Beyond Beeton» meal planning

The truth about the supermarket and what you can do about it

Rachel — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:20:46 +0000

There is something incredibly dreary about every supermarket ever known.

As soon as you walk into one your heart sinks and you become a grumpy trolley shuffler, unless you're one of those crazy basket people that goes to the supermarket at 6am after a brisk jog (in which case you should go away and eat a carrot now and leave us all alone), or you're 2 years old, in which case it is your god given right to chuck a giant tantrum.

photo credit: jumer

The traffic inside most supermarkets is just as bad as roads in any modern city. The same women who can't manage to reverse without an oops or two are let loose here on far more dangerous vehicles without a licence.

You'll find those horrid perky athletic types in the supermarket too - jogging on the spot while contemplating whether they want 5 packets of lean cuisine spaghetti low-fat extra-goo or the smooshed up packets of tofu burgers with added tar that are on special this week.

There's always at least one newlywed couple - arms around each other, romantically deciding whether they should have a bright yellow packet of tacos or frozen lasagne for dinner tonight.

The aisles are set up like one of those awful hedge mazes that landscape architects think are "charming" and "quaint" but there is nothing at all quaint about an entire aisle of noodles served with varying kinds of sludge in styrofoam cups. This aisle is a particularly dangerous one and must be avoided at all costs, lest you accidentally tarnish your ears with the existential rubbish that can only be emitted from first year arts students.

When you run away to safer ground you find yourself surrounded by last year's apples, floury and tasteless. Or maybe they're the potatoes? It is hard to tell.

photo credit: Lab2112

A fact about supermarkets that you should know:

'Fresh' fruit and vegetables on supermarket shelves can actually be around a year old when you buy them. The Sydney Morning Herald bought apples from Australia's major supermarkets and sent them to the Sydney Postharvest Laboratory for testing. The tests revealed that the apples were up to ten months old.

Despite common misconception, apples are not grown year round in Australia. In order to meet the year-round demand, supermarkets purchase apples from growers during the short season and then keep them in cold storage. While the cool temperatures can help the apples last longer, it has a negative effect on the quality and flavour of the apple.

So what can you do if you want to eat produce that is actually fresh, full of flavour and nutrients?

photo credit: tanguero (BLOCK, rinse, repeat)

The answer is simple. You need to embrace the slow food movement and buy nearly everything from organic happylands where everyone wears hemp, talks about ecosystems and sustainability and smiles a lot.

The hippies have got it right. The birds sing and frolic as you stroll along at farmers markets or at those wonderful greengrocers that actually source fresh produce. I promise you will taste the difference. Nobody will smack you in the shins with a trolley. You will be able to identify everything on the stands and if you can't, a friendly person over the age of 12 will be able to explain it to you.

So how much extra should you pay for fresh? Almost nothing at all. Sure, the prices look more per kilo but somehow my basket, laden with fresh goodies, costs less than the equivalent from the supermarket.

photo credit: Indiana shutterbug

Fresh lasts longer too, so you won't need to resort to stringy lettuce or frozen peas at the end of the week. Is it any wonder that most kids don't like vegies? Get them to choose the fresh veg from the stands and see what happens next. You can thank me later.

If you can find a quality butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer or farmers market and wholefoods store you will come out ahead financially and have the knowledge that you're supporting your community, your own health and the environment too.

If you haven't got access to a fresh market, have you considered starting your own or a community garden?

How can neon lights and plastic wrapped in more plastic compete with that?

Speedy mini post: Vietnamese Prawn Salad

Rachel — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:29:34 +0000

I recently mentioned Emma Knowles' Vietnamese Prawn Salad recipe which was posted at Gourmet Traveller.

Vietnamese Prawn Salad

I made it for dinner last night, with a few changes to reduce the calorie content.

Firstly, I used snow peas instead of snake beans, because the snow peas looked great at the local greengrocer whereas the beans looked a bit tired.

