Category Archives: Shopping

Freezer Finds

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My freezer is one of the most useful appliances I have.  I am able to buy larger quantities of some items and avoid going to the shops as frequently as I would otherwise and of course it is wonderful to be able to store excess produce.

I have 2 freezers – one is the bottom 1/3 of my refrigerator in the kitchen.  It has a narrow shelf at the top and 2 large pull-out baskets.  The second freezer is the size of a bar fridge and lives in the study.

Since we are going on holidays in 3 weeks I have been trying to use up some of the food that is in the freezers with a view to being able to empty and turn off the stand-alone freezer.  The first thing to do was to make an inventory of everything that is in them so here is the list.

Ground coffee
Pineapple (fresh, very ripe so will be juicing it)
Refried beans (homemade) 500g x 4 packs
Ice-cream – 3/4 of a 2 litre tub
Grated cheese – 4 large containers (I buy 2 kg block of cheese from a local factory and grate it)
Spreadable butter blend (homemade) 500g x 2
Grated zucchini – 400g packs x 2
Beef curry – 6 serves
Lasagne – 2 serves (lunch sized)
Chili con carne – 2 serves
Beef & vegie casserole – 6 serves
Tomato/pasta sauce (homemade) – 750ml x 2
Lasagna sheets (homemade) x 12
Fettucine (homemade) – 2 serves
Gravy beef – 500g x 2 packs
Chicken breast fillets x 4
Sausages x 2
Bacon (shortcut) x 7 slices
Sausage rolls (mini) x 5 – thawing for lunches today with salad
Sweet pastry (homemade) x 1 quantity
Savoury pastry (homemade) x 1 quantity
Baked sweet pastry (was tart shell which broke)
Sliced white bread (homemade) – 7 slices
Gluten free bread (1/2 loaf)
Breadcrumbs (soft and toasted)
French stick (sliced and in a bag)
Fruit muffins (crumbled in a small container)
Mashed pumpkin (to make pumpkin soup)
Lemon zest
Lemon juice (2 litres)
Lemon juice (ice cubes – about 4 dozen)
Lime juice (ice cubes – about 4 dozen)
Sliced limes – 2 containers
Orange juice – single serves x 3
Banana x 1
Passionfruit ice cubes x 15
Turkish bread rolls x 4

Bag of meat scraps

The freezers are a constant dynamic as shown by the following changes in the past 36 hours since I made that list.

Lasagne – 2 serves (lunch sized) – now 1 serve
Fettucine (homemade) – 2 serves – used
Chicken breast fillets x 4 – now x 3
Sausage rolls (mini) x 5 – thawing for lunches today with salad – used
Lime juice (ice cubes – about 4 dozen) – now 3 dozen
Orange juice – single serves x 3 – now 8 serves – 2 used and 7 more added after juicing the remaining oranges from the tree

I have also added another 2.5 litres of lemon juice.

From my inventory I have made a menu plan and will be using more of the contents over the coming weeks.

I am confident that I will be able to empty the small freezer before we go away.  I will post an update of the list in a week or so.

How do you manage the contents of your freezer?  Do you keep a precise list or just a general idea with the occasional complete inventory?  What do you mostly store – excess produce, bulk meat, prepared meals or baked goods?  I would love to hear your story.

Zero Waste – Is It Really?

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One of the things that I am really passionate about is waste – specifically packaging.  For many years I have worked hard to reduce what I bring into the house and while I am nowhere near the nirvana that is ‘Zero Waste’, I generally do a pretty good job.

Today we went shopping for various things.  One thing I bought was some sliced salami.  Whenever I buy deli meat from the supermarket or meat from the butcher I always take my own plastic container and ask them to put the meat directly into the container and to stick the price label onto the lid.  Most of the staff are really good and simply weigh the container before adding the produce.

2012-07-29 02However, sometimes it can be challenging and you have to constantly watch what is happening or otherwise you can be easily blind-sided.  We have had instances where my request was followed and then they wrapped the whole container in miles of cling wrap or put the meat in a plastic bag before putting it in the container – AARGH!!  Today the young girl clearly had no idea how to establish the tare weight of the container so she spread a plastic bag on the scales, placed the salami on it and then tipped it into the container I had provided.  I chose not to say anything as it only causes distress to all concerned.

Also, there was not enough sliced salami in the display so she got more from the coldroom  and sliced it.  The piece she retrieved was wrapped in clingfilm and this was removed, discarded and a new piece re-applied when she had finished slicing it.  The display trays are covered with cling film also.

