Taking roast dinner as a work lunch

Roast beef with pumpkin, mashed potato and peas

This is the work lunch (dinner) that I am sending with Mr Techno today.

It makes a change from sandwiches, and with the cooler weather, it is warming to have something hot for his meal at work.

It is leftover roast beef pumpkin, mashed potato from the recent evening meal and then I add some frozen peas.

I have found that if I spoon some leftover gravy over the meat, it prevents the meat from drying out when it is reheated at work.

Gravy keeps the meat moist when the meal is reheated.

I put this in Mr Techno’s insulated lunch pack with 2 pieces of fruit and a homemade banana muffin.

Mr Techno’s insulated lunch carrier reminds me of Fred Flinstone’s lunch pack!

Rocket Pesto Recipe (Aragula)

Homemade rocket pesto

I have an abundance of rocket ( aragula) growing in my herb garden. As I mentioned yesterday, I harvested lots of it. It is growing faster than I can eat it!

This rocket has a fantastic peppery flavour. Also, it has grown in my organic garden, so no nasty pesticides. It is grown in soil enriched with my  homemade compost and worm tea.

So I had a kitchen sinkful of rocket leftover. I washed it thoroughly.

Then I set out to experiment making rocket pesto.

Here is the recipe that I ended up settling on.

Rocket Pesto

2 cups of chopped rocket, firmly packed

1/3 cup grated or shredded parmesan cheese

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup almonds

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

Crush the almonds. I used a rolling pin and put the almonds in a  bag and then hit the bag with the rolling pin!

In a pan toast the almonds with the garlic in a light film of olive oil (extra).

Put the rocket, almonds, garlic, parmesan cheese and the olive oil in a food processor and blend for a brief time, checking until you have the consistency of pesto that you desire.

Put into an airtight container and seal with a little extra olive oil on top. This will ensure that it keeps for longer.

Store in the fridge.

Use stirred through cooked pasta, spread onto grilled meats, use as a pizza topping  or spread on sandwiches.

Simple Living Day

Here are some of the simple living things that I did today :

washed my laundry with homemade laundry detergent

walked 5km  in my neighbourhood for my daily exercise

hung my laundry on the line to air dry

made lunches for  my husband and daughter of homemade bread, banana muffins, and fruit to take to work and school. I wrapped the sandwiches in paper instead of plastic.

harvested my huge crop of rocket (aragula) from my herb garden

enjoyed  a bowl of homemade leek and potato soup with freshly torn rocket in the sunshine for my lunch

ground by hand some rocket into a pesto with improvised mortar and pestle. aka mixing bowl and blunt end of rolling pin!

read my favourite simple living blogs

experimented to create  a homemade rocket, toasted almond and parmesan pesto. Bottled jars of rocket pesto!

listened to my daughter read

cooked a roast dinner from scratch

listed some items of Freecyle to give away

monitored our finances/budget with my husband

talked to my husband about our simple and sustainable plans (in the sunshine)

gave some rocket to my neighbours

cast off  my scarf that I have been learning how to knit

read a chapter of my book from the library “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.

What was your simple living day like today?

Simple Lunch

With the cooler weather, I have been making up a soup every week. My lunches have consisted of a bowl of soup, with a handful of shredded organic rocket (aragula) from my herb garden, a dollop of homemade yoghurt, and some freshly cracked pepper.

This is served with fresh homemade bread with a spread of real butter.

 

Homemade Snacks for School and Work Lunches

One of the things that I have stopped buying is prepackaged snacks for school and work lunches. I make lunches and morning teas for my husband to take to work and my daughter to take to school.

I always send a piece of seasonal fruit.  In summer it might be grapes and strawberries, in winter it might be apples and Queensland bananas.

In addition, my husband and daughter like to have a sweet treat , so I have started to bake something each week. I do the baking with my daughter, so that it is a weekly activity that we like to do together.

Here is what we made together last night.

In Australia these are known as ANZAC biscuits. This recipe makes 24 golden biscuits. We love them!

ANZAC biscuits.

1 cup of rolled oats

3/4 cup of coconut

1 cup plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 cup sugar

125g butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

In a large bowl mix rolled oats, coconut, sifted flour and sugar.

In a medium saucepan, gently melt butter and golden syrup.

Mix bicarbonate of soda with boiling water. Pour this into the saucepan mixture.  It will froth up.

Pour this mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.

Spoon dessertspoonfuls of mixture onto a greased oven trays. Leave room for the biscuits to spread.

Bake in 150 degrees Celsius oven for 20 mins.

Allow to cool on tray.

I have a glass cookie jar that I like to keep them in. There is something very comforting about having a jar full of homemade cookies.

The simple pleasure of growing and sharing my own herbs

Earlier this year, I started a herb garden.

I have been enjoying fresh herbs grown in my little herb garden. There is mint, basil, coriander and kaffir lime leaves as well as rocket and lemongrass. I like to cook Thai food and many of these herbs are used in my meals that I prepare. Fresh herbs really give a lift to the simple food.

I have just been outside in the dusk, watering my herb garden. My rocket  (aka aragula) is growing profusely.  We have enjoyed it as a rocket and parmesan salad, on sandwiches made with homemade bread, stirred through pasta with olive oil and lemon dressing and of course with some freshly cracked blacked  pepper.

I picked a large bunch of rocket and passed it over the fence to our new neighbour.

It feels so good being able to share food that I have grown myself.

Creating my little herb garden

Now that I no longer live in a townhouse since we left Sydney, I have been keen to start a herb garden.

I’ve tried the herbs in pots thing. In the past giving me something to grow in a pot was the kiss of death for the poor plant.

