Vicarious Thoughts » Kitchen

Menu Plan Monday

Strudel — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:00:03 +0000

Well this is our first week working from a Menu Plan. We actually started on Saturday due to it coinciding with a planned visit to an out of town supermarket.
My aim for the week was to use up some of the food from our inside freezer and the fresh produce left over from previous purchases, and to supplement these with a smallish grocery shop.
An additional requirement I set was that the meals aren’t particularly exciting, as it’s been a while since I’ve been responsible making dinner most nights, let alone a whole week stretch *gasp*.

So far we’ve had …
Saturday: Spaghetti Bolognaise
This involved last minute substitutions as I was unaware we were out of my bolognaise go-to, pasta sauce! Instead I added cans of chopped tomatoes, mushrooms in sauce and half a can of kidney beans to the onion, garlic and mince, and later green beans for a bit more flavour. Served with cooked leftover fresh fettuchini and topped with olives and a sprinkling of grated cheese.
Sunday: Chicken Rice Porridge
My favourite one-pot-wonder. I tend to like plain dominant flavours with interesting hints. Cook rice in a rice cooker and adding additional liquid when it starts looking cooked in the form of chicken stock. When it’s back to bubbling away add diced chicken, spring onions, and when all the liquid has made the rice porridge-y turn it off and stir in chopped fresh coriander.

And the next five days in no particular order:

Mince & Cheese pie, served with peas and mashed potato

Fish fingers/burgers with corn kernals and oven chips

Frozen Pizzas with additional olives, cheese and mushrooms (the pizzas need the extra topping since they couldn’t be called premium! :)

Omelets with additional fillings from the fridge (and frozen premade fish pie for the male).

Beef Crockpot Casserole served with broccoli and mashed potato

Our own mini-financial crisis

Strudel — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:20:48 +0000

We’re going through a change in circumstances and so we’ve been busy brainstorming ways to reduce our expenses. So I thought I’d share a run down of most of them with you.

Investigate and make a decision on what to do with my credit card and store card

The store card is a no-brainer really, there’s no real benefit to my having one especially with the outrageous interest rate and really I need to get the balance transferred or paid off and closed.

The credit card is a slightly different story in that, having the ability to purchase online is important to me and our lifestyle. On the other hand, the interest rate isn’t the best and a debit card might be a doable alternative (my concern is the card being invalid with some online businesses though I don’t know how realistic this concern is). I have a spreadsheet in the works comparing my current card and all the alternatives and what the total cost of paying off the debt is.

Create a budget based on our past expenses trimming where we can

Luckily we’ve been keeping track of our expenses in GnuCash however I haven’t been a bit slack at times and it doesn’t show the complete picture at the moment and in creating the budget weI realised the way we were breaking expenses down wasn’t the most effective. So I have revamped the chart of accounts and now I need to get the accounts up to date so we have a clear past picture and keep it up to date so we can have an accurate comparison between the budget and our actuals.

Drastically reduce our food expenses
One of the areas we identified that could be majorly improved upon was our food purchases which are mainly groceries.

Working from a meal plan and getting me back in the kitchen. My husband enjoys cooking, however there are a number of downsides to this. For a start, he hates mealplans and meal sizes/portion sizes have been on the large side meaning food wastage or leftovers that go on for days, or conversely lots of large snacks by my husband. Working from a meal plan means we can eat from our freezer/fridge/pantry more and hopefully reduce both the amount of money we’re spending and the amount of food wastage and the “oh I forgot I bought that” factor. It would also be nice to have appropriately sized servings and smaller amounts of leftovers.

Related to this, I need to do a full inventory of our fridge, freezer, deep freeze, laundry and bathroom in order to identify what we have on hand and what we need to purchase or come up with alternatives for. On the upside, we have done this in the past and so we won’t be starting from scratch, especially for the deep freeze (hopefully).

For some our luxury items we need to come up with alternatives to save money. FOr instance, My ideal breakfast is a bowl of Vogel’s Luxury Cafe-style Muesli and while I’ve said I will compromise and eat porridge as a cheap alternative , it would be nice to start the day in my usual way. Also I have all the gear to make our own cleaning products and bathroom supplies and I could get back into this and save money in this way.

We’ve also identified that we drink a lot of milk and go through a lot of eggs (especially when baking) and bread.

We can bake bread and part of my job for today is price up and test out refridgerated bagged milk.

For eggs, we’d been contemplating getting chickens or rather hens for some time and quite a few houses on our block have coops so we wouldn’t be bothering the neighbours with this addition. I did create a coop/chicken tractor a while back but that was using pvc piping and we’ve decided to go with a standard timber frame instead which offers an opportunity to create a better design. The initial pricing up of the total cost of the eggs is looking fairly good but I still need to design the coop and price up the construction costs and factor that into the total operating costs. It would be great if in the long run we’re able to offset these costs by selling extra eggs.

Some other ways to save money on the grocery bills is to check out alternative options to purchasing from our local grocery stores, like doing a shop at a cheaper supermarket out of town when already needing to be there, purchasing from bulk alternative stores, and buying produce from market gardens and what meat we don’t source from homekill at butchers.