So, by taking my own container and refusing plastic bags and outer wrapping, can I regard this as zero waste?

Buying dry goods from bulk bins creates the same dilemma because although you buy them loose from the bulk bin they have been decanted from some sort of packaging.  At least it is usually a large quantity such as 25kg of flour or sugar so there there is less packaging per kilo.

I still buy my cheese from both the supermarket or the local factory where I can get 2kg blocks but they are still wrapped in plastic.

2012-07-29 04When I buy fruit and vegetables I always make the choice to buy loose produce that I can put in my own tulle bags that I made even if it is more expensive than the pre-packaged option.  A good alternative is a Farmers’ Market, though you do have to check as some stalls do package things into plastic bags.  It is a matter of being committed and voting with your feet as to where and how you shop.

Yandina Markets photo

The only true zero waste shopping is what I can collect from my own garden – eggs, avocadoes, citrus fruit, spring onions and parsley was the haul for today.

2012-07-29 05Do you try to avoid packaging when you are shopping?  Does this influence where you shop and what you buy?

Edible & Spreadable

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What do you spread on your sandwiches?  Butter, margarine, something else or nothing at all?

I used to buy margarine without giving it a great deal of thought, however, about 18 years ago I changed to spreadable butter that I make myself.  My reasons are several:

  • Eliminate non-recyclable waste (margarine containers)
  • Health benefits (margarine is simply a chemical cocktail)
  • Easier to spread than pure butter
  • Know exactly what the ingredients are

2012-07-15 01This is the recipe.

SPREADABLE BUTTER

500g butter
250ml oil
150ml water
3 tablespoons skim milk powder

2012-07-15 02Allow the butter to soften but not melt.  Beat butter using a mixer or food processor.  Combine the other ingredients in a jug and stir well to dissolve the milk powder.  Gradually add the mixture to the butter while continuing to beat.  Beat for another 1 – 2 minutes until white and creamy.  Spoon into containers and refrigerate.  This made almost 1500ml so it is really quite economical.  Actual costings would depend on the type of oil that you use.

2012-07-15 03I generally keep one container in the refrigerator and freeze the rest because we do not use a lot of butter and it will go mouldy/rancid if stored for long periods in the refrigerator.  I use Pyrex glass containers as they can be put in the freezer and I am constantly trying to minimise the amount of plastic that I use for storing food.

2012-07-15 04This mixture can be used instead of butter in cooking and baking.  The only exception I make is pastry as I prefer to use ‘real’ butter for that.

The type of oil you use is entirely up to you.  I choose to use locally grown and produced organic olive oil which I buy in bulk at the Co-op in Maleny.  Olive oil does have a distinctive flavour so you may prefer something more bland such as rice-bran oil.  I do not consider canola oil as an option as most of the commercial crop is genetically-modified and I prefer not to use foods that contain GM products.

This is not a totally zero-waste exercise but it is certainly better than all of the margarine containers that you would otherwise use.  I take my glass bottle to be refilled with oil.  The butter wrapper is used to grease baking trays or line cake tins and then goes into the compost.  I buy skim milk powder from Aldi in a 1 kg non-recyclable bag, however, I have recently discovered that I can buy this in bulk from Simply Good so will be doing that in the future.

My New Toy

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I had another post half written but I just have to show you my latest acquisition.

It is a cast iron Dutch oven that I bought from Aldi for $20.  Today we parked at Beerwah to catch the train so we could go to Aldi on the way home to buy some cat food, milk and ice-cream. Of course, while we were there The Duke had to have a browse at the items in the middle section (not food) and saw these.  Normally, I would have said that we did not really need one, but 2 days ago I had read this post at Down to Earth about making artisan bread in a Dutch oven.  So, we are now the proud owners of this.

2012-07-13 01Here it is with the lid off.

2012-07-13 03It is a 4 litre capacity so I am sure it will be used for reasons other than making bread.

2012-07-13 02This was an unplanned, spur of the moment purchase but I do not think I will regret it.

Shopping At Home

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In years gone by the phrase ‘shop at home’ usually referred to mail-order catalogues.  This meant that you could peruse the pages for your choice of everything from underwear to saucepans.  It was a service provided to people who lived in remote areas.  Imagine the excitement when the carefully-chosen and long-awaited parcel arrived from the city stores (Myer and David Jones) to families on outback properties.

Shopping in the comfort of your own home was also a driver of many ‘party plan’ and catalogue businesses.  These included Tupperware, Avon and Nutrimetics, to name but a few.