To cut down the fat I didn't fry the prawns - I bought extra-large boiled prawns to go with the cold salad. I just peeled and de-veined them (leaving the tails on). I used more prawns than the recipe specified - prawns are low-cal and low-fat and 4 per person just didn't seem enough.

Coles now stocks palm sugar in my local supermarket (in the asian foods aisle, right on the top shelf) but you can use brown sugar instead.

If you like the look of this, you can click through to get the recipe for Vietnamese Prawn Salad.

Leftovers magic:

While I was fiddling about with the vermicelli and prawns I also peeled some prawns completely and wrapped them into some rice paper rolls with finely sliced cucumber, cooked and rinced vermicelli, coriander, vietnamese mint and thai basil. They were delicious eaten immediately, dipped into hoisin sauce.

Weighing in – weight gain and moving on

Rachel — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:37:07 +0000

As promised, I have weighed in at the end of week 1 since starting my weight loss plan.

photo credit: bayat

I now weigh 68.3kg. Yes, I weigh more than I did last week.

The most important thing to remember is that good change is gradual. Or as Mae West said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”

I'm not aiming for tabloid style fast weight loss. I'm aiming for a sustainable, healthier, better way of living and enjoying food. So I'm ok with the weight gain as long as I can learn from it.

So why didn't I lose weight?

During the week I went out for high tea for a good friend's 30th and dinner for my mother's **th (deleted to protect the old) birthday. On the same day. I didn't moderate my eating or drinking at all and had fun with friends and family. This is ok in and of itself - but I didn't make healthier choices later in the week to balance it out.

I ate because I was stressed, not because I was hungry. I was nervous about a review meeting at work and I ate to quieten the butterflies in my stomach. I should have had a few glasses of water or gone for a brisk walk instead.

I skipped a meal. I went to bed early one night and then woke up hungry at midnight. Hot cross buns are not a nutritious, balanced dinner.

I used the car when I should have walked. I was lazy. I live walking distance from several fabulous butchers, a good greengrocer, an excellent deli, cafes and more. Yet I relied on the car instead of my feet. I'm not a big fan of organised exercise for exercise's sake. I am however a big fan of reducing reliance on cars and integrating activity into normal routine.

UPDATE: I just came across a fabulous post at Feasibly Fit Mom that gives examples for 5 minute workouts - yes, five minutes. Even I can do that!

There is plenty of room for improvement this week. I'll keep you up to date with my progress.

Quick Friday Tech Tip: Print What You Like

Rachel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:33:51 +0000

If you're like me, you often find great recipe ideas on blogs or other websites.

I used to just bookmark the pages but I found I quickly forgot about the bookmarks and as a result never used the idea.

Printing out the recipe worked for a bit - but many blogs (like mine) have frilly formatting that makes printing difficult and a waste of paper.

Enter free utility Print What You Like - it is available as a bookmarklet, you can just visit their website or if you have ubiquity installed on firefox (and I recommend that you do install ubiquity - it is a browser changing experience!) you can use it through the PWYL script.

This handy utility allows you to strip pictures, backgrounds and formatting from websites, increase or decrease the font and much more. Once you're done you can print out your amended document or you can save it as an html or pdf file to keep for later.

I like to save the file and send it to google docs. I have my recipes and meal ideas tagged by type, main ingredient etc and they are easy to refer to when doing meal planning.

I'd be interested to know how other people store and manage their recipes and meal ideas. Share any thoughts in the comments.

Fast Food: Pantry Edition

Rachel — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:54:17 +0000

As a perfectionist, it can be easy to cast a disparaging eye over someone else's trolley in the checkout queue and think "I'm way too awesome to eat lean cuisine". Hell, I've done it. (Sorry).

Well you aren't so awesome when it's 9:00pm on a Tuesday night, you're starving and you end up in a drive-thru deciding whether chicken nuggets or a fillet-o-fish will go better with a half-empty bottle of sauvignon blanc.

