menu 2

well my menu from last week is nearly over. some reflections for future reference.
zucchini slice...a big winner!! it will be back in the menu very soon.
emily would not eat the chicken sticks...and they were yum and she was having a moment over the crumbed chicken (nugget size) too, but they were both also yummy, so we will try her on them again soon.

we have fried rice for tonight and then beef and carrot ragout tomorrow. we will see how they go.

if your looking for a menu that keeps working, without having to write one every week check out julies blog. link in side bar. she hasa great5 week menu that doesnt change but has plenty of room to move so that u are eating differently.

anyway i thought i would keep sharing our menus and some of the recipes. if u wanted to try menus and mine suit u and your family use away.

menu 2

this coming fortnight we will be having

• pork sausage and potato salad and greens
• lamb chops and veg
• chicken stirfry and rice {hoisin based stirfry, we will use little chicken and lots of stirfrying type fresh veg}
• creammy mushroom and bacon pasta {but we dont use cream, i will use evaporated milk instead}

first of our veg based meals this week will be

• stuffed roast potatos. {easy ,bake a well seasoned skin on potato -i will start ours in the microwave - then cut open add butter and some cold salads we r thinking slaw, top with sour cream and cheese}
• fish and salad plus roasted potatos {fish choice is up to dh, itjust depends whats good, but it will be pan seared and oven finished}
• warm beef salad
• roast meat {depends whats on special} and veg
• hamburgers on fresh homemade rolls with homemade mince patties and salad
• pizza on a homemade base with homemade pizza sauce
• apricot chicken in the slow cooker
• second veg based meal will be roast pumpkin pasta
• and attempting to add a third veg based meal this week, but its a totally new one for us so i dont know how it will go crisp rice omelette from donna hay with roast potatos and green salad
• and last this fortnight will be a meal out. probably at the local wine bar or the pub for parma night {im not sure i get the whole parma thing, but its huge down here}. we r trying very hard to not do takeaway. going to an affordable local walking distance place gets us all out of the house and is nice. and supports local business

DESSERT

• self saucing chocolate pudding - we didnt eat it last week so all ingredients r still in the cupboard
• fruit salad

MAKING

• homemade orange coridal
• homemade chocolate topping
• homemade muesli
• daily homemake bread
• eaisyo yoghurt

BAKING

• caramel-filled biscuits from donna hay and new for us
• lavash bread crackers
• apple muffins
• scones

and something i can decide yet!

and finally...we found a great fruit shop. its in a town about 20 minutes away from here, it reminds me of older style fruit and veg shops and it aways smells devine. i hate supermarket fruit and veg, and well im waiting waiting for my own produce to start, so im happy to of found this local to my council shire small business that well and truely deserves our hard earned money over the supermarket!

menu planning

i often menu plan
its a great way to save at the supermarket, it also helps me toremember to try new things i have found or to cycle things inthat we havent bothered to have in a while. it also makes me look in the cupboard before i go shopping (a job i hate! and one i am looking forward to saying good bye to one day soon on the fortnightly basis that is) anyway i thought i would start sharing our menus they go for two weeks generally.

im not good at saying on tuesday in two weeks i will have...because i end up looking at it and going no way! yuck. so we have found the best way for us or me hehe is to have 14 meals on a list and we just crossthem off when they r gone.

so this next two weeks we will be having
spaghetti bol twice (canned tomato, tomato soup, tomato paste, mushroom, mince, mixed herb sauce, with homemade pasta)
rice paper rolls (a fav in this house usually with lots of raw veg and stirfried chicken)
zuchinni slice and salad
quiche and salad (probably ham, onion all homemade)
crumbed chicken, homemade chips and other veg
pizza (homemade base, with various toppings)
chicken sticks (homemade) with salad
sausage, mash potato
roast chicken and veg
fried rice
bacon and egg pie and salad
beef and carrot ragout (slow cooker)
hamburgers(homemade mince patties, homemade bread rolls)

Its nothing special in terms of feeding ourselves, but i know that emily in particular will eat something if im lucky from each of the meals. she isnt into taking risks with food and refuses to eat if she doesnt like something. i am trying to find some veg dishes that she will eat. last week we had veg patties on our burgers...emily wouldnt eat, which was a shame because we all liked them, so this fortnight im going to try zucchini slice and fried rice (no meat) and see what happens. lilly used to love zucchini slice so im hopeful of some success with that one. im trying to work into our eating 2 meals per week that r just veg based...so far ive got one in each week, its hard going with my house of meat eaters...but we r getting there slowly.
lunches we generally eat leftovers, tuna and salad open sandwiches on fresh daily baked bread or we r out or lilly is at preschool. so i left lunch off our menu planning. we usually incooperate eating out once a week too, but for the next fortnight we decided to stay home for dinners because i had mylovely friend marnie here lastweek and while we were great for dinner opting to stay home we spent a bit over lunch time and on some wine for after the kids were in bed asleep toohehe..:) so we rfinding the balance a bit this fortnight.

we will also bake
bread daily
lavash biscuits
cakes
jam drops
donut cupcakes
muesli bars/slice
and make
pasta
yoghurt
a dip or two for snacks
and more muesli for breakfast

i will also add two deserts (we dont often have it, but like to know itsthere if we want it)
apple crumble
self saucing chocolate pudding

so thats us...what r u planniing on having this week??
share away

where we r at

with our simple living change.

