In the kitchen this week ...

Monday
Lunch - chicken and sundried tomato risotto (TMX)
Dinner -  zucchini slice and salad (TMX)

Tuesday
No cooking - at mums


Wednesday
Sourdough tortillas (TMX) with bean chilli (TMX), cheese, sour cream, salad


Thursday
Beef casserole with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg


Friday
This dish from Quirky Cooking but with fish instead of chicken as it's Good Friday. It is easily our favourite dish to whip up in the Thermomix!


Extras
Sourdough bread, muffins, tortillas
Apricot bliss balls
Wholemeal bread

Meal Plan Monday

I was away over the weekend at a conference and was just not in the right frame of mind to meal plan this week with the same enthusiasm as normal weeks. A weekend of training, listening, learning and inquisitive-baby wrangling is hard work despite the big boys staying at home with Daddy and there being plenty of willing hands to help out with the baby!

Here is our plan this week:


Monday
Pasta Primavera


Tuesday
Nana's house for dinner - no cooking for me!!!

Wednesday
Chicken laksa (TMX)

Thursday
Zucchini slice and salad (TMX)

Friday
Bean burritos (TMX)

Saturday
Pumpkin soup (TMX)


Baking and Extras
Muffins, tortillas, bread and rolls (all sourdough and wholemeal)
plain wholemeal bread
bliss balls
yoghurt
pickled ginger carrots

Meal Plan Monday

I'm linking up with Jo at Quirky Cooking for her weekly Thermomix menu plan. If I ever get my blogging mojo back I'll start up the Home Revolutions Meal Plan Monday linky-thingy again.

This week on our table will be:

Sunday
Sue-Ellen's Singapore Noodles (TMX)

Monday
Mushroom risotto (TMX)


Tuesday
Boys - eggs and toast
Adults - TMX Varoma demo

Wednesday
Homemade pizza on wholemeal, sourdough bases

Thursday
Pumpkin soup (TMX) with wholemeal, sourdough toast or rolls

Friday
Savoury mince (TMX)

Saturday
Pork sausages with mashed sweet potato and steamed vegies


Baking and Extras
Muffins, tortillas, bread and rolls (all sourdough and wholemeal)
plain wholemeal bread
bliss balls
yoghurt
labne
lacto-fermented tomato sauce
pickled ginger carrots

Back to Meal Planning - again!!!

It seems that whenever I have an involuntary break from the blog, it's the meal planning that brings me back. I have a need (my husband may say it borders on an OCD need!) to meal plan. It just makes our week flow so much easier.

So, here is this week -

Sunday:
Savoury mince on toast with steamed veg on the side

Monday:
Meatballs and pasta

Tuesday:
No cooking for me! We're off to my Mum's for dinner.

Wednesday:
Adults - chilli con carne
Kids - beggs and toast (the boys creation of bacon, eggs and toast. A definite treat and sometimes food)

Thursday:
Pork sausages, mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Friday:
Megadarra

Extras:
Sourdough bread
Sourdough tortillas
Chocolate sourdough muffins
Sourdough pikelets (anyone sensing a theme yet?)
Chicken stock
Yoghurt
Labne
Bliss balls - I'm not sure what sort yet, can you make any suggestions?

In the Kitchen This Week

Monday
Random Recipe - Chinese Chicken Hotpot  with steamed veg
from Donna Hay's No Time To Cook p96

Tuesday
Roasted Red Capsicum with buckwheat pasta from here

Wednesday
boys - eggs
adults - chilli con carne (we've been trying to have this for three weeks now, plans always keep changing. This week definitely!)

Thursday
GF pizza, no idea on toppings yet

Friday
Sweet potato and chickpea red curry with brown rice and steamed veg

Saturday
BBQ

Sunday
GF bean burritos

In the Kitchen this Week

I'll post more about it soon but we're making the transition from a wheat-based diet to one that is wheat-free, attempting to be gluten free.