Being crazy perfectionist when planning your meals defeats the entire purpose. Sure you could plan a week of amazing tantalizing gourmet treats from scratch but unless cooking the evening meal is your only job and you have no other responsibilities whatsoever and you are a superhero or energiser bunny you are just flat out lying to yourself.

The reality is there WILL be days when everything goes wrong, you come home late, a friend calls you in tears because the moron you never liked is treating her like crap again, the power goes off or you just plain can't be bothered. If you don't have days like that then we are probably living in different universes. You need to build stuffups into your planning.

A well stocked pantry (and spaces on your meal plan) can help out in times of crisis or laziness. I'm a big fan of carbs in a crisis but go with what works for you.

Some of my pantry basics:

Rice/Pasta/grains:

basmati rice (to serve with curries etc - and its low GI - bonus!)
jasmine rice (short grain)
carnaroli or arborio rice (for risotto - I prefer carnaroli but arborio can be easier to get)
spaghetti (I like the Barilla Spaghetti Rigate - the ridges hold the sauce better)
macaroni or short pasta
thai style flat rice noodles
polenta
couscous

Tinned stuff/Sauces

Tomato pasta sauce or passata
Tinned crushed tomatoes
Tinned diced tomatoes
Tomato paste
Tinned red salmon
Tinned mixed beans
Tobasco
Woucestershire sauce
mustards (wholegrain, Dijon, English etc)
coconut milk
coconut cream
curry pastes (madras, vindaloo, thai red curry etc)
soy sauce
fish sauce

Oils/vinegars:

Extra virgin olive oil
Grapeseed oil (great for frying)
Nut oil (unless you're allergic like I am)
White wine vinegar
Rice wine vinegar
Balsamic vinegar
Red wine vinegar

Vegetables:

Potatoes
Onions (keep potatoes and onions well separate)
Sweet potato
Carrots
Garlic
Fresh herbs (in the garden or a window box)

Basics:

Plain flour
Self raising flour
Caster sugar
Icing sugar
Quality salt flakes
Whole peppercorns
Bicarb soda
baking powder
cocoa
stock (chicken, vegetable)
breadcrumbs

Alcohol:

beer
brandy/cognac
plenty of wine

The most important thing in my pantry: a folder filled with menus from fabulous local takeaway restaurants. Why grab a whopper when you can get a pad thai instead?

Some quick and easy ideas:

Yes it would be great to only eat fabulous slow-cooked tomato pasta sauces made from your own organically grown heirloom tomatoes with fresh picked basil and garlic but it isn't possible on a daily basis for many of us. (Grendel, you can stop gloating now.)

A jar of Barilla pasta sauce for $2.50 can be bulked up in a few minutes with a tin of 79c tomatoes, some fried onion and garlic and a liberal amount of quality salt and freshly ground pepper. Add fresh herbs if you've got them. A tiny splash of balsamic vinegar or red wine will give the sauce depth with minimal effort.

You can even buy garlic in a jar now if you don't have access to garlic straight out of the ground or you don't add it to everything like I do. Serve over decent quality (egg) pasta with a liberal amount of grated parmesan/reggiano and a generous glass of wine and you'll be a quasi-Italian Mama in minutes.

A couple of potatoes (I like ruby lou or royal blue but whatever you have is fine) brushed, not washed or peeled and some onion chucked into a food processor with a grating attachment can become potato rosti in a flash.

My grandmother likes to fry the onion first but I often forget.Mix the potato and onion with egg and a bit of flour. Season well and form into flat cakes with your hands. Pop them in the fridge for a few minutes if you remember, then into a small amount of oil over medium heat and flip when the bottom goes crispy and golden.

Drain the rosti on paper towel while you wilt some baby spinach in the frypan (off the heat will usually work) and poach or fry an egg or two. Stack up the plate with the spinach, rosti and then top with the egg. No harm in adding some proscuitto if you have it. Serve with beer.

