Our Big but Thrifty day out

Sparky and I had our regular holiday movie day yesterday. After the horrors of the Easter Show cost last week, I went looking for bargains....double pass from ebay: c $16. snacks and water from home during movie: $?? not that much. lunch at a food court (Sparky's choice) c$10. train travel c$7. I figure at $17 each we did well.

We saw Monsters vs Aliens. It was PG which we usually avoid, but there were no G movies (in school holidays!) It was a little scary for 4, but he still enjoyed it. It was quite funny too, so something for the parents there. Though, as usual, the funniest lines had been used in the trailer.

Note to self : don't take son for his haircut on your fun day out. Yes, it was convenient. No, it wasn't worth it.

mincing around

I've been having some adventures with mince this weekend (kinda ironic I'm blogging this so soon after veggie post), cooking some new kid friendly, veggie full, easy and cheap mince meals. The food mags seem to have responded to the recession with mince meals, so I adapted a couple of them.

First up Saturday night was homemade sausage rolls (I made mine with veggie mince, but everyone elses' with veal mince). The difference with this homemade variety was lots of added veggies - grated carrot and zucchini, chopped onion, garlic and shallots, lemon zest and also some low fat cheese. Sparky ate it all up, Scout not so keen - I think I might use the zest more sparingly next time as I think that was his issue. Still ate a good amount. Tomato sauce had by all.

Tonight, we had savoury mince, an old favourite from childhood (I had something else this time, but will have to try a veggie version I think, after tasting the sauce for this one). Bhaer had never had savoury mince!!!! Bhaer and Sparky loved it, and Scout went pretty well. Lots of finely chopped veggies and onions thrown in, with lean beef mince, and a sauce made from soy sauce, flour, beef stock, and a french onion soup packet. I served it up on toast- Sparky had his first go of using a knife and fork properly. Scout was given the toast as finger food and the mince as spoon food. He enjoyed that! And Bhaer was so enamoured of his first taste of good ol savoury mince, he went back for seconds.

Not that this is some kind of women's magazine, but...

I was in 2 minds about writing this post, not wanting to be promoting consumerism, but I thought it might be helpful, so here goes.

I just received in the mail my latest order from Peter's of Kensington online. This is the second time I have ordered from them and it has been quick and easy both times.

But the main thing is, it has enabled me to buy loved ones presents I couldn't otherwise afford. The shipping costs are very reasonable if you buy more than one item. I just bought 3 items - presents for my mother and mother in law to put away til their birthdays.

To give you an example of the discounts you can get, the best discount I got this time was an item that was 13 down from 109, and it was perfect for Mum. Obviously just in case she reads this, I can't name the item.

Since I'm a previous customer they send me a newsletter every week with select items and this alerts me to any very good bargains.

And, so much easier than driving to Kensington!

a thrifty kid friendly veggie-full bolognaise

Well, here is another post in my irregular cooking series. A meal that I quite often make for the kids. I just made it last night and totted up the total cost - it is around AU$2.00 per adult serve (or AU$1.00 per little kid serve).

It packs in a lot of sneaky veggies too, and adjusts itself to whatever veggies you have hanging around.

Ingredients:
400-500g mince beef( I just put in the whole amount of the packet I buy, you can also use for a more authentic taste pork/veal mince combo.)

a large pasta sauce jar the bigger the better 500-750g (Or make from scratch if less time stretched, to make up for that then will need a can of tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic and 1 onion at most basic)

About 4 cups (or more) of veggies, comprising:
grated veggies - I will often use a carrot and a zucchini, but anything really that is firm - give eggplant a go as well.
AND/OR
finely chopped veggies (can use frozen - try celery, carrot, peas, corn, cauliflower)
AND/OR
can of legumes such as lentils/beans/chickpeas

500g pasta

Taste enhancers: you can add any of the following to give it more flavour - tomato paste(or sauce at a pinch!), fresh or dried Italian herbs such as oregano, marjoram, parsley, basil, salt and pepper, extra fresh onion and garlic, bacon.

Optional- sprinkle cheese on top.

Cook pasta per directions, and really there is no special way to cook the sauce, except that if you have really young kids throw veggies in earlier even at start to get them more tender, and add softer veggies later. I use olive oil spray when I brown the meat to reduce the fat content.

This makes up to 6 adult serves and up to 12 little kid serves.

Thriftiness in cooking

I'm feeling very 1950s as I write this! Trying to save money at the supermarket has been going well (which is helpful at the moment!).

Here are some more cooking ideas that have been working for me:

1. Reduce the amount of meat meals you have. People often eat a lot more meat than necessary, and it tends to be the most expensive element of a meal. They say (the infamous they...) you don't need meat every meal.

2. Try tofu. No, I'm serious. For those who haven't cooked it, it can be offputting I know, but you need to use the right kind - I find firm tofu (or nigari) is the easiest to cook. It soaks up sauces well, so it's great in stir fries and laksa. It is cheap, and a very good source of protein. Also can be cut into thin strips, fried and then soaked in soy sauce - quite yummy.

3. Try tinned fish. I've been substituting tinned salmon in salmon recipes.

My greatest budget triumph was tonight's meal - last week I found 1kg of carrots on sale for 99c so I bought them on spec. Tonight I cooked 500g of them into soup for 2 of us - just add stock, half an onion (which was hanging round in the crisper about to go off), one garlic clove, bay leaves, parsley and season. We had it with sourdough bread that had been on special. Not entirely sure what that ended up being per serve, but I'm guessing under 1.50 each. The leftover bread is in the freezer to make croutons later this week.

super thriftiness

Lately, I've been more interested to save money at the supermarket (because it's hard to save it elsewhere at the moment like at the pump or the mortgage!!!).

Here is what I do:

1. go shopping after receiving the local supermarket's catalogue, so I know what is on sale when I plan my meals and the overall shop. My local is woolies - you can view their specials online if you don't have the catalogue.

2. I also take a look in my fridge and pantry at what I have that needs to be used up, and try to think of recipes based on that - in light of which I just found a website for USING LEFTOVERS - punch in 3 ingredients and find recipes to use them up. You could also use this by typing in ingredients on sale that week.

3. work out how many nights I need meals for - and sometimes I deliberately plan for one meal less as this allows for those nights where something came up, or forces you to use up leftovers in making a meal - I usually plan for 5 dinners a week - allowing for one takeaway (Fri night before I go to work - cheap like sushi) and one easy meal like soup/eggs/cheese on toast/leftovers (usually Sun night after big day and often eating out during day with people from church).