Also, I’d like to be doing more baking, food processing (such as preserves and dehydrating) and maybe even stretching ourselves and attempting a $21 Challenge every now and again.

Another area in which we can save some money is in the garden, with more sustained effort we can get more produce from our garden throughout the year and on the upside we’ve been improving our skills albeit slowly with each growing season we’ve participated in. I’d also like to get into more vegetable swapping with locals when we do have an overabundance of produce. We’ve also made a start of purchasing fruiting trees and vines but now we need to get them in the ground so we can in the long term get some fruit from them!
Ideally to make the most from the garden we need to get the garden shed tidied (it’s currently an absolute shambles) and get the rest of the garden tidy (we have piles of wood and junk lying around). I’ve read that winter is the time to rejuvenate and repair your garden tools and ours could definitely do with this also.

One of the other things I’d like to do is have the inventories computerised along with the meal planning and entering the itemised grocery bills. I can’t help thinking that this would lead to an optimised system in the long run but that fact that there’s no obvious application leads me to suspcet this is a pipe dream. In the meantime I’ve started entering in the recipes I use into Gourmet which has a shopping list ability which is at least one step in the right direction.

Other Stuff

We’re also going to run a mileage log for the vehicle to work out how our fuel is being used and apportioned. We also need to sell our other vehicle and put that money against our debts. It will also mean we’ll be saving on insurance and warrant/registration costs which definitely add up.

One other way to increase our income, is to finally get all the stuff we have cluttering up the house that has been earmarked for putting on trademe or sella actually up on trademe or sella! The benefit of this would be a bit of extra cash to pay off debt and a less cluttered home.

In a way, when we decided to look at our expenses in some areas there is nothing we can do to save money as we already practise good habits. For instance with our utilities (power, phones and internet) we already keep our fingers on the pulse and periodically check to see that we’re on the right plan or provider for our needs. The only extra thing we could do in this area is to drastically change the way we run our lives and that doesn’t make sense as these changes would impact on our ability to bring in income. False economy is not the way to tackle the problem.

All in all this looks like a lot of work and I’d like to summarise the tasks I’ve outlined:

Kill store card by transferring balance or paying in full.
Investigate alternatives to current credit card including, debit card or balance transfer.
Get the accounts up to date in Gnucash.
Keep accounts up to date in Gnucash.
Create mealplans and shop and work from them.
Me making the meals and planning/doing the shopping.
Do a full inventory of our fridge, freezer, deep freeze, laundry and bathroom.
Come up with alternatives to luxury items.
Investigate feasibility of making our own cleaning products and bathroom supplies.
Bake bread.
Price up and test out refridgerated bagged milk and look into other options.
Design coop/chicken tractor plan and price up the construction costs and factor that into the total operating costs.
Compare prices from our local grocery stores to out of town cheaper supermarkets, bulk alternative stores, market gardens and butchers.
Do more baking.
Investigate and do some food processing (such as preserves and dehydrating).
Attempt a $21 Challenge.
Get vegetable garden productive.
Plant fruiting trees and vines and prune grape vine.
Get the garden shed tidied.
Get the rest of the garden tidy (we have piles of wood and junk lying around).
Rejuvenate and repair our garden tools.
Look for software for entering itemised grocery bills, inventories and shopping lists.
Enter in the recipes I use into Gourmet.
Purchase a mileage log and start using.
We also need to sell other vehicle, put that money against our debts and cancel insurance.
Sell stuff already earmarked on trademe or sella.

Image from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826187

Biscuit Cutters

Strudel — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:56:34 +0000

It’s been another long day and I’ve spent the last two hours trying to relax by watching TV and almost relaxed too much and missed the deadline.

I visited Rosebowl Bakery & Cafe today and if you’re relatively local to Feilding they have an awesome range of cookie cutters (and heaps of cake decorating supplies!). Though I have to admit I didn’t see anything like the ones shown below, which are totally cool! They’re designed by Mizuguchi Gami and whilst I couldn’t find them for sale anyway (perhaps they’re just a proof of concept as she seems to be more of a designer than a manufacturer :) you can see her work here. Found via Craft.

Interesting Links for September 21st

Strudel — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:38:21 +0000

Craft

I know I could manage this kind of craft project easily and I know my girly-girl would love the results from this
Scrunch Fabric Flower Pom Pom Headband Tutorial. So, I grabbed some supplies for this project and a few others this past weekend and now, all I need to do is track down (and probably clean) my husband’s glue gun :)
This Skirt with Built-in Shorts (via Craftzine) looks like the perfect summer clothing idea for my daughter. The fabric used looks kinda familiar to some fabric we almost bought from Spotlight the other day (though it was in more gaudy colours).

Kitchen Stuff

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread gives you instructions on a way to make a week’s worth of no-knead bread dough that keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Sounds interesting and the photo looks Mmmm … Yummy!