Monday:
Roasted pumpkin risotto


Tuesday:
Buckwheat pasta with bolognese sauce


Wednesday:
boys- eggs and toast
adults- chilli con carne (we didn't end up having it last week)

Thursday:
Pumpkin soup with cheesey muffins


Friday:
gluten-free pizza


Saturday:
BBQ


Sunday:
Random Recipe - Eggplant Parmigiana from Rose Elliot's Classic Vegetarian p74


Extras:
gluten-free bluberry muffins, gluten-free bread, chicken stock, muesli, yoghurt, ricotta

Back to Menu Planning!

not that I ever stopped, but back to sharing it with everyone!

Happening in the kitchen this week is:

Monday:
Broccoli casserole with steamed veg


Tuesday:
Zucchini slice with salad


Wednesday:
Boys - eggs and veg
Grown ups - chilli con carne


Thursday:
BBQ


Friday:
Mushroom risotto

Saturday:
Chickpea casserole (requested by Archie, no idea what I'll actually make though)

Sunday:
no idea yet!


Extras:
Bread, yoghurt, chicken stock, beef stock

In the Kitchen this Week

As we will be moving in a few short weeks we're eating from the freezer and pantry. We're planning on putting everything in storage and staying with my parent's until we find a new place in Brisbane. So we need empty fridges, freezers and pantries.

Along with eating from the freezer and pantry, we've had lots of friends drop meals around to help us out with new baby Oliver. We've been so spoilt, having yummy homemade meals delivered, soups, stews, pies even cassava cake and ice cream! Yum!

But, by me, nothing exciting is cooking, nothing exciting is being planned, no cookbooks are being consulted.

Every morning I've been standing at an open pantry or freezer and surveying the offerings. We've been eating lots of pasta, lots of tinned lentils in soup or sauces, usually with tinned tomatoes too!
Hopefully soon I'll be able to be back in the kitchen, planning and cooking up a storm!

Meal Plan Monday

We're staying at my parent's this week, awaiting the arrival of babe #3 next Monday. It was great to meal plan with 6 people instead of 4, although the boys did still pick their usuals of 'sausages' and 'eggs and toast'! It's great to be able to share the cooking too. I still try and cook as much as I can, just because Mum insists on doing all our washing while we're here! What a woman!

So this week looks like this:

Sunday:
BBQ with sausages, tamarind and lime chicken pieces, salad, creamy potato bake, salad and garlic bread

Monday:
Beef Burgandy with horseradish dumplings and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Mum's birthday dinner of Chinese takeaway and chocolate mudcake for dessert

Wednesday:
Pasta prima vera

Thursday:
Boys: eggs and toast
Adults: Chilli con carne

Friday:
Potato and leek soup

Happy menu planning!

Another Short Week in the Kitchen

Yet another short week as we are travelling again, this time not to return home until the baby has been born! Woohoo!

I've been trying to stock the freezer with meals, homemade bread and baked goodies so that once the wee babe is here I can focus less on the cooking and more on the baby, big boys and of course myself, recovering from a c-section.

So this short week looks like this:

Monday:
Pumpkin soup with homemade rye bread (with extra serves to go in the freezer)

Tuesday:
Steak, steamed veg and mashed potato

Wednesday:
Easy dinner - eggs and vegies!

Extras:
bread - wholemeal and rye for the freezer, berry and yoghurt muffins, yoghurt

Back to the Meal Planning!

So even though things have been ever so quiet on the blogging front for a while, things are never that quiet in my kitchen! Every week, week in and week out, I meal plan. It doesn't matter what is happening in our lives, where we are, what we're doing, there is always a meal plan. Sometimes written out, sometimes just in my head.

So, this is the plan for this week:

Monday:
Bean burritos

Tuesday:
Chicken schnitzels with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Wednesday:
Zucchini and pea risotto

Thursday and Friday:
two nights off! Yahoo!

