Making More In My Kitchen

 With the kids home because of school holidays, its very important to have the cupboards full with baking. It stops the temptation to buy things we don't need, and makes great bribes (I mean encouragement hee hee) to behave and be helpful. Yes even the teen boys :)

I started with making Afghan biscuits, don't need a lot of ingredients for these. A great use for our walnuts :)

Next Gingerbread Men, DS8 helped with the icing. Next time will make car ones. As DS8 does like his Gingerbread cookies :)

Then I made Feijoa Jelly. This is my first time, and I was please to see it's as easy as making Crab Apple Jelly. A great use of fruit that kids weren't eating (the small sized feijoas, that a teaspoon don't fit). Now I know they will eat on pikelets and scones (with some fresh whipped cream YUM!)

Look at those beautiful Autumn colours. Feijoa and Crab Apple Jellies make a pretty stain glass window for my kitchen :)

Now I can focus on catching up on washing (got behind after boys came back from camp), and cleaning. Need my lounge back :)

Autumn Veggie Garden - Welcome the Greens

Planted out a lot of seedlings on the 21 April. Filling up our veggie garden again.

So thankful for our veggie garden, it blessed us with a lot of food for Summer. Now with this next lot of plants, should help us through autumn and winter.
Have planted out celery, Brussels sprouts, sliver beet (have some colourful ones as well as the good ole green kind), cauliflower, broccoli, pak choi, and kale seedlings. Also planted some pea seeds.
Later on will plant some bean seeds.
One of the things I have done this year is re-planted our capsicum plants into pots. Somewhere I heard to do that as they can keep giving your more capsicums and grow into bushes that keep giving for a few more years. And I have to say it's true so far. We are getting lots more capsicums.

One of our 4 capsicum plants i have re-planted. Look at all those capsicums! Very handy for soup, stews and stir-frys.

Veggie garden this morning 26/04/2013, the celery at the far end is what we planted first and have already used some in making chicken stock. Love watching plants grow.

Preserving

My small preserving cupboard is full this year

I might have been quiet in blog land, but I sure have been busy at home. After making over 40 jars of food (some given to others). I realised we need a better place to keep our preserves. So I have been in the hunt of a secondhand pantry, to go into our garage. That would free up more space in my little kitchen again. We had a good year for peaches, our tree blessed us with heaps.

One of the reasons I have been so busy is I'm now homeschooling my DS8. He can be a bit of a handful (more so when he is sick). But he is progressing with his learning, even doing maths out of school time hours. Still have a lot of work to do on his writing.
One day at a time :)

Other exciting news is we have been making progress with our garden. (not that you would think so at the moment, with the mess out there) We are working on a new fence behind our garage and clothes line area. No more jasmine trying to take over my clothes line. More light, more space. Our dear grapefruit tree is having a new lease on life with room to grow and breathe. The fence that was there before was built on our side and took a chunk of space from our land. It also gave a great frame for the jasmine to grow, and a wonderful living space for rats. No wonder our cat would go crazy with that fence, walking up and down beside it. But now it is gone and new frame work is going up on the fence line. Waiting on some secondhand metal fence materials (and one day a fresh paint).

Now if we could just get the other fence done on the other side near my apple tree, and the new chicken palace done I would be very happy :)

Week Four $100 Food Shop

Was able to keep to the $100 last week. I was under until thought why not stock up on on canned chopped tomatoes. At .73c each they are worth it and are great to add to casseroles or making pasta sauce. So we now have 9 cans at the bottom of our pantry. Then I saw baked beans also at a good price of .85c each these are great to stretch mince out or a quick meal on toast. So we now have 9 cans of them too.
This week I aim to get cans of chickpeas to build up our pantry stockpile.

