My Food Bag - My Experience

Lately, I've been in a deep funk of dead-end ideas when it comes to food.

I recently saw something going around social media with three choices. 

If you only had to choose one, what would you choose?

A nanny

A housemaid

A chef

That's easy for me. A chef. Every time.

And just lately, being in the depths of winter, cooking every night just became a chore. I was really struggling to come up with original and tasty menu ideas that everyone in my family would eat, and I am just bored of doing the same dishes, and tired of cooking uninspiring food that if you gave me a cent for every time I'd cooked them, I'd be rich by now.

Someone happened to mention Nadia Lim's My Food Bag. I had heard of it, of course. Masterchef is one of my favourite reality television shows, and I was watching when she won it back in 2011, and heard about her new business venture.

Food and chef-prepared recipes delivered to your door every week sounded amazing!

Whenever someone talks about My Food Bag, they always qualify it with, "it's great food, but expensive." And that is what has put me off trying it out before now. 

Let me just say now, before I carry on, that this is NOT a sponsored blog post. I am in no way affiliated with Nadia Lim or My Food Bag and have not been asked to write a review on this. I'm blogging about it because I write about everything anyway, and thought you might all be interested.

But when I realised how much money I was actually spending going to the grocery store every other day to get something for dinner because I hadn't had any inspiration to write up a menu, I thought I might as well spend that money on My Food Bag instead of wasting time and funds running back and forth from the market.

There are six people in my family. Two adults and four children, and one of those children is a teenage boy, and two of those children are picky eaters and small eaters, so I thought the 2 adults and 2-3 children might be fine as far as quantity.

Screenshot from My Food Bag

On Sunday our first food bag arrived. It was so exciting!

The list for extra ingredients that you need in the pantry to do My Food Bag was so small and insignificant, that after doing the sums I don't actually think this is very expensive. Apart from a few basics, like oil and salt, eggs, butter, milk and flour and a couple of other things, Nadia provides everything, even down to the one garlic clove that I need for tonight's meal.

And the menu looked delicious!

A couple of days after ordering an email arrived in my inbox with a list of extra things I would need to buy and photographs of what I'd be cooking for the week, and it looked amazing!

My husband's eyes lit up when I showed him. I could tell he was so over my done-to-death chicken nibbles, sausages and fish and chips on rotation every week.

To tell the truth, I was a little sceptical when I opened up the chillbox and took out the meat. I though I better check all the dates in case one was close to the expiry and make sure that the recipes I want to cook line up with those dates. Later I was pleasantly surprised to read in the instructions that come with the box that Nadia actually suggests you do this - but I also found that the fresh meat was not only the best available in New Zealand, but the expiry dates were also well within the dates of the menu - if I cooked them in the order they arrived. That's a girl after my own heart, I have to say right there. Careful attention to the small details. I was impressed.

For the first night, we made Cashew Lemon-Crumbed fish with roast veges and sundried tomato mayonnaise.

The fish has a panko and cashew crumb over it and was so delicious some of us went back for seconds, and yes, there was enough for seconds. If this is (literally) a taste of what is to come, then I think I'm going to want to do My Food Bag for the rest of my life - or at least until I get my cooking mojo back - which might be never.

What I like about it is:

* the food and recipes are super-healthy. Fresh, organic vegetables and the finest meats - no unhealthy processed stuff here.

* It's easy to prepare. This took me 45 minutes max, and a lot of that time was stand-down time, waiting for the vegetables to roast.

* the hard work of menu planning is taken away

* The hard work of "what's for dinner" is taken away

* If the kids don't like it, they can't blame me!

* I'm not impulse buying anymore.

* The variety of dishes. Goodbye boring food!

* It tastes REALLY good.

Two things to watch out for if you are going to try this:

1. You have to order a week in advance.

2. You will automatically be charged for the second week unless you request that not to happen. I didn't read the fine print and discovered last night that I've been charged for this to arrive next week also. Oops. Don't care. I was going to do it anyway.