Saturday:
Spaghetti and Meatballs

Sunday lunch:
Vegetarian Shepard's Pie with Sweet Potato topping, recipe from here

Extras:
Mini cheese muffins (for the freezer), wholemeal bread, labna (yoghurt cheese)

Meal Plan Monday and Random Recipe Review

Last week's Random Recipe was Pot-Roast Meatloaf from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food (p161). If I had been as organised as I had planned to be it would have been better, but I was having a lazy day so skipped half the recipe! I was going to make the meatloaf earlier in the day and then just pop it in the oven when dinner time rolled around but I got caught up in other things so I had to do it after I picked Elliot up from Kindy. By the time dinnertime rolled around I really could not be bothered dirtying more dishes to make the tomato and chickpea sauce that went with it so we just had it as it was. I think the sauce would have made it, without it was just another boring meatloaf. Not bad, just nothing special. As we're not big meatloaf eaters at the best of times it definitely won't be on our list of regular meals.

Pot-Roast Meatloaf

1 medium onion, chopped finely

olive oil

1tsp groun cumin

1tsp ground coriander

12 Jacob's cream crackers*

2tsp dried oregano **

2 tsp Dijon mustard

500g minced beef

1 large egg

4 rashers of bacon ***

1. Fry the onion in a little olive oil with cumin and coriander until soft and fragrant. Put in a large bowl to cool.

2. Smash up crackers until fine **** and place in bowl with cooled onion mixture.

3. Add remaining ingredients except bacon and mix with hands until thoroughly combined. Shape into a log/meatloaf shape and rub with a little olive oil.

4. Place the meatloaf in a casserole dish or baking pan and then cook in a preheated 200C oven for 30 minutes.

5. Lay bacon over the top of the meatloaf and return to the oven until crispy - this took another 15 to 20 minutes.

* I subsituted these for a good handful of breadcrumbs

** I substituted oregano with some finely chopped rosemary from the garden

*** The original recipe called for 12 rashers but 4 were enough to cover my meatloaf

**** Omit this step if using breadcrumbs

What I'd do differently:

• I'd definitely make the sauce that is in the recipe. It was a basic tomato sauce with some chilli, Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar thrown in along with a tin of chickpeas.

On to the plan for this week! We're having a short week, heading to Brisbane for a long weekend so only three nights of cooking here and then I'll plan with Mum the meals for the weekend. Also, we're trying to eat the freezer and pantry down so apart from some fruit and veg from the markets on Thursday morning I won't need to grocery shop! Hurrah!

Monday:
Sausages, mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Marinated steak, steamed veg and some sort of potato side dish

Wednesday:
Pasta with lentil sauce

Don't forget to link up if you're menu planning this week!

Meal Plan Monday

Thanks to everyone who played along last Monday, there were some great ideas for family dinners!

Don't forget to link up if you're meal planning this week, I've extended the amount of time the link is open for, I'm still trying to get used to the new technology! :)

Our plan this week looks like this:

Monday:
Random Recipe - Pot-roast Meatloaf (Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food p161) with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Butter chicken (slow cooker) with brown rice and steamed veg

Wednesday:
Pasta Prima Vera

Thursday:
Pork sausages, mashed potato and steamed veg

Friday:
Felafel with flat bread, salad and yoghurt sauce

Saturday:
Veg and noodle stir fry with boiled eggs

Sunday:
Some sort of roast, maybe chicken or beef

Extras:
wholemeal bread
mini cheese muffins for the freezer for morning teas
zucchini slice for the freezer for lunches
muesli (this has been on my list to make for about a month and I must do it this week!)

A Big Menu Planning Post!

After having a couple of readers suggest it, I've decided to start a linky thingy so others can join in with my meal planning fun. I'm not too techy though, so I hope I've done it right! So if you're meal planning this week, link up and join in! You may find some new "blogosphere" friends and you will probably find some great meal ideas!

We're having a short, yet very busy week this week. As the first week of 'Meal Plan Monday' link up it's a pretty poor show but you get that some weeks! We're away for a long weekend this coming weekend and on Wednesday I've got a late Dr's appointment and then an early evening at a friends place babysitting all with Matt being away in Brisbane for work for the day and not expected home til quite late. Crazy days!!!

Monday:
Chicken and zucchini risotto (using up the leftover chicken from the weekend's roast)

Tuesday:
Felafel with flat bread, salad and yoghurt dressing

Wednesday:
No idea, maybe we'll have dinner at our friends, maybe we'll have something easy at home like eggs and toast after a pop home and pop out again.