If you've got time to scoot past an open butcher or fishmonger (lucky you!) on the way home your stocked pantry will convert a piece of protein into a meal, stat.

Fridge and Freezer essentials to follow!

UPDATE: While I'm finishing up my fridge and freezer posts, you might want to head over to Summer Tomato. Darya has written a great post about stocking your pantry for healthy eating.

Digital Meal Planning and Recipe Management

Rachel — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:28:10 +0000

I have previously posted about how planning meals and writing shopping lists save me money, time and stress. I use free digital tools to do this (although a pen and paper will work too).

The important bit is consistency and not wasting too much time stuffing around setting up a system. You will need to sort out what works for you. However, this is what works for me.

Once a week I plan my meals. Ideally I would always sit down in the same place and calmly write it out every week but my life isn't like that. I have two computers at home that I use regularly - a desktop computer in the study and a laptop. I also use a computer in the office when I'm not working from home and occasionally I use my husband's cute little eee pc when I'm out and about.

It is important to me to be able to access my shopping list/meal plan/recipes from all of those places. All of those computers other than the one in the office run Ubuntu linux. The office computer runs Windows XP and I'm limited in what I can install on that one (read: have no ability to download and install anything at all).

I enter my meal plan onto a free google calendar a week or so in advance. My husband and I have separate profiles on each of our computers. All have access to the google calendars (his, mine and the meal plan) from Thunderbird/Lightning (hint: install the provider for google calendar extension to get this going in thunderbird) and our customised iGoogle pages. We both have read/write access on our own calendars plus the meal plan calendar, and read access to the other's calendar. When I am writing the meal plan I can see quickly when my husband is going to be late home from work or when he is going out for a long lunch and is less likely to want a heavy dinner. (Edit: we've switched to using solely Gmail for email now - it is quicker than loading up Thunderbird, particularly on the eee pc.)

As I write out the meal plan, I add the ingredients that I need to the nifty web-based task manager, Todoist. I have a section set up for groceries etc which is divided by shop. As I run out of things during the week I add those to the list as well. As todoist is a web based app it is available everywhere that I have internet access. It also has a portal for access from your mobile phone.

Due to the fact that I'm hopeless when it comes to mobiles (sms is beyond me) and I'm too cheap to pay for unnecessary data, I don't usually access my shopping list on the fly. Instead, once I've finalised the shopping list I open Todoist up in print view, save the list as an html file and send it via bluetooth to my mobile. You could also print the list if you prefer.

The final part of my system is recipe storage. My previous system involved handwritten notes on scraps of paper decorated with dollops of sauce and oil spatters. Now I use Google Docs to manage my recipes. Each recipe is in its own file inside Google Docs.

One of the great things about Google Docs is that you can add multiple tags to each file. So a recipe for fruit mince pies might be tagged with 'baking' 'sweet' 'Christmas' 'fruit' etc. I can set up any individual file to be shared or can allow access to my full recipe repository. Google Docs is of course easily searchable and free.

Some other apps/extensions which make my digital life easier/more fun:

Gnome-do: a quick launcher for linux which includes the ability to quickly add or search events on google calendars

Ubiquity: a fabulous extension for firefox which performs all kinds of wonderful magic

Goosync: a nifty service which allows my google calendars to sync with my mobile phone via the cleverness of SyncML

Soocial: another nifty SyncML service, this time for contacts

Dropbox: a fabulous way of sharing all kinds of data with the whole world, a select few or just for backup. My mum and I have this set up to share all our family photos which are now available in a local directory on each computer. Dropbox automagically updates the folders when one of us adds new pics.

Feel free to ask questions/hurl abuse/offer suggestions in the comments section below. All the best to you and yours for a fabulously happy healthy and relaxing Christmas and holiday season.

How to plan your meals (flexibly) – part 2

Rachel — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:08:24 +0000

I recently posted the first in a series of I don't know how many yet, on how to plan your meals.

