Shopping Day
People that shop and then cook for the freezer all in one day? Nutters. Every last one of them!
Today was the first Shopping Day in my new Three Week Cook For The Freezer Experiment. Good grief. And I only went to three stores! I think trying to fit it all in after calling into our mobile phone company’s nearest store was probably pushing things. But guess what? I got me a new phone! And it’s shiny! And better than the last one! All is well with the world again.
Here’s how today broke down:
Chicken butcher - $28.29
Fruit & Veg Shop - $33.85
Supermarket - $243.01
For a total of: $305.15
I do still have a few things to pick up at a different supermarket tomorrow morning - we already crammed so much into this morning (Talented Hubby came with me and had to be home right after lunch to get ready for work) that some had to be put off until tomorrow. I might spend another $50 or so.
I’m continually surprised at how cheap shopping for produce at the fruit and veg shop is compared to the supermarket. I should do a bit of a comparison shop one day. With my $33.85 today I completely filled one of those ‘toy’ shopping carts - you know, the ones that are identical to regular shopping trolleys except half the size? That’s a LOT of food. I got lots and lots of carrots, a massive bag of broccoli, butternut pumpkin, 5kg (11 lbs) potatoes, sweet potato, onions, green capsicums (peppers), big bag of red capsicum, cabbage, tomatoes, celery and spring onions. I roughly allocated $75 toward produce for this three week period and I can’t imagine even coming close. Love it. See all those bananas? Those weren’t purchased today but they were picked up extremely cheaply in this last week. I see many, many banana muffins in my future. Any other ideas?
My total also included these:
Those are heavy-duty reusable freezer/microwave/dishwasher safe containers in sizes appropriate for Hubs’ work lunches. I also bit the bullet and bought the mammoth cling wrap roll.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have seventy kilograms of vegetables to chop up :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
Cookies - Clearly In Their Own Food Group
Kate and I are officially on strained terms. Yesterday she posted this recipe which immediately made my little ears prick up because they’re cheap to make and hello? They have a whole tin of condensed milk in them. What’s not to love about that? I had to make those cookies straight away. Which made it very bad indeed to have to wait until this morning when the shops opened to pick up the necessary ingredients. Yes, I made a special trip to the store for chocolate chips. I am crazy like that. Originally I’d tacked these onto the end of my ‘Baking Day’ as part of this week’s ’stock the freezer’ hoopla but thought I’d get a head start today to try out the recipe.
In the end I divided the mixture into three portions. Chopped up Snickers were put on the tops of one batch, a bag of white chocolate chips was added to the second run and the third portion got milk chocolate chips and coconut. I baked batches 1 and 2 and rolled the latter into logs for the freezer. Here they are all packaged up:
If they don’t slice well on the flip side I’ll just rip chunks off and roll into balls.
The kids thought I was brilliant (”You’re putting Snickers bars on a COOKIE?!!”) which of course almost made up for the whining at Auskick (beginner level Australian Rules football training) this morning. Evidence that children like ‘em?
The Cookie Monster ain’t got nothin’ on Master J…
Cheers,
Lizzie
A Week Of Lunches ~ Wednesday
On The Menu Today
“Lazy Bones Soup”
I wasn’t feeling particularly brilliant today. I’ve been a bit ‘meh’ for a couple of weeks actually - I’ve had a nagging cough which, frustratingly, won’t produce phlegm. This is actually rather important if you want to feel as though a cold is progressing. I’ve been sounding like a harp seal for weeks but don’t have any other sympathy-inducing symptoms that would render me unable to, you know, cook dinner or something. Just this annoying cough! Even Talented Hubby is beginning to roll his eyes. Don’t worry hon, I agree with you.
Today however, I just couldn’t make my body DO anything. Ever had one of those days? Then I got a headache. Tried to read for a bit, no dice. Eventually I felt so horrible that I lay down for a nap. Despite popular housewife lore, napping during the daytime is an extremely rare event in this house. But today, I ended up sleeping for two hours and woke up feeling worse than before (can somebody explain to me how that works?) I also missed lunch somewhere in amongst that so I was ravenous and not about to chop up fourteen billion ingredients for another salad, and I opted for the easy way out. It was 4:00 before I even slurped it down.