Week Four $100 Food Shop

Menu Plan
Breakfast: cereal or toast
Lunch: leftovers, sandwiches or fritters and chips
Snacks: Chocolate cake, cookies
Tuesday: Chicken Buns
Wednesday: Mince dish (with rice, baked beans, chopped tomatoes and veggies)
Thursday: Salmon and kale quiche
Friday: Corned Beef with mashed potato and mustard sauce
Saturday: Cold Corn beef with salad
Sunday: Homemade Hamburgers
Monday: Beef or Chicken Stir fry (uses up veggies)

Shopping List
Kids cereal (whatever is on sale)
Muesli (bulk up with rolled oats)
White sugar
Plain Flour
Icing sugar (if our food processor was better would make it ourselves)
Pasta (good to have on hand)
Mayo (used for the chicken buns, DH would make some but is doing more at work while his workmate has his holiday, so comes home tired)
Fruit - apricots are on sale
Milk
Cream
Cheese
Cocoa
Buy bulk canned chickpeas

Week Three $100 Food Shop

Last week (week two) we spent the whole $100 on food. The main reason being the heat wave we had. The children started drinking more milk because it was chilled in the fridge. So we had a talk with them and filled a large 2 litre bottle with water, that they could have instead. But I also crumbled with the heat and brought a box of ice blocks and a tub of ice cream. So this week I need to get on to making our own ice blocks. We were given some fruit juice which would be perfect for that. I'm still very happy we made it through the week not spending more then our $100 budget.

Now ready for Week Three $100 Food Shop

Menu Plan

Breakfast is cereal or toast
Lunch sandwiches or fritters
Snacks we have chocolate cake (DS13 made for us), 100s & 1000s biscuits, and fruit (apples at the moment)
Dinner
Tuesday: Ratatouille (using our courgettes, and my mum's green pepper) with toast.
Wednesday: Pasta Dinner from our freezer (when we had leftovers from a large pasta dinner)
Thursday: Tray Baked Lamb with Cous cous (another dinner using our courgettes)
Friday: Pumpkin Curry with rice
Saturday: BBQ sausages with salad
Sunday: Chicken Stir fry with rice
Monday: Corned Beef with veggies

Shopping

We are out of white sugar so need to get for making Courgette Jam (yes another thing to use up more courgettes) and our ginger beer. Will also get some flour for baking. Happy to see butter on sale this week 2 for $6, so will stock up our freezer with more. Great for baking :)
Don't need to get milk yet, after talking with kids we are stretching it out again. I will make up some powder milk for baking, have been lapse in that. Need to get more kids cereal, sometime the kids will have 2 bowls for breakfast. I also have to get DS7 pasta, he is hard to feed and this is one thing I don't mind getting. We are working with him to try more but it's slow work. Also on list is cinnamon (baking), eggplant (ours not grown yet), can tomatoes, and chicken breast for stir fry.

I'm excited because of doing this challenge we will have a $671.10 debt paid off next week YAY!
That motivates me to keep going.
We are also using up what we need to from our pantry, fridge and freezer :)

Very Hot Summer Day

In the morning had to take a walk in the garden to cool down from a hot night. My sweet peas are flowering lots. Love the different colours, very cheerful.

 

Look what I found, our 1st passion fruit. I saw the beautiful flower, but didn't think it would fruit. Pleasantly surprised.

 

And look our 1st blackberries. I have to help support the vines onto the fence, as they were going exploring.

  

3 days worth of eggs (but we did use 3 for baking on Thursday). Will be using more today with baking and dinner. Our Brown shavers are laying now (those beautiful brown eggs), and with the others we are getting about 6 eggs a day. I should start recording our eggs, see how many we get per month (and year).

 

Our Waste Not Want Not Cup Cakes. They are really Banana Cupcakes, the bananas were at the bottom of our fruit bowl and starting to go brown. So we needed to use them, then some of our eggs. Also these patty cases were from a Christmas present. They were for shortbread biscuits that come in a box, (biscuits all eaten). Perfect for our cupcakes, since I had run out of patty cases. Made 12 cupcakes. I also added some wholemeal flour to them, with plain flour. Partly to make them abit healthy. But mostly to stretch our flour supply to last till I can shop next week.