This is the second part in the series. This is the bit where you will write a master list. This list is not your weekly shopping list. This list forms the basis for everything in your fridge, pantry and freezer. This list, if written properly, will save you oodles of time.

The trick is not to copy someone else's list (not even mine). It needs to be tailored to the way that you live, work, cook and eat. It is no good building a pantry of polenta, lentils and cous cous if you're a meat and 3 veg kind of guy, even if it sounds like the right thing to do.

A few things about me:

I hate microwaves
I am lazy
I love saving money
I have a fairly big pantry
I prefer my meat/fish etc fresh, not frozen
2 people live here but other people like to eat here - with no notice

So with those things in mind, I know that my master list is *not* going to include half a cow in the freezer, nor is it going to include microwavable convenience meals in the pantry.

What my list does include, for example: a variety of different oils and vinegars (canola oil, olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, balsamic, red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, white vinegar) that are used for frying, as the base for salad dressings, dressing roast veg etc; spices (saffron, cloves, etc); flours, sugars and baking essentials; a variety of different types of pasta and rice, a cheating stash of stock, curry pastes and pickles, coconut milk and cream and much more.

My goal is to not waste food and not waste time at the supermarket.

As you change the way you cook, you will also need to tweak your master list. For example, we were given a breadmaker as a wedding present. Perfect gift for a lazy tight arse really. So I now always have flour and yeast handy to make bread, pizza etc.

A huge quantity of pizza dough takes 45 minutes in the breadmaker - then I roll it out and brush with a mix of eevo, fresh rosemary from the garden and garlic. I pop it into my benchtop pizza maker (which is the best thing ever) for 5 minutes and it serves as a great distraction while I'm getting dinner ready. Or for a quick dinner I just chuck some smoked salmon, rocket, fine rings of spanish onion and crumbled fetta on top of the pizza bases once they've come out of the oven.

There are a multitude of things you can make just from 'stuff' in the pantry - if you follow a basic pasta and sauce with a chocolate self-saucing pudding you'll still be in the good books and you won't need to head out to the shops.

This post is still in progress and is very much dependent on what you want. If you want me to post a list of my pantry/fridge/freezer essentials I will do that. If you want some quick recipes that can be made out of those basics I can do that too. Just leave a comment and let me know.

The next post will be how to plan a week's worth of meals and how to set out the list.

How to plan your meals (flexibly) – part 1

Rachel — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:47:28 +0000

I wrote this in response to Sunili's comment on my risotto recipe.

It might be time-consuming but I really believe that writing meal plans and shopping lists can help you to eat better more balanced meals and save money too. However, a lot of meal plans are set up so that while you eat nice, healthy, balanced meals and save some dosh, the meals are boring and repeated over and over ad infinitum. I don't like boring, so this is the way I do it.

To write an effective meal plan there are a number of things you will need to do first.

Inventory of your pantry, fridge and freezer

In my mind, this is one of the most important things you can do and so few people do it very often. You will need some spare time for this. I suggest breaking it down over a few days unless you have free time growing on trees (I don't). If you do this thoroughly you will save yourself a lot of time and money later.

Now if you have a perfectly organised and laid out pantry this will be easy. I'll assume you don't. If you do you can go and gloat for a while.

Start by taking the food out of the pantry, one shelf at a time. Once the shelf is empty, dust and then wipe it clean. (I use enjo cloths for this but you can use whatever you like, but please avoid strong chemicals in the kitchen. If you need a non-physical cleaner McClintock's make a nice vanilla fridge wipe that will do the job without spraying poison everywhere.) I also like to clean the pantry walls (mine is a walk-in) at the same time but I'm weird and you don't have to do that.

Take a very close look at all the food that you've pulled out of the pantry. The first thing I do is look for patterns and start to group things together. As you move each item, check the expiry date. When moving pasta, rice etc inspect well for weevils or any other nasties.