* This is NOT a sponsored post. I am in no way affiliated with Nadia Lim or My Food Bag and have not been asked to review this product. I am blogging about it because I wanted to try it out and writing is how I process everything good and bad in my life. This just happens to be good!

How I Feed My Family of 6 on $120 a Week

A few weeks ago I would have thought it impossible.

Feed 6 people for $120!

My grocery list was getting up around the $400 mark, and to be truthful, I hate spending money on food. It's a necessity, I know, but such a waste, if you know what I mean!

My Dad will tell you and my husband will tell you that I am no good with money. I am one of those people who have no respect for money. There are more important things in life and money is just one of those necessary evils. Such a pain, money!

But I have taken on this challenge and I'm actually enjoying myself. I like the thought of getting the best buy. There's something very satisfying in that and knowing that what income we do have can be used for other things.

This is what $102 in food looks like.

My trick for shopping and finding the best deals was to spend an hour planning the night before. I went to the Countdown website and made an order online (but without finishing it). I saved my list, took a screenshot on my ipad and took it with me to Pac 'N Save first (which is, apparently, New Zealand's cheapest grocery store).  I was able to check quickly to see who was offering the cheaper goods as I went along the aisles. It was about half and half. Some things I was able to save a whole $1, some things were on specials with several dollars knocked off. So I went to Countdown next, which is fortunately, on the way home, and finished my shopping.

Last year I applied for a job at the school. I got shortlisted on a list of 3, but missed out.
I work from home on my dreams, and writing is my marketable skill, and until I manage to sell my book, or until my kids grow up and can look after themselves, we have to live on one income.

With so much of our money tied up at the moment in our house building, and with rent prices through the roof, we are having to make some major cutbacks for a period of time, until we can stop paying rent. Seriously, I don't recommend renting - we have had to do it for 3 years longer than we planned, and it's such a drain on resources and nothing to show for it in the end.

We've also had some fairly hefty bills come in all at the same time. Our children go to a semi-private school, and while we could choose a government-funded (or public) school, we are happy to make sacrifices to give them the best education we can in an environment that we know is safe and nurturing and caring and supportive and where they are doing well academically and socially.

The washing machine broke down. A tax bill came in. We've had birthdays and weddings and school supplies to get, and all the little things that suck away at your wallet. We don't live extravegantly, but we like to live well. We like our food, and we like our treats. We like to have beautiful things around us in our home.
We don't go on overseas trips and we holiday at the family bach. We don't support addictive habits and we don't drive fancy cars. We eat out rarely - only for special occasions.

So we decided to use up what was in our pantry and in our freezer and see how much we could survive on for $120 a week. And it is achievable. Just. And the money we are saving would have been my salary (before tax) if I'd managed to get the job at the school!

So I took stock of what was in the freezer and pantry and this was my menu for the week.

Breakfast: Porridge or Cornflakes or Toast

Monday: Rolled Roast Beef done in the crockpot.

Tuesday: Mince Burgers

Wednesday: Mince Burgers - a wonderful, old fashioned recipe that uses teaspoonfulls of seasoned mince wrapped in a crunchy, homemade pastry and baked in the oven. It makes enough for two nights for us.

Thursday: Chicken Curry

Friday: Sausages

Saturday: Bacon and Mushroom Flan

Sunday: Creamed fish with bread cases.

Side dishes: rice salad; lettuce salad; couscous salad; boiled potatoes with butter. Frozen mixed vege.


Lunchboxes: Sandwiches, fruit, home-baking, cheese and crackers and homemade scones and a small packet of potato chips.

The homebaking has been an issue. I have growing children who are always hungry, and I hate baking. So I need something that would last two to three days at least. My friend Jessie gave me her recipe which made 4 trays of large cookies, and have turned out to be a real treat. Elizabeth also gave me a recipe that makes 100 cookies. Can't wait to try them!

