Weekly menu plan # 6 - Remembering prep work

Something I'm loving about menu planning is remembering to do all the prep work before a meal - things like baking, soaking and thawing.

Last week I made two meals with millet - Millet Cakes and Millet Fried Rice. I saved on workload by soaking all the millet together, and then cooking it all together the next day. I refrigerated the cooked millet I would need to make Millet Fried Rice, and used the rest for my millet cakes.

Having thought through the steps while I put my menu plan together made these two dinners so much quicker, easier and healthier to put together. Healthier because I soaked the millet first to release phytase and aid absorption. Also healthier because I remembered to thaw chicken stock to cook the millet in, for extra nutrients.


Sunday:
To do: Make yoghurt. Make Dehydrated crispy green beans.
Breakfast: Baked beans on toast
Lunch:  Leftovers
Dinner: Irish nachos topped with leftover roast chicken, limey refried beans, mung beans, salsa and sour cream.

Monday:
To do: Soak porridge for Tuesday's breakfast. Make Grain-free Chocolate Raspberry Muffins. Thaw blade steak for Tuesday.
Breakfast: Asian Mince on Rice (from freezer)
Lily's lunchbox: Honey bubble slice, unhulled crispy pumpkin seeds, mini fruit crumble.
Dinner: Porterhouse steak, Lychee Salad (use cucumber instead of paw paw) and mashed potatoes.

Tuesday:
To do: Make Mediterranean Scrolls with leftover mashed potato and basil pesto from freezer.
Breakfast:  Soaked apple porridge.
Lily's lunchbox: Berry pudding, Mediterranean Scrolls, raw vegetable slices.
Dinner: Wintery Beef Casserole and Mediterranean Scrolls.

Wednesday:
To do: Make dough for dinner rolls at 3pm. Thaw 4c chicken stock for Thursday.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on toast
Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie: Grain-free Chocolate Raspberry Muffins, Popcorn, dried apple slices.
Dinner: Mince and cheese pie (made with leftover casserole) and puff pastry from freezer with garden salad drizzled in Simunovich Lemon Infused Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Thursday:
Breakfast: Latkes (potato pancakes with vegetables)
Lily's lunchbox: Homemade yoghurt and frozen berries, Marmite and Cheese Sandwich, Chopped Fruit and Vegetables.
Dinner: Salsa cream cheese soup.

Friday:
To do: Prepare blender vanilla oat pancakes and thaw vanilla poached apple slices. Thaw 6c chicken stock for Saturday's soup.
Breakfast:  Millet cakes (from freezer)
Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie: Berry puddings, Sandwiches, Vegetable sticks.
Dinner: Crispy chicken tortillas with salad fixings.

Saturday:
Breakfast: Blender vanilla oat pancakes with vanilla poached apple slices and homemade yoghurt.
Lunch:  Leftovers
Dinner:  Pumpkin soup (from freezer)

100% NUTZ peanut butter review

Last week I was thrilled to receive three tubs of heavenly 100% NUTZ peanut butter to review for Munch Cooking:

• 100% natural peanut butter
• 100% natural peanut butter with sea salt
• 100% dark chocolate peanut spread

100% NUTZ peanut butter is made right here in New Zealand using GMO-free hi-oleic peanuts, which apparently have a fatty acid composition similar to olive oil. That makes this peanut butter healthy to eat and incredibly shelf stable.

All three 100% NUTZ peanut butters are delicious and have a surprisingly short ingredients list.

The original spread - 100% natural peanut butter - is literally just peanuts, nothing else. And the funny thing is I think it’s my favourite of the lot. In any case, I’ve been devouring it on crackers like it’s nobody’s business.

100% natural peanut butter with sea salt only contains what the name suggests – peanuts and sea salt.

The nuts are roasted a little longer in this one, which gives the peanut butter a stronger flavour and darker colour.

I also enjoyed this spread on crackers, but it really shone in the recommended satay dip recipe I made by mixing four teaspoons of peanut butter with a cup of natural yoghurt, a teaspoon of sweet chilli sauce and a teaspoon of curry powder. What a heavenly accompaniment to vegetable sticks! We made and devoured two bowls of satay dip over the past week.

100% dark chocolate peanut spread is a healthier chocolate spread choice. It’s made with dark Donovan chocolate and peanuts, so it has way less sugar than other brands and no added salt.

I’ll be honest, we’ve mostly been spooning it straight from the tub to our mouths. However, you can also make simple truffles with it by rolling balls of it in chopped nuts or desiccated coconut.

I’ve also discovered it tastes divine in chocolate smoothies – just blend a hunk of the 100% dark chocolate peanut spread with a banana, 1 cup of raw cream or raw milk, ¼ cup kefir or yoghurt (for beneficial probiotics), 1 cup of ice, 1 Tablespoon of cocoa, 1/2 Tablespoon of honey, 1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence and 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (optional). 