Everything in your pantry will be roughly divided into three groups - "I will eat it" "I would like to think that I will eat it because: it is horribly healthy/was on special/some other stupid reason, but I really won't" and "this food is now a science experiment". I hope you have a bin handy.

With the middle group, you can donate this to a charity group or nearest struggling student. In some cases some items may be in the middle group even though they could be in the "I will eat it group" just because you don't know how to prepare it/what to eat it with. If that's the case leave a comment here and I'm sure we can try and help.

You should now just be left with food in the "I will eat it group". Be honest with yourself and make sure that everything left does fit within this category. What is left will tell you something quite important about your eating habits - is everything tinned/packet convenience food or do you have a lot of bulk basics? Do you have 14 packets of rice noodles that were scattered around in different parts of the pantry? At this stage I often write rough notes on each type of food - ie: rice, pasta etc and note if I'm out of anything.

Before you go any further and get distracted you'll need to put everything back in the pantry. Before I do this I chart out my pantry onto paper and work out where I'm going to put everything but you can just roll your eyes at me and ignore that. Do make sure that you give some thought to where you put things though. Put like items with like and be conscious of what is at eye level and what isn't.

For example, in my pantry, my husband's cereal, muesli bars etc are all at his eye level. This avoids the male-pattern-blindness and staring blankly into the pantry every morning. On the other hand, I keep the couverture chocolate on the bottom shelf along with the baking powders, flour etc. I hope he isn't reading this.

Make sure that you can see everything in the pantry easily because you will need to be able to later!

Repeat this with your fridge and freezer. You'll need to work quickly here so just get the food out, clean the fridge (most cleaning products are not suitable for use in the fridge so be careful) and put the "I will eat" things back.

When you put everything back in the fridge make sure that raw meat is kept well separated from everything else. All raw meat in my fridge is kept on the bottom shelf. If you have traditional wire shelves this will stop any chance of raw meat dripping onto something else. I have glass shelves which makes my life easy, and I put meat on plates to further minimise any risk. Yes, I'm paranoid.

It is now probably a few days after you started and you hopefully now have a shiny clean pantry, fridge and freezer. Well done!

The next step is to work out your fridge/freezer/pantry basics that will form the foundation for your meal planning. Click to continue on to part 2 on how to plan your meals.

Eat like an American Congressman

Rachel — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:37:46 +0000

While I (slowly) write a detailed post on meal planning I thought I would share a few recipes with you. These recipes come from The Congressional Club Cook Book, 10th edition, published in 1982.

The book is a monument to truly awful eating.

This particular recipe was supplied by George Bush (snr).

Mexican Mound

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground hamburger meat
Lawry's taco seasonings mix
1 pkg Doritos
1 cup grated yellow cheese
1 or 2 small chopped onions
10 chopped black olives (ed: 11 is obviously way too many)
1 chopped tomato
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 can frozen avocado dip (ed: this should be illegal)

Method:

Easy to make, loved by all who love Mexican food. Ingredients easy to keep in the house. Children or guests can all help with chopping or grating. It's fun!! Follow instructions on taco seasonings mix for browning meat. I serve this meal in my kitchen, a big pot of meat simmering on the stove. A wooden salad bowl of Doritos and 7 bowls of the remaining ingredients around the table. Start with a mound of Doritos, a spoon of piping hot meat, cheese etc. Makes 8 servings.

Mmm yummy, Bush brain food.

This one came from Mrs Alan Simpson.

Party Vegetable Casserole

Ingredients:

2 pkgs frozen peas
2 pkgs frozen lima beans
2 pkgs frozen Fresh green beans
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (use Kraft in can) ed: or you could use some dried skin shavings instead

Method:

Parboil vegetables until tender. Layer in buttered casserole dish. Whip cream, add mayonnaise and parmesan cheese. Pour over vegetables. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 325F. Makes 12 servings. Can be prepared ahead and refrigerated.

Enjoy!