These Thick Chewy Homemade Granola Bars (via ParentHack) remind me so much of the homemade muesli bars (as we call them in my neck of the woods) my mum used to make when I was a kid so what can I do but try to make them. The instructions, explanations, and photos are super great to boot! :)

Daily Links for 22nd March 2010

Strudel — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:51:36 +0000

Well, this is actually favourite links from my rss reader for the last two days :)

Homeschool Stuff

Sam likes to jump around while counting so the idea of making a lifesize number line to practise addition and subtraction is sure to appeal to her.

I’m not a big fan of Easter as it seems a bit incongruous celebrating it in autumn, but at the same time it feels wrong to completely deny our daughter the chance to enjoy the holiday. So, activities like growing grass in eggshells (via craftycrow) seems like an interesting way to acknowledge the holiday of easter.

I’m not sure how close Sam is to being ready for this easter themed cvc reading activity, but it’s one idea for the pile of plastic eggs I picked up for a couple of dollars last year.

These Salt Crystal Trees look like a lot of fun to watch grow and I’m guessing with a bit of experimenting you could get a brilliant effect.

Misc

Trying to reduce our grocery bill by baking more is all well and good – but finding things to bake that are savoury isn’t easy. Luckily, Lifehacker highlighted this site which has a number of savoury recipes to try.

I came across this origami site a while ago but it got lost in my bookmarks, so Lifehacker again is to thank for this link. It’s a brilliant site to remind yourself how to fold the traditional origami designs and has a few I haven’t come across before as well.

Trying something different

Strudel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:42:03 +0000

I’ve been trying to do this kind of post “for quite some time now” (sorry, The Matrix is playing in the next room) and try and move away from my content-thin blogposts of late (and early).

So without further ado, I bring you my rss feed picks for today!

Craft

These Goodie Bags look quite simple to make (which is always an important factor for me. I can see they could have other purposes – she says looking at a number of plastic bags containing home education resources. (link via WhipUp.net)

There are plenty of tote patterns available if you go hunting around the innumerable craft blogs. I particularly like this one from Film in the Fridge because the directions are particularly clear, it looks easy to construct but at the same time has a nice pocket and a removable solid base. (link via WhipUp.net)

Home Education

The theme for next weekâ€™s Unplugged Project is Happy. I hope we can organise a project to fit with this theme. Perhaps something that induces happiness like blowing bubbles, or an activity involving emotions.

I’m including this link to this nicely laid out Lapbook on Racoons from Classical Homeschooling while Hawaiian Dreaming in this post to remind me that Lapbooking (or our own twist on it) might be a good way of combining and storing the work we’re doing each unit)

Misc

This weekend we’re definitely going to try making Mozarella, and possibly Ricotta. I’m going to admit to being quite plebian and say I don’t remember ever using Ricotta so this should be interesting. This recipe from Living Green is the one a couple of people I know have used and will probably be slightly more helpful being a New Zealand based tutorial.

After reading this post from WebWorkerDaily, I’m going to remove some of the things I receive via email and receive them via rss instead.

This post at Harvard Business is well worth reading. The three main points are: Choose three important tasks to complete each day, Turn off your email client, and Set up a weekly 20-minute meeting with yourself. I’m already doing the last one (though more like 3 hours), and can testify that it helps define the week and gives a time to reflect on the past week, how you did, and what to concentrate on in the coming week. I’m finding it also helps me to realise I’ve only got a certain amount of time til I will be sitting down and doing this reflection so there better be something decent done to reflect upon.
Limiting the distractions while getting work done and Choosing only 3 taks is something I need work on. I’ve been trialing using post-it notes to score what I need to do next – creating a small stack of 5 or 6 small tasks and then having the satisfaction of unveiling the next task and chucking the just-finished post-it. (via unclutterer)

My 101 in 1001 list has an entry that I’d like to give podcasting a whirl, so this post from Perfomancing was a useful read. I’m spending quite a bit of time doing stuff while listening to various podcasts especially while getting the dreaded housework done, and have been doing some recording of my voice whilst I verbally jot down some ideas, but I’m not sure about listening live as I don’t get to spend a great deal of time uninterrupted at my desk these days.

And lastly, I just had to link to this post from BoingBoing called Big Tent Atheism as it resonated with the antics of some people I come into contact with regularly. Certainly the sentiment can be applied to more than just political parties and atheists. I’m sure there are many people who can identify this behaviour in all sectors of society.

Lifehack had an interesting post today about Assuming Positive Intent. This is something I really struggle with, and combine my cynicism with my sarcasm and I can appear to be quite a negative person. Ironically, I would estimate I spend just as much time being cynical as I do amused at the vagaries of life and I laugh, at the very least, once a day.

Well, this leaves my rss finds for the day down to 4 programming posts which I need to read and digest more, and 1 post that really needs a post of it’s own if I get round to it this week. Yay! This has also taken at least 2 hours (the counter may be out of whack due to a browser restart).

I’m going to have to do some research into how legal it is to include photos from the blogposts I’ve mentioned as this is just a mass of text! I also need to consider breaking this up into several posts based on categories. I know very few visit this blog but I am interested in, if this becomes a regular thing for me, how to present it. One worry I have is that presenting each blogpost I come across as it’s own blogpost on my blog smacks of big blog wannabe.