Now, I’d like to tell you this was from a freezer stash of soups I lovingly and creatively prepared weeks in advance for such a day as this. After all, this is what Martha would do, right? And I’d love to regale you with tales of a simmering crockpot and warm-and-fuzzy family banter around the dinner table. That, however, would be pushing the boundaries of truth.
Nobody’s perfect!
Cheers,
Lizzie
A Week Of Lunches ~ Tuesday
On The Menu Today
The “Monster Redemption Wrap”
Oh, the picture does not do this one justice (not the least of which is because the whiteness is overwhelming - I have limited Photoshop knowledge folks!) I crammed so much stuff in this baby the lavash barely met in the middle. YUM.
We have: a wholemeal lavash rectangle thingy, smidgeon of light margarine, lettuce, low-fat smoked chicken deli meat (expensive…gulp), two different kinds of sprouts (they came in a trio pack), carrot, beetroot, semi-dried tomatoes (I was splurging, ‘kay?), leftover grape tomatoes from yesterday and a couple of dollops of salsa. And one big ol’ glass of water.
Now, the story behind the name…
Yesterday I rocked this healthy eating thing until about 4pm then went downhill faster than an Olympic luge athlete (I was going to type in ‘luger’ there but had the presence of mind to check the dictionary. Did you know Luger is a German brand of automatic pistol? Me neither. Although, perhaps an appropriate metaphor in this case anyway? LOL) I totally cave when the afternoon hungries hit. I think I’m going to have to start allocating two snacks - one when the kids have their after-school snack just before 4pm and another around 5 or 5:30 when I’m preparing dinner. Carrot sticks or somesuch. Anyhoo, once I started I could not stop, and then I managed to drop a full (plastic) jug of cordial all over the kitchen floor right as I was about to serve up my dinner (the others had already been fed). It took me almost an hour to seek out all the cordial drips, wipe them up and then uber-mop the floor. Though not traditionally the season for ants here at the moment, we know they’d be all over everything in a heartbeat if I missed a spot. Some of the cordial went under the dishwasher (sigh) so I had to douse the area where that met the tiles in surface spray. I hate ants with a passion. Auggh.
After that, I couldn’t be bothered making anything so I snacked again and continued to do so most of the evening. Big, BIG mistake. All brownie points I earned prior to 4pm were obliterated. Hence the name of today’s lunch, LOL. I will say though, the wrap was DELICIOUS. Messy, but oh-so-yummy. Kind of like eating your favourite burger in the whole world which you continue to do so even though you know your hands and forearms are going to get covered in burger juice by the end. And filling too. I’ve eaten more vegies in the last two days than in the week preceding, I think. Perhaps a little light on the protein today - but I’d love to try this again with ‘real’ chicken.
Cheers,
Lizzie
A Week Of Lunches ~ Monday
I’m not eating very well at present. In an effort to combat this, and probably because I’m in a silly sort of mood today, I’ve decided to post pictures of my lunches for one week. Discuss, suggest…heck, even mock my choices. I’m ready. Sock it to me.
On The Menu Today
The “I’m Starting The Week Healthy If It Kills Me” Salad Plate
We have two hard boiled eggs, some beetroot, lettuce, halved grape tomatoes, carrot sticks, salsa and a grainy bread roll. AND I did even better, only inhaling the heel of the roll (yay me!) Oh, and I put a little reduced-fat margarine on it, splooshed a smidgeon of fat free Italian dressing on the salad and poured myself a glass of weak-ish diet cordial.
I tried to make a concious effort to conform to that whole ‘half a plate of vegetables, quarter protein, quarter wholegrains’ deal. I think I did pretty darn well. This was an enormous plate of food but as I’m sitting here with a full belly I can tell I hit the right ratio. I’m satisfied but not bustin’ out of my jeans. Always a good thing.
I can’t guarantee I’ll keep this level up all week mind you! I have Errands Day planned for Friday which usually means the food court. The photo on that day is likely to be pretty pathetic because I’ll only have my phone’s camera to play around with :)
So what’s a typical lunch for you guys? What’s your ideal ‘healthy’ lunch?
Cheers,
Lizzie
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