More recently, much of this shopping activity has been surpassed by buying online.  I have bought things online, but usually only after considerable research.  It makes shopping easy, so easy in fact, that I think some people have accumulated much more debt due to the ease with which they can part with their money or more likely, credit.

My shopping at home, today, was none of these.  I merely walked downstairs to my store-cupboard and replenished supplies which would otherwise have necessitated going to the shop.

2012-07-11 01This morning there was no cereal nor much psyllium husk which I have on my cereal.  So I headed to my cupboard and picked these two buckets.

2012-07-11 02Here are my pantry containers refilled.

2012-07-11 03This afternoon I ‘shopped’ again – this time for raisins and sultanas as I wanted to make a boiled fruit cake.

2012-07-11 04Having a store of staples means less trips to the shops which in turn saves time, petrol and opportunities to spend money on other items.  It makes sense to me to have a supply of goods on hand in case of a range of possible emergencies or disasters.  As well as food I keep a supply of other items such as toilet paper, toothpaste and soap.

Do you keep a stock of foodstuffs or other items?

Book Review – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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I have just finished reading the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver.  I had seen it mentioned at times on the Simple Savings forum but there was no real detail of what it is about so I had forgotten about it until recently when I finally remembered to download it to my Kindle.

This book was first published in 2007 and documents the attempts of one family to eat mostly local food for a full year.  It is a substantial book and full to the brim with detail and information so is definitely not a light read.  I think I will need to read it a few times to extract the maximum benefit from it.

I found some of the detail quite confronting at times, especially the descriptions of CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) and the harvesting of the chickens and turkeys which they raised for meat.  This is not necessarily a bad thing as it forces us to examine our feelings about how our food is produced.  Out of sight should not mean out of mind.

Although it is written from a North American perspective there are many universal truths for everyone, no matter where you live.  By the time I had finished the book I was inspired with renewed enthusiasm to seek out as much local produce as possible.

During the course of the year, they travelled to Italy and also on a road trip north from Virginia, through Vermont and into Canada.  The local food that they ate and people encountered makes fascinating reading.

I also intend to apply the same principles to the food we eat during our upcoming trip to the USA.  Since we will be in the north-east states during late summer we will have an excellent choice of fresh food.  One of the things we had planned to look for is Farmers’ Markets in the cities and farm gate sales in the more rural areas.  My goal is to eat as much locally-sourced, organic and unpackaged food as possible while we are away but more about that another time.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle contains numerous recipes based on seasonal produce which are also available on their website.

The book contains an engaging mix of passion, theory, humour and science related to a topic which is the essence of every one of us – our food.

I would strongly recommend that you read ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’ and take the time to really think about what you are eating and how it came to be on your plate.

Shopping In The Garden

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This afternoon I went down to the garden and picked a bucketful of oranges, some mandarins, limes, perennial onions, grapefruit, chili and avocadoes as well as collecting 16 eggs.

Here is some of the haul.

2012-06-21 01Mandarins

2012-06-21 02Eggs

2012-06-21 03Ornages , limes, grapefruit, onions and chili in this bucket.

2012-06-21 04I set the oranges out ready to juice them.

2012-06-21 05These yielded 3.5 litres of juice and enough pulp to make 2 dozen orange and poppyseed muffins.

The juice is frozen in single serve (250ml) portions.

2012-06-21 06Here is the orange juice packaged and ready to freeze.  Once it is frozen I will remove it from the containers and place in double plastic bags for ease of storage.

I took a pack of grated zucchini (from the garden last summer) from the freezer and made a zucchini quiche for dinner.  While this was in the oven I made the muffins and a Lemon Delicious for dessert as well as roasting some sliced pumpkin ready to use on home-made pizzas tomorrow night.

The 2 grapefruit are prepared for The Duke for his breakfasts and the mandarins will be used in packed lunches.

The avocadoes are in the fruit bowl as they will take about a week to ripen.

I chopped the chili and onions and added to some cold rice.  Lime juice, oil and pepper made a dressing to toss through the rice and we had this and some carrot sticks and sliced mushroom with the quiche for dinner.

I used 9 eggs in my cooking and am left with 34 in the refrigerator.  Must be time to give some more away.

We are lucky to have a productive garden so it is important to make sure that we use what is available and store any excess so that it does not get wasted.

Comments & Countdown

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A big thank you to all of you who take the time to comment on my random thoughts which masquerade as blog posts.

I have been very tardy about responding but have gone back over the past 4 weeks since I last responded and replied to all of your comments.

Although I will make a concerted effort to reply each day I will check and catch up on the comments each Sunday from now on.