Desert: One a week - meringues with cream and passionfruit sauce. Meringues are so easy to make and only use two ingredients. Eggs and sugar, and I had plenty of those, and they make enough for my family to have desert a second night. I had some passionfruit sauce in the fridge and some cream, and voila! A beautiful treat.

Treats: Sodastream for the kids. Truly, the Sodastream was the best thing we bought this summer. We purchase one flavoured sodastream syrup a week, and a generic cordial to use with just soda water.
Tonic water with lemon juice for the adults. When you can't afford to buy wine or even cider, tonic water with lemon juice is a nice substitute. Not the same, I know, but quite nice after dinner in the evening. We call it the Poor Man's Wine!
Good coffee.

We don't have to buy fruit. We live in a region of New Zealand where fruit is abundant and relatives who have established fruit trees are kind and generous. This week we have apples, plums, nashi pears and avocados. I did splash out on some bananas at the grocery store, and a handful of lemons.

So that is my supply of groceries this week that cost me $102, leaving $18 for bread and milk which we buy at Couplands, because it's the cheapest.

I have also been getting into the habit of stock-piling over the years. I learned this from Leanne of Cottage Tails, and now when things are tightening up this is proving its worth. I haven't had to buy sugar or sauces or oils or rice or other things like that which are easily stored in the pantry.

I haven't had to buy meat either, as I am using up what is in the freezer. When I do have to buy meat, I will probably have to extend my budget to $150, but I think this will be achievable if I plan a vegetarian meal in there somewhere.

So who would have thought that this girl with a bad head for figures could work to a budget and actually have fun on it. Miracle!

Holiday Food

The lovely thing about being on holiday is that you can make the meals as simple as you want, or, as I am finding, flick through cookbooks at leisure and have the luxury of time to try out new recipes.

And as everyone knows, when your beside the seaside, you appetite is ravenous.

I brought two new books along with me on holiday.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s (of River Cottage fame) Light and Easy book, and Chelsea Winter’s new book, Everyday Living. I also have the standby recipes I store on my ipad and there is an ancient (but good) cookbook in the bookshelf here.

For afternoon treats I brought along our traditional Christmas cake, which is a brandy-soaked fruit cake, layered with almond icing and topped with rich butter icing, laced with more….. Brandy. All of us like fruit cake, except I do find that the little children tend to eat the icing and leave the cake, or as I found here (sshhh – I think it was the teenage son),  snaffling off the end layer of icing.

My mother gave me her recipe for Chocolate Licorice Truffles, which were a little fussy to make, in that you had to melt and dip chocolate, but are so rich, we’re only eating about one a day, which is  a good thing, because they’ve lasted nearly a week.

My aunty and cousins are coming for the weekend, so I plan on making Chelsea Winter’s Fresh Mint Chocolate Slice.

I’ve really enjoyed Hugh’s book this year. His food is earthy and simple and easy.We eat our dinner late at the beach, usually in the twilight on the table outside, with the citronella candles burning and the barbeque sizzling. The beach is usually quiet at that time of day, so we are serenaded by the crashing or lapping of the ceaseless ocean tide.

We have also adopted the family tradition from Rob's eldest brother who introduced us to this lovely ritual, of cheese and wine... whatever you fancy ... something to drink late afternoon. When you eat so late at night, it's a little filler - quite a luxurious one - to keep the wolves away.

Hugh’s Roast Beetroot, Potato and Garlic dish was lovely to eat in the dim light. The colours are medieval and the taste earthy and delicious.

We also  loved his storehouse fishcakes for lunch.

Usually we just have sausages and steak as our staple meal, with fresh lettuce from the Caretaker’s garden. This year I’ve enjoyed adding creamy sauces to the steak. I like to marinade the meat for at least 12 hours with my Great Aunty Gwen’s Famous-In-The –Family recipe, which is a mixture of soya sauce, ginger, garlic and brown sugar.

The caretaker has hens in his garden, so we’ve been able to get fresh eggs everyday, which is a real treat.