Extras:
Chicken stock (from bones from weekend's roast), wholemeal bread, some sort of baking for the freezer for morning teas, choc-mint ice cream

I'm so excited to see what everyone else is planning this week!

Meal Plan Monday Link-along!!!

Just a quick post to let you know that on Monday I'll be starting a weekly link-up for all you menu planners out there. After having a couple of readers suggest it, I've decided to give it go so others can join in with my meal planning fun.

Anyway, if you're meal planning this week, link up and join in! You may find some new "blogosphere" friends and you will definitely find some great meal ideas!

See you here Monday!!!

My No Rubbish Lunchbox Challenge

With Elliot going to Kindy this year 5 days a fortnight I spent a lot of the Christmas holidays searching for a suitable lunchbox for him. The Kindy handbook said that lunchboxes could go in the fridge but insulated bags needed to stay in their lockers for the day with an ice brick. I wanted his lunch in the fridge, summer here is just too hot to have food out for hours and hours. I struggled to find a lunchbox that would fit with our 'no rubbish' beliefs. I finally found the perfect lunchbox and I love it! And Elliot being a fan of everything having a place, he loves it too!

Unlike most Mum's I don't have the school food dilemma, Elliot will gladly eat the same thing everyday and likes that the 'right' thing goes in the 'right' part of his lunchbox.

So he everyday he takes a container of natural yoghurt with some frozen blueberries and passionfruit 

and another container of dried fruit.

In the big part of his lunchbox he takes a sandwich 

(this week he went all out and took some leftover zucchini slice!!!) 

and on top some green beans or carrot sticks and a packaged cheese, which is the only packaged/processed food that we buy

In the last compartment are another couple of pieces of fruit and a mini muffin from the freezer.

The only thing I don't like is that there is nowhere big enough for a whole banana so he just takes half a banana one day and half the next day. Not that that is really a problem with the way banana prices are likely to go soon!

So there we have it! A cheap ($11) and easy to replace if it gets lost (we got it from the grocery shop) lunchbox that means no rubbish going into landfill, no commercial or processed food muddling his little mind and body, and a Mama that can sleep at night knowing her little man may be away from her through the day but at least he's still eating good food!

Oh, this is the 4th week of Kindy and we've already had to have a discussion about Coke! I just have to share this little story, it just shows how innocent and wonderful children are (when we let them be). Elliot came home from Kindy and our conversation around the dinner table went like this:

Elliot: "My friend xxxxx said his Daddy drinks Coke"
Mummy: "Oh, do you know what Coke is?"
Elliot: "Nope"
Daddy: "It's a sometimes drink that you have when you're older, like, 20"
Elliot: "Ok Daddy"
Mummy: "What did you say to xxxxx?"
Elliot: "I said, 'My Daddy drinks water'"

I do so love my beautiful little man!

Meal Plan Monday

I couldn't find any dashi stock powder in town here needed for the Chicken Donburri that was the Random Recipe last week. I'll have to see if I can find some online or get some next time we go to the big smoke!

This week is is a short week for meal planning as we're unsure of our weekend plans. We may be away, we may have visitors!

Monday:
Lasagne (with another made for a family who've just welcomed their second baby boy!)

Tuesday:
Homemade pizza on wholemeal bases

Wednesday:
Zucchini slice with salad

Thursday:
Risoni with Sweet and Sour Capsicum - Random Recipe from Marie Clare Fresh p66

Extras:
Ice cream, yoghurt, muesli, banana cake and mini muffins

Random Recipe Review and Monday Menu Plan

Last week's random recipe was Megadarra from The Australian Women's Weekly's Cook, p400. It is described in the book as 'a pilaf-style dish, often referred to as the poor man's food of the Middle East' which I got pretty excited about! It was tasty, not complicated or difficult to make and very wholesome and nutricious. And as an added bonus, Elliot devoured two servings! It was recommended to be served with a salad like tabbouleh or fattoush but I knew that wouldn't go down well with the boys so we had it with a side of steamed vegies and some Greek yoghurt. The recipe says that it serves 4, but they must be four incredibley hungry people because it fed the four of us (Matt and Elliot had seconds) with two serves (enough for Matt and I to share for dinner each) in the freezer.

