been comfortable sending meat to school to sit there for hours so this gives me peace of mind and opens up some new lunch ideas that I would have considered unsafe before.

We've used the lunchbox for a full school week and it's been brilliant. I've packed fruit and we haven't had any leaks. Ben can easily open and shut the latch on his own and he's had no trouble opening the dipper containers. I love that the box stays in the lunch bag so that it won't get scratched and knocked about like his other plastic lunch boxes (we have been through 3 plastic ones this year already).

I have loved not searching for containers and lids in the morning. Even better is not having to tackle the complicated jigsaw puzzle of fit-the-containers-in-the-box. Ben is eating more lunch than he ever has because he can see it all in front of him and doesn't have to bother with little screw top containers. My biggest issue with him and his lunches has been that he can't be bothered opening anything to see what's inside, so he often won't eat for the whole day. He doesn't have a huge appetite so I guess the incentive wasn't there.

I never would have thought that a lunch box could be a game changer, but it really has made my mornings better. Making school lunches used to be one of my most hated chores but I really am enjoying them now. So much so that I bought another set for my daughter and a larger 'Launch' set for my husband.

Here are some photos of 4 of this week's allergy friendly lunches in the new box.

(GF, vegan apple sauce and carrot muffin, GF vegan choc chip cookie, walnuts, avocado and cucumber sushi, kiwifruit)

(apple sauce and carrot muffin from freezer, brown rice crackers and roasted broad beans, GF pizza bread with home made hummus, strawberries and GF marshmallow treat)

(white corn tortillas toasted and cut up with home made hummus, roasted broad beans and rice crackers, thai coconut sticky rice pudding with peaches, kiwifruit)

(GF, vegan chocolate cake, chickpea chips, GF vegan bread roll with avocado and salmon, strawberries)

Recipes for the baked items will follow in the next couple of days. The bread roll is a brand called Zehnder that I discovered by accident in the freezer section of our local IGA. They make a great, fluffy bread roll which we use for hamburgers or the occasional lunch roll like the one above.

So the low down?

The rover set cost us USD 59.95 plus shipping. All up it came to almost $100 Australian.

It's easy to wash, strong, and can fit enough food for my kids (6 and 9). There is a larger version for older (or hungrier) kids and adults.

The only downside for me is the price, particularly the shipping costs. There is no shipping discount for buying more than one item and when my next parcel arrives I will be checking carefully to see if I have been overcharged. I do think that the lunch box will pay for itself after a while because I won't be buying wrap or any more containers / snack tubes / lunch boxes (hooray!).

For more info see: Planetbox

20 Allergy Friendly Lunch box Ideas

Without a doubt the hardest aspect of this whole allergy business is packing a school lunch. When we're in our own environment and I'm buying and preparing the food it's easy to feel pretty normal. It's only when we venture out that reality hits.

Making an allergy friendly lunch box 5 days a week can be really hard work when you can't use sandwiches or bread rolls. GF baking needs to be fresh - which is why you can often find me bending over a bowl of muffin mix at 7am on a school morning. I want Ben's lunches to be interesting, yummy, satisfying and full of nutrients - and the key to this is all in the planning.

Here's a list of 20 allergy friendly lunch ideas made up of things I've successfully tried over the years. If you have some ideas of your own I'd love to hear them in the comments section - let's keep this list a work in progress!

1. White corn GF tortillas sandwiched together and crisped up in a dry frying pan (like a quesadilla) with fillings inside. Fillings we like are: salmon and cheese (if we're eating cheese); baked beans; Mighty Mite (GF marmite) and cheese; tuna and vegan mayonnaise.
2. GF mini pizzas with either vegetarian toppings or salami. I make a big pizza and cut it into smaller portions to freeze. Hummus is great in place of cheese.
3. Meatballs - either organic beef or chicken using soy milk and GF breadcrumbs to bind
4. Chicken drumsticks
5. Sushi - watch for GF rice wine vinegar and use GF soy sauce
6. GF mini muffins - make a basic muffin mix and alternate with sweet and savoury additions
7. Pasta salad - GF pasta spirals, vegan mayonnaise, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, salmon
8. Potato salad - Vegan mayonnaise, leftover roast potatoes, chopped herbs
9. Apple slices with nut butter - Sliced apples spread with nut or seed butter and sprinkled with raisins
10. Fruit salad - with yoghurt (dairy, sheep, goat or coconut) and sprinkled with ground seed mix
11. Hummus and rice crackers 
12. Toasted GF bread with seed butter
13. Leftovers GF pasta and sauce in a Thermos
14. Asian style rice noodles and vegetables
15. GF cheese scones - make DF by omitting cheese and adding flavour enhancers like chopped sundried tomatoes or roasted capsicum instead
16. GF pumpkin scones - using cold mashed pumpkin as a binder
17. Potato cakes
18. Corn fritters
19. Roast vegetable salad with lemon juice and olive oil dressing
20. Tapioca or chia puddings - For Chia Puddings see the recipe here

Tips for easy lunch-making:

• Invest in some good lunch packaging - small containers with no leak lids are great
• Make in bulk and freeze individual portions
• Buy a good quality Thermos
• Think about how to keep high risk foods like meat or sushi cold, especially in the summer months. Ice packs and insulated lunch bags are one idea - or see if you can access a fridge at school for your child
• Plan ahead - with allergy lunch boxes improvisation is not your friend