 

With 8 of our eggs, and 2 of our courgettes made this Courgette and Carrot Quiche for dinner. Served with some our Butter Beans, picked this morning. Large slices were very filling. Yes we are still slowly going through our courgettes. I have a few more dinner ideas for them yet. Then I will start freezing them.

Some Cucumbers, Courgettes and Sunflowers

Went out to water the garden this morning and look what I found. 1 Cucumber and 7 courgettes.

 

So added them to what we have already. I won't count them. So I have started to give them away. Though I going to change the menu to use some more up. Instead of Sliver Beet Quiche on Saturday, it's going to be Courgette and Carrot Quiche.

  

Had to share what was waiting for me by my computer this morning. My lovely sunflowers (and a few inch worms hee hee). At least I'm still getting to enjoy them.

  

Now today when I went to make sandwiches there was very little mayo left. Now because we are doing so well with the $100 Food Shop, I didn't want to go buy some more. So mashed up 3 avocados and added them to water down mayo (so I could get it all out of the container). And it's yum. A good waste not want not dressing.

 

Going to use the leftover avocado mayo with the roast chicken tonight :)

Week Two $100 Food Shop

Made it through week one of the $100 Food Shop. And spent less then $100! Long may that continue. A lot has to do with our veggie garden, and well stocked pantry and freezer.

Started with $100

Spent $79.70

Have $20.30 left

 

Will keep that $20.30 in another envelope for just in case. Just in case there is a sale on item (like butter that I can freeze), or just in case I go over $100 (hopefully not this 2nd week).
 

Menu plan for this 2nd week of $100 Food Shop is:

Breakfast is cereal, Lunch is sandwiches, Snacks is fruit and baking. This is for everyday.

Tuesday Dinner - is minced stuffed marrow with crusty top, salad on the side.

Wednesday Dinner - is Roast chicken with roast veggies.

Thursday Dinner - is Creamy chicken pasta with veggies.

Friday Dinner - is Chicken rice risotto.

Saturday Dinner - is Silver beet Quiche with salad.

Sunday Dinner - is American Hot Dogs and homemade potato chips.

Monday Dinner - is Pasta dinner from freezer bulked up with our veggies.

Baking that I need to do is biscuits and cupcakes.

Shopping that I need to get is

milk

fruit (what is in season and cheap, our peaches and fejoias are not ready yet)

oil

cereal - kids cereal and muesli

onions

garlic

That's about if for food items, have just a few non food items to get (toilet paper and light bulbs)





Getting Busy Harvesting and Preserving

Made some Courgette Chutney, another way to use up what we have growing in different ways. Made 3 jars of chutney (gave one to my dad) Next I have to try them in a cake.

 

Harvested our beetroot. Of all the seeds I sowed 10 plants grew. And of those 10 plants, 8 were big enough to preserve. Made 2 jars of beetroot.

 

Cucumbers have taken off in our garden. Lovely fresh in a sandwich or salad. But I might have to preserve some, and see if anyone wants some if they keep coming like they are.

  

Our 1st Apple Cucumber. They wouldn't grow for me last year. So I'm very happy see not just one but 3 more also growing.
Yes cucumber crazy this year :)

 

Our Butternut plants are doing well, already fruiting. The vines look a little sad at the bottom, but has lots more green leaves at the top. Our other NZ pumpkin has gone crazy growing (over 3 metre long vines) but no fruit yet.

 Very happy with the garden, but I still haven't planted up stage 6 garden. hopefully in the coming weeks that will get done. I want some more lettuce and peas.

 

Using our Courgettes

Jamie Oliver's Courgette Carbonara Recipe. A good use of our courgettes.

 

 

Getting all ready even have our eggs waiting to be used. Didn't have to buy anything extra as we had in our fridge and pantry all we needed.

 

 

Our Courgette Carbonara. Very happy with the end results, tasty with leftovers for tomorrows lunch.