Too yummy! And your kids will never suspect it’s healthy!

Now I’m hoping the crew at 100% NUTZ will start playing around with other nuts. If they can make the simple peanut taste so good, imagine what they could do with almonds or cashews.

How do you like to eat your peanut butter?

How I turn one yoghurt sachet into four batches of yoghurt

We go through a lot of yoghurt at our house, especially now that I'm experiencing serious smoothie cravings, so I've been experimenting with ways to stretch our store-bought Greek yoghurt sachets further, without sacrificing taste or texture.

Here is my new yoghurt-making routine, which allows me to stretch one yoghurt sachet into four 1KG batches of thick, creamy yoghurt.

Firstly I recommend getting yourself an EasiYo yoghurt maker. Yoghurt-making is a breeze with these things! You can often find them at Op shops for about $3, or brand new from the supermarket they will cost you about $20 - still not breaking the bank.

Here's how I make my yoghurt x4.

Step 1 - Make up a batch of yoghurt using half an EasiYo or Hansells sachet and half a sachet's worth of (cheaper) plain whole milk powder. (Store the other half sachet in the fridge until you're ready to use it.)

Step 2 - Eat this batch of yoghurt almost to the bottom, but while there are still a few tablespoons left in your container, fill it back up with one cup of plain whole milk powder whisked with filterered water. Make a second batch of yoghurt in your EasiYo yoghurt maker with this and eat it all the way down.

Step 3 - Repeat step 1 with the second half of your yoghurt sachet to make your third batch of yoghurt.

Step 4 - Repeat step 2 to make your fourth batch of yoghurt.

You could stretch your yoghurt further by continuing to use milk powder and water mixed with the last bit of yoghurt again and again, but I don't like the taste and texture as much after the first time doing this, so I'm happily sticking with my four lots.

If you give this technique a try, let me know how you get on.

Weekly menu plan # 5 - Using older pantry staples

Last week I was busy painting our master bedroom, and glad to be able to rely on my menu plan to keep food happening. 

This week I've deliberately looked for ways to use two of my older pantry items, barley and millet. I'm excited to try new-to-me recipes for Millet cakes, Millet fried rice and Chicken Barley Soup with them.

Sunday:

To do: Harvest pumpkin from garden. Rinse pumpkin seeds and soak in brine overnight. Make Soaked apple and cinnamon oat muffins.

Breakfast: Soaked apple porridge

Lunch:  Croissants filled with cucumber and cream cheese / Bacon and egg butties

Dinner: Pumpkin soup (using homegrown pumpkin)

Monday:

To do: Cook cauliflower earlier in day. Dehydrate pumpkin seeds. 

Breakfast: Chicken Korma on Rice (from freezer), Strawberry lemonade slushies (using dextrose instead of stevia).

Lily's lunchbox: Grain-free chocolate raspberry muffin, feijoa jelly, chopped vegetables.

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Sandwiches

Dinner: Cauliflower crust pizza (3/4 Hawaiian, 1/4 Peperoni).

Tuesday:

To do: Make Queso and set aside two pottles for girls' lunchboxes on Wednesday. Soak 1/3c millet for Wednesday + 1c millet for Friday and thaw 1c chicken stock for Wednesday's dinner plus 3c chicken stock for Friday's dinner. Put frozen chicken in fridge to thaw for Thursday.

Breakfast:  Chocolate Dream Smoothie.

Lily's lunchbox: Feijoa jelly, Soaked apple and cinnamon oat muffin, chopped vegetables, mandarin.

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Vegetable sticks dipped in Queso.

Dinner: Lamb Middle Loin Chops, Quinoa Pilaf with Cranberries and Almonds, Lychee Salad (use cucumber instead of paw paw).

Wednesday:

To do: Cook soaked millet for Millet cakes and Millet fried rice.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on toast, Berry Delight Smoothie.

Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie: Mini apple crumbles, vegetable sticks and Queso dip, raisins.
Lunch for Emma: Leftover Quinoa Pilaf.

Dinner:  Millet cakes, sausages and garden salad.

Thursday:

Breakfast: Java cream and stewed feijoas (from pantry).

Lily's lunchbox: Java cream, Pineapple-cheese-cherry tomato kebabs, Pineapple-grape kebabs, Soaked apple and cinnamon oat muffin. 

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Leftover Quinoa Pilaf and salsa cheese toasty sandwiches.

Dinner: Roast chicken, gravy, oven fries and steamed peas and carrots.

Friday:

To do: Prepare blender vanilla oat pancakes and thaw vanilla poached apple slices. Thaw 6c chicken stock for Saturday's soup.

Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs on toast, Peach kefir smoothie

Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie: Scottish breakfast pancakes (from freezer), homemade yoghurt and frozen blueberries and raspberries, raisins, unhulled crispy pumpkin seeds, chopped vegetables.

Dinner: Millet fried rice #2 (soaked first and cooked in homemade chicken stock).

Saturday:

Breakfast: Blender vanilla oat pancakes with vanilla poached apple slices and homemade yoghurt.

Lunch:  Leftovers

Dinner:  Chicken Barley Soup (using leftover chicken from Thursday and omitting mushrooms) with oven warmed Simple Spelt Bread (from freezer).

Master bedroom makeover

As you may know, we've been working our way around the house, painting it room by room. So far I've posted about:

• The girls' bedroom 
• Our kitchen, dining room and lounge
• Paul's office

Today I'm going to show you our freshly painted master bedroom, which I am in love with. 

The room used to be a burnt red colour, which wasn't hideous, but did make the room really dark. Not good when your favourite past time is reading in bed. 

The paint was also really chipped and in need of a tidy up.

I don't have great before shots of our bedroom, but here are some taken on Lily's birthday a couple of years ago.

Before

After
And here is the room now, with three Resene Geyser (gray) walls, and one Resene Spray (aqua) feature wall behind the headboard.

I even managed to find a new duvet cover on special at Farmers that tied in nicely. (Probably should have ironed it, but who has time for such things?)

Day time shot.

Night time shot.

Night time shot of the other side. I'd love to paint the wardrobe white.

Here's a break down of how I painted the room, for those interested in the technical details. You can read about the tools I like to use here.

Bay window
I painted the bay window first, while we were still using the bedroom. I spent three days on it, in between seeing to the girls' needs.

Window Day 1: Scrape the chipping paint with a Linbide Tungsten Scraper and sand all the surfaces smooth with our Makita electric sander. This literally took all day, but it was in a bad way and I wanted to do a good job.

Linbide Tungsten Scraper.

Window Day 2: Paint undercoat over the frames and ceiling of the bay window, being careful to catch drips. I also painted about two millimetres onto the actual glass, as this helps seal and protect the frames.

Window Day 3: Paint two white semi-gloss top coats on the frames and ceiling of the bay window. Admire work.

Bedroom walls and ceiling
A couple of weeks later, I tackled the rest of the bedroom. I would have started it sooner, but Sophie got very sick and I spent days nursing her. Time well spent, I think. It took me three days to paint the rest of the bedroom, after we had cleared it out.

Step 1: Clear everything out and clean the room floor to ceiling, mainly to get rid of dust and spider webs that will otherwise ruin the paint finish.

Step 2: Plaster in any holes, chips, bumpy bits on the walls and ceiling with GIB Plus 4. There were A LOT of holes in this room, which hadn't been painted in over a decade.

Step 3: Wait for the plaster to dry and then sand it smooth with a Makita Electric Sander. (I love that thing.)

Step 4: Lay drop cloths down and cut in (with a 50mm acrylic ABC contour brush) white one-coat ceiling flat paint on scotias and along the edges of the beams in the ceiling - anywhere the roller won't be able to paint. I also painted the ceiling flat on the top couple of inches of red wall to give a cleaner finish when the other coats went on.

Step 5: Roll the flat areas of the ceiling with white one-coat ceiling flat paint.

Step 6: Cut in white undercoat on the red wall immediately above the wooden skirting boards, around the door, windows, light switches and electric sockets.

Step 7: Roll white undercoat over the rest of the red walls.

Step 8: Cut in another layer of white undercoat underneath scotias, above skirting boards on the wall, and around the door, windows, light switches and electric sockets.

Step 9: Roll another layer of white undercoat over the walls. (Usually you would only do one layer of undercoat, but I did two because the red walls were so dark and needed extra coverage.)

Step 10: Cut in Resene Geyser (gray) top coat on three of the walls (around skirting boards, scotias, door, window, sockets and down next to the feature wall.

Step 11: Roll Resene Geyser over three of the walls.

Step 12: Repeat step 10.

Step 13: Repeat step 11.

Step 14: Cut in Resene Spray (aqua) top coat on the feature wall (around skirting boards, scotias, door, window, sockets and down next to the adjoining gray walls).

Step 15: Roll Resene Spray over feature wall.

Step 16: Repeat step 14.

Step 17: Repeat step 15.

Step 18: Clean up, especially any paint that has got under the drop cloths onto the floor. I find a steam mop really good for getting these spills out.

There you have it - and the reason I didn't blog during the week. I was too busy painting!

What do you think of our new master bedroom? I'm in love. In fact, I'm sitting in the very bed you see above, writing this post.