It is now 9 weeks until we head off on our big adventure to the USA.  All of the accommodation and transport are booked so now we are concentrating on researching what we plan to do and see in each place we visit.

One of the things I had read about in New York was the new(ish) High Line Park which is built along an old elevated railway line above Manhattan.  There is an access point to it quite close to where we will be staying.  You can read all about it in this post I stumbled upon.

Any tidbits or suggestions will be gratefully received.  Our itinerary includes Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.  We will be self-catering for much of the trip and I am keen to maintain the same criteria as I do at home.  That means local, seasonal, organic and minimally packaged food so if you have any thoughts in this regard I would really appreciate them.

Project Streamline – Dress

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Did you notice the singular – dress?  That is correct, I own 1 dress.  I have had this dress for 3 years and during the summer it is worn at least once per week.  It works well at the cusp of the season with a cardigan, too.  This is a perfect example of everything an item of clothing should be.

Relatively classic style
Versatile
Good quality
Comfortable

It is also fully lined, 100% cotton and made in Australia.

When I first tried it on I realised that it would require some alterations as it was too long in the waist and too deep in the armholes for me.  I was able to do this by removing the collar and lifting the shoulder seams before replacing the collar.  Even if I had to pay for this to be professionally done, it would have been worth the expense.

So, no decluttering in this category.  The dress stays and has pride of place in my wardrobe.

Black dress with white spotsI want to make a couple more dresses like this one so that I can wear a dress and sandals to work each day during the summer.  The existing dress is still way too good to consider deconstructing it so I may have to use a combination of a commercial pattern and the measurements from the dress.

There are no other categories  in my wardrobe which contain only a single item, so next week I will be back to justifying my various collections.

Meanwhile, I am creating a list of things I would like to buy when we are overseas.  The first things on the list are 2 pairs of trousers that are suitable for wearing to work  and an outfit for a wedding at the end of March in Canberra.  I have no idea of what I want for the wedding outfit so it will be a matter of looking to see what I like.  The other criteria will be that it is versatile enough to be able to be worn for other occasions.

A Lesson From The Past

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Some people in various parts of the world are living in economies that are officially described as being in a recession but wherever we live, these are definitely uncertain times.  At the same time there is research showing that many 1st world nations waste up to 20% of all food purchased.  That is the equivalent of bringing home 5 bags of groceries and throwing one bag of groceries straight into the bin.

Perhaps it is time to look back to earlier generations and their ‘waste not, want not’ mentality.  Everything was used, re-used and re-fashioned until not a single thing was left.  This applied in equal measure to food, clothing, furniture and so on.

Today I want to show you how we can easily make better use of the abundant food that we have.

This morning I juiced a large carrot, 2 apples and about 1/3 of a pineapple.  I drank the juice for breakfast and saved the pulp.

Next was a 600 ml container of cream.  This was bought in January and not required for a luncheon we were hosting so it was put in the freezer.  Last weekend I thawed it to have some cream on dessert.  Only a small amount was used so today I put it in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and made butter.  I followed the description from here.  I was very pleased with the result.

2012-05-19 01I used 100g of the butter when I made pastry and this is what was left.  From about 500ml of cream I made 220g of butter and had 250ml of buttermilk.

I used the buttermilk tonight when I made a bacon and mushroom quiche for dinner.  I mixed a couple of tablespoons of milk powder into the buttermilk to make a thicker liquid for the quiche.

2012-05-19 02While the oven was on I also made a batch of muffins using the leftover fruit pulp from my juice.

2012-05-19 03I made beef curry in the slowcooker from a recipe in one of the Sally Wise cookbooks.  This is now divided into portions and frozen along with several serves of bolognaise sauce and a dish of lasagne.

2012-05-19 04Making these meals is a reminder of how we can use our own condiments.  The curry called for tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, chutney and curry powder as some of the ingredients.  I had home-made versions of all of these to use.  Some of the pasta sauce I made during the summer when tomatoes were very cheap and plentiful went into the bolognaise sauce.  The lasagne sheets were ones I had made some weeks ago and frozen.  It is great to have so many of the ingredients for meals at your fingertips and know that they have been created in your own kitchen and you know exactly what went into them.

The Duke has made our bread from bought pre-mixes for a number of years and now he is experimenting with making it from scratch.  He has the white loaf pretty well perfect but has working on getting the wholemeal loaf the way he wants it.  Here is the result of his effort today and naturally he is very pleased.

2012-05-19 05Tomorrow I plan to make lemon butter which will use our own eggs and lemons as well as some of the butter I made today.

How do you make the most of the food you have?