 

 

Now the Courgette Carbonara used only egg yolks for the sauce. And since we had leftover egg whites and not dessert planed. A Pavlova was a great idea.

 

 

Didn't take long to whip this up. Those are yesterdays stewed plums for a sauce. Oh and some leftover cream from dinner :)

Week One $100 Food Shop

Making a good start to our $100 Food Shop Challenge (long may it continue)



Our Budget Envelope for our $100 Food Shop. Having only a $100 placed in the envelope helps us not to over spend.

Part of what is helping us this week is using what we already have in our garden and pantry.



The plums we were given are now turned into......

Plum preserves ready for winter.

All the plums are cooked up, but some are for summer desserts. Plums and ice cream yum :)

We are having a courgette glut. So coming up with ways to use them.

 

 



With the help of our eggs, flour, baking powder and some milk. We were able to make fritters.

Courgette Fritters ready for lunch.

For dinner we had roasted scallopini with roasted potatoes and cold sliced ham.
I'm going to be making courgette chutney, which will help to use more of our courgettes. Then use that for our homemade hamburgers.
There are also recipes for making cakes with courgettes, we should try as well.

Grow Our Own, Make Our Own

One of the wonderful things about having a veggie garden is being able to grow ingredients needed for making our own products.
We are not able to grow everything we like but sometimes we get blessed from our friends who have had extra (hope to do the same for them).

Our first cucumber for the season. Have more growing :)

2 boxes of Broccoli thanks to dear friends.

Got right on to preparing them for the freezer.

Our basil growing in the garden. Have over 20 plants now around the garden. So using to make our own basil pesto. Will freeze some for the winter months.

We used the pesto here with risoni. And had a side dish of our courgettes with onion. Was a yummy quick dinner.

Started up a ginger beer plant to fill our cupboard's with the refreshing drink. And a good use for our lemons.

The ginger beer in bottles. making our own means we can control what goes into our drinks (less sugar, and real ingredients not chemicals)

And look what dear friends have blessed us with more. Plums and tomatoes. Our tomatoes aren't ready yet, so these were very welcomed for our salads. Plums will be cooked up and preserved for the coming winter months.

Waste Not Want Not - Be Thankful For What You Have

Starting the $100 Food Shop Challenge Again

Time to get back to our $100 Food shop. With our garden providing alot of fresh food and finding a great new shop called Reduced to Clear (sells cheap groceries), this shouldn't be to hard.
Just a reminder this $100 is just for food, not for non food items like toothpaste, toilet paper etc. And is per week (so $5200 for the year).
With menu planning, sticking to the shopping list and shopping once a week we hopefully should stick to the budget. Will shop with cash (and our homemade envelope system will help with that).
Also we are making our own products that we would normally buy like ginger beer, basil pesto, tomato pasta sauce etc that will help to keep costs down.
Finally the recipes, not having flashy expensive dinners. Not always having meat. Also times when we are using up leftovers.

Look forward to seeing what we can achieve this new year :)

Christmas was Great

Christmas Lunch with family, simple with alot of love. We used compostable plates, bowls and cups (so not to fill rubbish bin, and less dishes to wash)

Our $35 Christmas Ham. We have already had 3 meals from and still going.

Veggies and flowers from our garden. Saw the same bunch of flowers in a florist for $10. I love sunflowers lots, and happy I don't have to buy them. We have to keep an eye on our courgettes now as some are becoming marrows.

Had to share our 3 different types of courgettes. Having them today for dinner, in a quiche and pasta sauce. Love the colours. That middle courgette is a heirloom variety, and our first year trying it.

We also have our 1st cucumber growing, will have to pick soon for salads. Have to prepare our stage 6 garden for planting more veggies.

Today will start to pack up our Christmas boxes, and get them ready for next year. Went to the Warehouse shop today to buy some Christmas items for 60% off. This helps with the Christmas budget alot. But also helps to have less trips to shops in the busy time of year. Being able to buy 8 rolls of wrapping paper for $1.60, and gift tags for .80c is a great saving.