Food glorious food

Most of my friends and family know that I no longer eat meat (apart from fish!). I would have to say that the overwhelming reaction I get from people is not a positive one which I find that difficult to understand.

For a long time I've enjoyed eating healthy food and cutting out meat is one more step in making my diet healthier. It's over a year now since I stopped eating meat and I don't miss it at all. A positive side effect has been a reduction in weight. I am guessing some of this can be attributed to not eating meat. Cycling to and from work everyday and tramping on weekends might also have contributed to the weight loss.

For me, the reasons behind this new lifestyle are health based. It's not an ethical issue for me. I am fitter, stronger and healthier now than I was previously. Maybe this can be attributed to the vegetarian diet. Maybe not. What this has taught me is that I don't need meat to satisfy my hunger. I thought I would struggle with not eating things like bacon and a good steak but this is not the case. What has happened is that this lifestyle change (which is what it is - it's certainly not a "diet") has opened up my eyes to a whole new range of food.

Eating out is not quite as simple as it used to be but that's not an issue as we only eat out on rare occasions. Usually there will be one or two items on a menu that are either seafood or vegetarian. We have found a few great places to eat around Wellington where the menu caters for our needs. One such place is Nature Vegetarian. This is a tiny Asian-style place on High Street in Lower Hutt (across the road from Pak n Save). Their food is pretty good. They do have menu items that include fake meat which we're not into but, if you're after a vegetarian chop, they can cater for you. Their golden fried tofu is a great starter.

Generally ethnic restaurants are a better bet than pubs, etc. We've had some great meals at Indian, Vietnamese, Turkish and Thai restaurants in the Hutt Valley and in Wellington. For the record, Kilim in Petone is the best Turkish restaurant I've eaten at for a long time. They're BYO and their food prices are cheap so it's possible to have a great meal out on a budget.

Hmmm, this post has turned into a bit of a restaurant review edition which was not my intention. I actually wanted to talk more about what we're eating at home. Of course we're lapping up all the wonderful fresh summer fruit and vegetables at the moment. Our grocery bill for the past few weeks has been around $45 for fresh produce from the markets. We've managed to avoid the supermarket for three weeks now although this weekend we'll need to go stock up on a few things.

Two memorable meals in the last few days have been homemade corn tortillas on Saturday night and then zucchini fritters, broccoli soup and fresh sweetcorn last night.

I can recommend making corn tortillas from scratch. They were delicious and super easy to make! We should have made more. For the tortillas you need to buy some Masa Harina. This is available from some New World stores, usually found in their specialty food / gluten free aisle. You can also buy it online - www.tiapablo.co.nz (their website looks slightly broken - especially when you access it via IE6!).

To make the tortillas you mix two parts Masa Harina to one part water to make a slightly tacky dough. Two cups of the flour with one cup of water should make about 12 tortillas. Roll balls of the dough between two sheets of waxed paper, cook in a hot pan with no oil (30 seconds one side, 45 seconds the next, flip back for a further 20 seconds) and you're done! Fill with beans, onion, carrot, lettuce, tomato (urgh), chilli sauce, etc and you have a tasty meal. Like I say we should have made more - the ones we made were inhaled pretty quickly.

If you're thinking of going vegetarian I think the trick is to embrace fresh produce and cooking at home to ensure you eat an interesting variety of food. If it all seems a little too hard you could always try reducing the number of meat meals you have and experiment with some vege meals.

First week home alone in my empty nest

Well, that's the end of the first week on my own at home. My son and his girlfriend have settled in to their new home - everything is unpacked and in its place. The bonus is probably that they are only five minutes up the road maybe things would be different if they were further away? It's real nice that both my boys (and their girlfriends) are within a very easy drive (and it's even walkable).

So how did my first week go? Really well. I am loving the freedom to cook all the foods I love without needing to consider others (does that make me selfish?). I thought I might have felt lonely without them here but it's actually been ok. It's quite nice that I don't have to "check in" with anybody and I am finding I can be more spontaneous. The downside is there is no-one to boss around and no-one to share the chores. hahaha What a bind having to always be the one to empty the dishwasher! Mind you it took about 4 days to have enough dishes to be bothered putting the dishwasher through.

I am on track with my List - I bought a pattern and fabric today - not for the dress I want to sew but a top. I am waiting for winter fabrics to come into the store before sewing the dress but thought I would get creative and start with a top for now. That will be a task for me to do one evening this week. I have found my next new recipe to try - Chicken and Pesto fettuccine which is on the menu plan for this week. And talking of the menu plan - this is the plan for the week :
Monday - kedgeree
Tuesday - steak
Wednesday - chicken and pesto fettuccine
Thursday - fish curry
Friday - grilled chicken
Saturday - crumbed fish
Sunday - birthday dinner for my son so will let him choose

All meals will use vegetables from the garden wherever possible. I have zuchinni starting to flourish, sweetcorn, potatoes and beans to supplement vegetables bought yesterday.

I continue to struggle with broodiness of my chooks - three out of four are currently broody so I am down to 1 egg a day again. How annoying! I am on the lookout for a cage I can segregate the broody ones into. I get the feeling this will continue to happen - maybe I chose dud chooks? hahaha I figure they are following their natural instincts - but it's a bit annoying when I am looking for them to supply me with eggs not produce more offspring.

Menu planning and grocery shopping

Our grocery bill has always seemed outrageously high so we decided to sit down once a week and plan the menu for the following week.

Each week I ask people in our household to put forward suggestions for the meals they would like. They're used to the rules of the house (no takeaways, no junky meals, etc) so the suggestions are usually pretty good. I weed through them and decide which meals make it to the menu for the week. I base this on the mid-week meals needing to be quick to prepare and cook so that dinner can be on the table fairly quickly once we're all home from work. Weekend meals are generally those that require more preparation time or longer cooking times.

Once the menu has been set I check what we've got in the cupboards and freezer and draw up the shopping list on my computer. I started keeping a price book a while back so enter the prices into the spreadsheet so we have a good idea of how much the groceries are going to cost us. Of course this does vary a bit as prices rise unexpectedly and when items are on special. Also, through the week I will have put other items on the list that aren't part of the menu plan - such as toilet paper, flour, sugar.

Having a list makes the shopping itself a quick and easy task as there is no wandering around figuring out what to buy.

The only items I may buy between the weekly shopping trips are fish and sometimes fruit and vegetables. Most of the time I don't even need to top up the fruit and vegetables.

I am currently looking at changing our shopping cycle to a fortnightly cycle and later may attempt to make it monthly. For now the weekly cycle is working and we are spending significantly less these days.

Also, I buy a 1 litre bottle of milk each week. When it runs out I mix up more using milk powder and pour it into the bottle. I've been doing this for the past month or so and no-one in the house has noticed or made comment. That's another cost saving for us.

Since I started this mission I've also stopped buying some items, including paper towels, serviettes, breadcrumbs and liquid hand soap. Instead of using paper towels I use old rags and wash them. Same thing for serviettes. I refuse to buy breadcrumbs when it is really easy to make my own using old crusts of bread (stored in the freezer until I need them) in the food processor. I've replaced the liquid soap with small bars of soap that I've collected over the years from various hotels, etc.

My next post will talk about some ideas around simple, quick meals that I make during the week. I hope there was something here you found useful.