The next thing I’m going to make out here is Chelsea’s Pavlova which is made from 8 eggs! My friend Kim made it for Christmas and said it turned out great!

I am enjoying the luxury of time to think about food, if I feel like it. And that’s the beauty of it.

What do you like to cook when you’re on holiday? Do you have any food traditions?

French Food

One of the things I absolutely loved during my week in Noumea, was the French Food.

Nobody ever told me that the French Sticks they sell in the grocery store in New Zealand are nothing compared to the real, genuine Baguettes! You can eat those things just by themselves, they're so light and fluffy. We enjoyed the pastries of France last week too, from Pain au Chocolat to Croissants, little sweet tarts, strawberry and chocolate mousse and ham and cheese with the Baguettes.

This was the best pastry shop we found in downtown Noumea. We were attracted to it by the aroma's wafting down the street as we shopped.

See..... even at McDonalds.

To be sure, it was expensive to buy food in New Caledonia in some places, but it was so tempting to try out the different tastes. One of my great loves in life is cheese, and nobody does this better than the French. This was a little packet of Feta with herbs and spices on the top. We ate this with a baguette one afternoon in the city park.

Most of their dairy is imported from France (except some of the milk comes from New Zealand). Here we were at the local grocery store early in the week, choosing our cheese.

The cheese is out of this world - like the best, creamiest, most expensive cheese you would find here in New Zealand.

The Butter Shelf.

We did have a wee chuckle at this - wine in snack-sized disposable containers!

While out shopping, we went into a little chocolate shop. It was quite expensive so we didn't buy too much, but ohhhhh, what a feast for the eyes!

I did buy these Calisson. Unique to the south of France, I believe. They had a sweet, slightly almond flavour, with a fine texture. A little treat.

One of the highlights for me, would have to be our night out at the Crepe Restaurant, Creperie le Rocher. If you ever get the chance to go, remember to phone and book in first, as it is very popular.

I had a cheese savoury crepe to start with, which I didn't finish because I was desperate to try the desert crepe. I chose the Paysanne.

Caramalized apples, creme fraiche, caramel farm house butter with Apple Brandy poured over in flames. Could anything be better! It was amazing!

Tasting and experiencing different food is all part of going to a foreign country. There were things I bought and tasted and didn't like much, but mostly I enjoyed it all. The French certainly are the best at this!

Tangerine Marmalade

I always thought Marmalade would be hard to make.
But it isn't. In fact, it's the first jam recipe I've ever attempted without having the recipe spelled out in detail in front of me.

Last weekend, we took a little drive into the country to visit my dear friend Angie and her husband. Angie was one of my bridesmaids when Rob and I got married 17 years ago, and I have to say how awfully nice it is to now be living in the same town.

Angie's mother-in-law helped pile up three bags of beautiful, freshly-picked ripe Tangerines for us to take home, and she told me the recipe right there as we walked back over the fields to the house, and it's truly amazing that I remembered it because I can be a tad obsessive compulsive when it comes to recipes, wanting to make sure that I get it just right.

Picture Source

The Marmalade is a huge success. My husband has been eating it by the spoonful and has declared it the best Marmalade he has ever had - it just has that right balance of sweet and sour.

Here is my recipe:

Tangerine Marmalade

14 Tangerines (approximately), with nice, unblemished skins
4 large Grapefruit
2 Lemons
Sugar

Cut the pithy ends (top and tail) from the Tangerines, Grapefruit and Lemons and discard.
Slice each one into quarters and remove the internal pith at the core and any seeds.
Then cut into small slices, skin and flesh. Try and keep the slices as narrow as possible.
Soak overnight in water or tangerine juice - whatever your preference. I used water, because I was running out of time, but I think the juice would make it extra, extra yummy.

The following day, bring it all to the boil and boil for 45 minutes. You will need to keep an eye on it, because it can catch on the bottom of the pan and burn.
Let it cool slightly and then measure the pulp. I got 9 cups of pulp.

