I'm now officially a student!
5 months ago
Currently in our household we are in a bit of a holding pattern. I'm so glad it's easy to switch into a 'back to basics mode'. With the cooler weather, our menus and meals are changing to match the seasons. We're making the switch over from salad to soup. Because one of my sons is such a soup monster, I checked over the soup products at the supermarket yesterday. A lot of the canned products of course are not economical, but the sachets of soup base caught my eye. They were on special, so I quickly grabbed one. Being in a bit of a hurry, I didn't do my usual ingredients check. I did see it needed meat to add to it. I'd spotted a tray of beef reduced to clear earlier, so I abandoned my trolley raced back to grab it.
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| McCormack's Soup Base |
When I got home, I started to read through the instructions on the back of the packet. First you had to brown the meat and add that to the slow cooker. Next, cut up two cups of vegetables... what??? Okay, I was kind of imagining some dehydrated veggies in there, but ok. Brown them and add them to the meat. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the slow cooker.... Ok. Fine. By this stage I was seriously wondering what exactly was inside the packet. Well, foo me, because inside the packet was a small handful of red lentils (less than 200g, not even a BLEND of lentils) and a sachet of powdered beef stock and dried herbs. Seriously, for $2 it's just an expensive recipe. I already even have red lentils and beef stock. There was no way I needed to pay $2 for this piece of packaging.
Still it was an extremely nice soup and I'm amazed with myself in that I actually cooked it up while cooking tea last night, so halved my time in the kitchen! Next time I won't be using a packet to hold my hand.
Yes, I know that's a bit of a cheat combining two weeks but these two weeks have been a combo deal. I started using Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way by Leanne Ely.
I really love this book!!! There are a couple of negatives ( I must be getting fussy in my old age) but overall it's a great addition to any cookbook collection.
Now, I don't have and haven't seen any of her other books other than viewing them online, but my preference is for this book. I think the way the meals are made from scratch using fresh ingredients is much more like the style of cooking we are used to in Australia and NZ (it's not relying on cans of chicken soup or other processed foods that can be found in some American cookbooks). Also, another great thing is that she doesn't waste much time on the introduction or blat on about what a low carb diet is. She's written from the perspective that if you're interested in the cookbook, you already have prior knowledge about healthy eating.
The book is arranged into four seasonal section. Each section has six weeks worth of recipes (which is less than the eight in her first book). Each week has six main meal recipes. Each week has a shopping list of the total ingredients needed for the week divided up into the food groups you would find them in at the supermarket. The shopping lists are available on her website. it took quite a bit of digging around to find them but I got there in the end. You can download them as pdf files, which means you can print them off as needed to take to the shops. Good thinking Batwoman!!! (now if only there was an iphone app to match....) While you are at her website, you can also sign up for some sample menus. I don't know if the menu mailer would be seasonally adjusted for customers downunder, the books have a clear advantage in that you can choose which season to use.
Out of the twelve meals, so far I have managed six. It's not a huge hit rate but what we have made has been really good. There's a couple of reasons for not following the book to the letter. Firstly, she uses a good range of meats each week but I'm not big on pork so we've skipped those. Also the price of fish has been horrendous, so I haven't ventured there either. Plus our freezer is really well stocked with meat thanks to the shop I did in the first week, so I do need to use some of that. Now Ely never promises that her recipes are cheap, budget or economical in any way, so that is something to bear in mind. So this week when red capsicums were $9 per kg at the supermarket, I just couldn't bring myself to buy six of them to stuff. And that of course is the major disadvantage of having such beautifully prepared menu plans, it doesn't give you the flexibility to use the cheapest bargains. Being seasonal, most of the produce should be at it's peak but it's still pricier than flying by the seat of your pants.
I've loved having the pre-prepared menu and shopping lists to work with though. They make the meal preparation and planning so much less arduous. It's great to have new recipes to add to the repertoire and I have simply padded out the weeks with old faithfuls. The best news is that the meals have been delicious, filling and still healthy! The compromise here is that it's not a true budget option.