• i forget the last time i actually bought a loaf of bread, we generally make a loaf a day. a mix of white, wholemeal and bread rolls depending on my mood and what is in the pantry.
• cleaning wise we have had a huge change, we r now on septic so many of the products i once used r out the window. we r generally getting by on vingear and bicarb, i usually wipe the benches down at the start of the washing up using the clean water with homemade dishwashing liquid in it. i am however back using a dishwasher...woohoo...but cant use alot of homemade powders because of the borax (it cant go in the septic), and that fact that in vic i can not for the life of me find washing soda...go figure. in the washing machine for our clothes we r using environmentally friendly, septic friendly liquids...its as good as its going to get i think. the floors for the most part we r using dry flat mop for sweeping, and a mircrofibre wet mop for mopping. mircofibre in the bathroom too, thankfully i have no mould problems in this house. when the microfibre just wont do it (esp with a toilet training toddler on the floors) i do go for something a little more!
• we took a bit of a pledge to not buy new clothes...its going well. for the girls and myself im making quite bit...the only things on the buy list r underwear and school uniforms.
• christmas : the kids r getting ALOT of homemade items this year. at their ages they wont know the difference.
• we r growing some of our own food.

its still a work in progress atm, as we build beds etc, i hope they r all going by sunday/monday. all the plants will be raised from seed by me, i have been working on that for ages and i have numerous things ready to go in the garden beds by monday..:) we have choosen to landscape parts of our new yard with etable plants and vines. alot of the yard already had etable trees. and this morning i was greeted to this view of my garbage bin potatos...they r poking their little heads up woohoo. i have two bins of potatos and more seed potatos to go down in the garden beds next week too. its all a bit late i know. but we r enjoying the changes..:) in the gardens so far we already have planted a bay leaf tree, 2 beans, 1 snowpea, 2 zuchinnis, 2 corns, 2 cucumbers, i just poped them in the beds that were here.

• we r trying to make everything we eat from scratch, that we can atm. see the museli a tthe top of the page...blogger wont let me move it for some strange reason. i have wanted to make my own for weeks, finally this morning was the day. i dont know why it took so long as it was very easy. and its so yum. i didnt measure anything, but it has a pack of rolled oats, half a pack of bran (i used processed bran i cant stand the flakey stuff), coconut, dried apple and apricot, sutanas, a seed mix, pine nuts and almonds that dan roasted in the oven first (worth it, i wouldnt of but he wanted to) i think thats it....shake and your done...i had mine with milk this morning, but im going to make some vanilla yoghurt today for tomorrow cause i bet it will be since with that too. i couldnt tell the price of the museli i didnt count it bad i know...but i have enough of everything except the oats to do it all again so its not to bad when i put it like that. i have purchased an electric fowlers vacola preserving kit from ebay so we can make tomato sauce, pasta sauce, beetroots etc and get stock pilling our own food, i should have it next week so that will be some interesting experienmenting to come!
• we decided whenw e moved to change our eletricity. we went to go switch and compared the deals around. we wanted to go with some green energy. 10% green power saw no change in the bills we were paying, but we went 25% for $1 extra per week. i would love to work towards 100%. we have done alot of thinking about the electricity we used during winter. i know its part of living here but we were running the dryer for every wash for months because things just wouldnt dry. i saw a mrspeggs clothesline advertised. its a portable line that is better constructed than the clothes airers etc that r available. anyway we need a new clothes line here. so we decided to go with a portable one, that will easily come inside and hold a load of washing well over winter so it can be dried in the rooms we pay to heat. might as well get what we can out of it., we r interested to see how much of a difference this will make for us over the winter months if we dont have to run the dryer ALL the time.
• im still knitting dishclothes (everyone even my chef dh loves them)
• we have cut out most throw away items
• we have reduced our rubbish by making things from scratch because there is no packaging, by giving things to preschool for construction and by starting our compost off, and by making emily's training pants ive reduced the nappies we r using to mainly a night time useage. (that one is also good for the bank balance!)
• another big change we have all made is a committment to stop using shampoo and conditioner. we have started by using an apple vingear rinse and having another few weeks to go before we start using bicarb for our hair as well. the vingear rinse was surprising! the first time we were oh i dont know...the second time was bit better...the third and my hair was like i had usedsome expensive shampoo and condition...it was so lovely. im preparing myself to go through the ups and downs again when we change to the bicarb as well...but the vingear taught us it will get better and with great results.

well thats just a bit of what we have been working away on since deciding to live this life. we r all happiler, healthier and never bored thats for sure