Megadarra

2 cups brown lentils

1.5litres boiling water

3/4 cup white long grain rice

1.25 litres boiling water, extra

1.5 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp salt

 Caramalised Onion

1/4 cup olive oil

4 large onions, thinly sliced

2 tsp white sugar

1/2 cup water

1. Place lentils and 1.5L water in a large saucepan, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, about 15 minutes or until lentils are just tender. Drain

2. Meanwhile, make caramalised onion. Cover to keep warm.

3. Combine rice, extra water and spices in medium saucepan. Add half of the caramelised onion; bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 12 minutes. Add lentils and salt; simmer uncovered about 3 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

4. Spoon megadarra into serving bowls and top with remaining caramelised onion.

Caramelised Onion: Heat oil in a large frying pan, cook onion and sugar, stirring for 5 minutes. Add half of the water, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes. Add remaining water; simmer, stirring for about 5 minutes or until onion caramelised.

What I'd do differently next time:

• It definitely needs the salt, don't be scared to add it!
• I'd add some more spices, cumin for instance.
• I'd use the specified brown lentils. I couldn't find brown and already had red so I just used them. The result was more porridge-y than pilaf-y, but still yummy.
• I'd add more vegies to the Megadarra itself, spinach would be great.
• My friend Emma who blogs here has also made it since we had it for dinner and she omitted the rice completely and said it was delish! She also added a bouqet garni and spinach.

So, on to the plan for this week. It looks like this:

Monday
Fried rice with chicken drumsticks

Tuesday
Pork sausages, steamed veg and mashed sweet potato

Wednesday
Vegie quiche and salad

Thursday
Chicken Donburri - Random Recipe from The Thrifty Kitchen, p81**

Friday
Italian lentils with cous cous

Saturday
BBQ

Sunday
Bean burritos

** If I can find all the ingredients. It is a Japanese dish that calls for dashi stock, made from dashi powder yet our two grocery stores and Asian grocer in town don't stock dashi powder. I'm going to have to see if I can get it online or have a friend in the big smoke send me some in the mail! If I can't get it in time for Thursday's dinner it'll definitely be on the list another week, it looks divine!

Meal Plan Monday

And I'm back to meal planning with a vengence! Yippee!

In our kitchen this week:

Monday:
Beef stroganoff, brown rice and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Vegetable and noodle stir fry

Wednesday:
Chilli con Carne

Thursday:
Megadarra - Random Recipe from AWW Cook, p 400

Baking and Extras:

Wholemeal bread, meusli, 3 cheese muffins

Meal Plan Monday

So here is our plan for this week, subject of course to flood waters and what's in the shops.

Because of my food hoarding ways we're actually ok with most foods except fresh fruit and veg and eggs, which the boys eat at an alarming rate that is difficult to keep up with at the best of times. We have 20kg of wholemeal flour in the shed so we can make as much bread, pasta, muffins, biscuits or baked goods as we need. I also keep a fully stocked pantry of tinned lentils (as well as dried), tomatoes, chickpeas, tuna, kidney beans etc plus a chest freezer full of nuts, seeds, oats, different flours and small amounts of homemade stock and meat. The house freezer is full of frozen homecooked meals, frozen berries, butter, frozen peas (from the shops) and a few bits and pieces of who knows what hiding at the back! That is actually the first time I've typed all that out and really, I think we'll be fine! Especially because we can still get into town and the shops!


Monday:
Chicken curry with brown rice and steamed veg

Tuesday:
Fried rice

Wednesday:
No idea yet, will so how the mood takes me!

Thursday:
Prawn laksa (if I can get prawns)

Friday:
veg and noodle stirfry with boiled eggs

Saturday:
Pork sausages with mashed potato and steamed veg

Sunday:
Broccoli casserole

Don't forget to sign up for this year's game of Pay it Forward. I'd love to send some handmade gifts out there!