Addicted to smoothies - two new recipes

Sophie enjoying a chocolate smoothie for breakfast.

I think I'm experiencing my first ever pregnancy craving, for smoothies. I can not get enough of them. Every day I feel antsy until I get my smoothie hit.

Hmmmm. Mmmm. Hmmmm! And then life is so good.

I've been experimenting around a little, taking my base recipes from Riddlelove's smoothie catalogue and adding a few extras that my body seems to want, like coconut oil and a few drops of fermented cod liver oil.

Since smoothies are on my mind, I thought I would share my two current favourite recipes with you.

Chocolate dream smoothie

Ingredients

• 1c raw cream or milk (or combination)
• 1/2c milk kefir or homemade yoghurt (or combination)
• 1c ice
• 1 banana
• 1-2T cocoa
• 2T nut butter (almond, peanut or 100% NUTZ dark chocolate peanut butter)
• 1T honey
• 1T coconut oil (you could melt it first for a smoother finish, but I don't bother)
• 1t real vanilla essence
• Few drops fermented cod liver oil

Method
Blend on high speed until smooth, then get it in you as fast as humanly possible (unless you're not a crazy pregnant lady, in which case you can savour it at a more leisurely pace).

Berry delight smoothie

Ingredients

• 1c raw cream or milk (or combination)
• 1/2c milk kefir or homemade yoghurt (or combination)
• 1c ice
• 1 banana
• 1c frozen berries (blueberry, raspberry and strawberry is a nice combination)
• 1T honey (if we open a tin of fruit, I save the juice and use that instead to sweeten this smoothie)
• 1T coconut oil (you could melt it first for a smoother finish, but I don't bother)
• Few drops fermented cod liver oil

Method
Blend on high speed until smooth, then drink it while still standing at the bench (unless you're not experiencing mad pregnancy cravings, in which case you can sit down and enjoy it at your leisure).


Enjoy!

~ You can find more Craving Fresh recipes here. ~

Weekly menu plan # 4 - A wonderful girl's 2nd birthday party

This week started off with a joint birthday party for Sophie and two of her best buddies, who all turn two this month. My goodness, where did those two years go?

Sophie requested an orange cake for her birthday, so we made this gluten free one and decorated it with orange segments. It didn't look as good as the recipe I took it from, since my oven blackens everything on top, but it received lots of compliments for its taste. And I was glad to stay away from white flour and food colouring.

Sunday:

To do: Enjoy Sophie's birthday party! And marinate chicken nibbles for Monday's dinner.

Breakfast: Baked beans on toast for girls, leftover lasagne for Paul and Emma

Lunch:  Peanut Butter sandwiches

Party: Provide Orange cake, grapes, mini mince pies, juice.

Dinner:  Party food.

Monday:

To do: Make Grain-Free Chocolate Raspberry Muffins and yoghurt, sprout mung beans, thaw 2c chicken stock for Tuesday's dinner.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on toast.

Lily's lunchbox: Mini apple crumble, grapes, Marmite and cheese sandwich.

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Cheese toasty sandwiches and grapes

Dinner:  Chicken nibbles, homemade potato wedges and garden salad.

Tuesday:

To do: Make Queso and set aside two little pottles of it for girls' lunchboxes on Wednesday. Soak 1c brown rice and thaw 2c chicken stock for Wednesday night's dinner.

Breakfast:  Grain-Free Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Lily's lunchbox: Frozen berry pudding, popcorn, chopped fruit and vegetables 

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Vegetable sticks dipped in Queso.

Dinner:  Lamb Middle Loin Chops, Quinoa Pilaf with Cranberries and Almonds, Garden Salad.

Wednesday:

To do: Soak mixture for Thursday's tortillas.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on toast.

Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie: Mini apple crumbles, vegetable sticks and Queso dip.

Dinner:  Asian Mince on Rice (cooked in chicken stock)

Thursday:

Breakfast:  Chocolate Breakfast Shakes and leftover Asian Mince on Rice

Lily's lunchbox: Honey Rice Bubble Slice (from freezer), Marmite and cheese sandwich, chopped fruit and vegetables.

Lunch at home for Sophie and Emma: Leftover Quinoa Pilaf.

Dinner: Quesadillas filled with homemade refried beans (from freezer).

Friday:

To do: Soak porridge

Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs on toast

Lunchboxes for Lily and Sophie:  Grain-Free Chocolate Raspberry Muffins, chopped fruit and veges, Marmite and cheese puff pastries.

Dinner:  Chicken korma on soaked rice (from freezer)

Saturday:

Breakfast: Soaked apple porridge.

Lunch:  Leftovers

Dinner:  Roast lamb and gravy, roast potatoes, steamed vegetables.