For each cup of pulp add one cup of sugar. I used this special sugar that aids in the setting of jam, but I did have to add regular sugar as well, to make up the 9 cups, although I do admit leaving out about 1/2 cup of sugar - and taste testing as I added sugar. We don't like our jams too sweet.

Bring to the boil, stirring all the time until jam-setting point is reached. Either use a thermometer or the old-fashioned method of a small plate placed in the freezer for 5 minutes. Remove and add a few drops of jam. Swipe your finger through the middle of the jam. If it doesn't run, it's ready.

Pot and seal in sterilised jam jars.

photo credit: andydr via photopin cc

How Do You Take Your Tea?

When you grow up in one of the British colonies, tea-drinking is just part of your culture, part of everyday life.

Maybe because it's ingrained into me from the women in my life that the first thing I ask a guest to my home is, "would you like a cup of tea?"
When travelling, we'd sometimes call ahead to my grandparents or aunty or parents when we were 10 minutes or so away and they'd say, "I'll put the kettle on," which is just another way of saying, "I'll have a nice, hot cup of tea ready for you to revive you when you arrive."
If you watch Downton Abbey, you'll know that tea was always given as a remedy for shock or grief or some kind of nasty surprise. Sweet tea was a balm to soothe the soul from the harshness of reality.
"You've had a shock. Sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea." I've even had that said to me, so the tradition hasn't quite died out yet.

Tea drinking is as much a part of our diet as bread and scones.

So when my American friend Jamie told me someone had given her a tea-infuser recently, and that she was more of a coffee drinker than a tea drinker, I welcomed the opportunity to introduce her to the delights of tea.

The traditional teapot, while beautiful to look at, and ornamental in its sentiment and history, is not really a popular, practical household item now. Maybe it's because we're all too busy to 'get the good china' down, although I must admit I still bring mine out for very special occasions, or if large quantities of tea is needed. Tea bags seem to have become the norm for most tea-drinkers, even (horror of horrors, you put the teabags into the teapot), probably because of their ease of use and they're quicker than tea-leaves. But we were introduced to a tea-infuser many years ago, and once you've enjoyed the rich, full aromatic taste of tea leaves spooned directly into the water, there's no going back really.

So this is how I make a proper cup of tea using a tea-infuser. I don't own any teabags anymore (except herbal teas), and I enjoy at least 3 cups of traditional tea a day. My husband is more of a tea-drinker than I am, so we use a pot that is small enough for one cup, but large enough for two, if I am drinking a cup of tea with him.

As my grandparents like to call it, the 'kettle' is now the 'jug'. That very useful invention of the electric jug that boils water in a matter of a few minutes.

Then I spoon about two heaped teaspoons of my favourite (Dilmah) Ceylon tea, into the infuser.

Then you let it steep for a few minutes. Isn't 'steep' a lovely word? How long you leave it to steep depends upon how strong you like your tea. Before I had children I didn't really care how strong or weak my tea was. Just how it came, was fine for me. But since the pregnancies, I no longer like strong tea. I don't know what that is - it's just one of those things. So I usually add no more than 1 teaspoon if making a cup for myself, and I don't let it steep very long.

Pour the tea into your teacup, leaving enough room at the top for milk, if you like it white. Do you like your tea white or black. My Nana liked her tea black, but I've never been able to drink it like that unless I load it up with sugar, and then it's too sweet.

I don't take sugar in my tea if I have it white, but there's no right or wrong - it's purely up to your taste. Two generations ago my grandmothers would put out a little china bowl with sugar lumps. One lump = one teaspoon of sugar. Such a tidy way of taking sugar in your tea. No little granules to spill on the cloth as you transfer it to your cup.

So that is how you make a cup of tea with an infuser, although I am unsure of how qualified I am to write a post on making tea. My great-aunt once told me I couldn't make a good cup of tea, but my excuse for that now is that I only had teabags to work with. Do you like to drink tea? And have you tried it with an infuser?

And of course, what could be more pleasant than a good cup of English tea, taken with an American Brownie.