As we are renting in the short term, I thought a modular raised garden bed might be the best option.

I bought a purpose built raised garden.

Modular pieces are assembled using wing nuts.

Modular raised garden bed is assembled. I have placed it next to the rainwater rank so it can be easily watered .

Lemongrass, Coriander, Basil, Mint, Rocket, Rosemary and Parsley (which turned out to be Celery!)

My herb garden is now complete!

.

I chose mint, basil, coriander and lemongrass as I love to cook Thai food and these herbs are used in Thai cooking. Also Rosemary for my favourite roast lamb and other lamb dishes. I love the peppery taste of rocket in salads and pasta dishes.

I am looking forward to being able to provide my herbs for my cooking picked fresh from my garden.

Cookie baking

Barbie Girl and I love to bake together.

We baked cookies together this week.

Check out the cross eyed grumpy one , top left corner. He was the favourite and Barbie Girl chose to have that one first for afternoon tea.

These cookies were huge. I was anticipating making small delicate bite sized ones, to make around 50 small cookies.

Barbie Girl had other ideas. We put the ball of cookie dough in the fridge for 30 mins to chill. I went off to have a shower, and when I came back down, Barbie Girl had already rolled out the dough and made 13 huge kid sized cookies.

So into the oven they went. We mixed up blue and red icing and tried out the piping set for the first time.

These are a favourite now.

I’m a big Donna Hay fan. Love your work Donna! Below is a recipe we have tweaked from Donna Hay, Modern Classics 2.  However our version bears no physical resemblance to her delicate vanilla snap cookies. Here is the recipe.

Smiley Face Cookies

185 g butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 egg

1 egg yolk extra

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius

2. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla in mixmaster  or food processor until smooth.

3. Add the flour, egg and egg yolk and mix again to from a smooth dough.

4. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 mins.

5. Make balls of dough in size you would like and flatten.

6. Place on baking tray on top of silicone baking sheet or baking paper.

7. Bake for 10-12 mins, or a little longer until golden.

8. Cool on wire racks.

9. Pipe on icing or dust with icing sugar.

Enjoy for morning or afternoon tea!

My simple living day

This morning when I got up I made some porridge made with milk and dried cranberries. This is my favourite breakfast during the cooler spring mornings, and I have been having it almost every morning over the past month or so.

It is school holidays, and I love being able to spend time with my daughter, instead of sending her off to vacation care will I go to work for the corporate world.

We ran a few errands that I had bundled up to do in one run.

Morning tea was homemade gingerbread men which my daughter had made when she had stayed with her Grandparents a couple of nights ago. I loved sitting with her in the morning light, talking about bits and bobs, and just spending time together.

A few home chores, I optimistically hung the laundry on the line, then we braved the changeable weather and went for a walk together. It started to rain lightly, which was fun and just added to the experience, hair frizzies and all.

‘Cept the laundry got wet.

I still needed to do some exercise when we came back, as I usually run for about 50 mins when it is not holidays, so I hopped on the exercise bike at home for half an hour of pedalling, and Barbie Girl put on her favourite pop CD and choreagraphed and danced her own dance routines to her favourite songs.

After showers, we had a fresh lunch of mountain bread wrap with grilled chicken breast, carrots, cucumbers and snow peas.

In the afternoon, some more home chores, composting, and some home sewing. I am making a green cotton dress for casual summer days. I put the zip in and then took it out as it wasn’t right. I will try again tomorrow. One of the things with my home sewing is that if its not quite right the deal is that I unpick and unpick and redo until it is right. Otherwise, I know that I won’t feel comfortable wearing it, which means it ends up not being worn.

I had a whole bunch of celery that had been sitting in my fridge for a week. So I made some homemade celery and potato soup for freezing in small portions.

We were called out in the bad weather to collect Mr Techno from work.

Dinner was “leftovers night”- spinach pie, sausages and steamed fresh corn on the cob, carrots and fresh beans.

I made a lemon slice that is just finishing baking in the oven as I write this post. This is a recipe posted by Inner Pickle blog that I have just discovered and I am delighting in reading.

Then I will sit down with my little family with cups of tea and enjoy our evening together with a movie perhaps?

Then some lemon slice when it has cooled.

Food shopping and meal plan this week

Each week, my aim is to cook healthy, fresh meals from scratch wherever possible for my family of 3 for under $150. This is $50 per person per week.  The food bill includes packed lunches for everyone, snacks, breakfasts and dinners, and a dessert, biscuits or cakes as a treat sometimes.

(My food bill prior to my simpler approach  was in the vicinity of $250 per week. 10 years ago when my husband and I first married, our food bill was $220 per week).

Above is a photo of this week’s food shopping.

Fruit and vegetable market $81.76

Butcher $23.56

Grocery Store $40.22 ( I had to purchase 2 extra 3 litre milk containers and coffee after this photo this week).

Total Food shopping $145.54

This weeks meal plan:

Breakfasts

coffee, milk drink, juice

homemade bircher muesli

porridge

Bran cereal

scrambled eggs with toast

fresh fruit

Lunch

salad with tuna

soup

Dinner

Wednesday – stir fry- chicken, noodles, mushrooms and zucchini and broccoli

Thursday- fish patties with steamedvegetables including pumpkin

Friday – Family Celebration- dinner out

Saturday- Chilli con carne with potato and broccoli on the side

Sunday- selection of leftovers

Monday- Beef curry with side of spinach and onion

Tuesday- Penne pasta with aubergine and chilli

Homemade treat

Banana and oatmeal muffins

Snacks

• cut up carrots
• cut up celery
• slices of cheese
• homemade yoghurt
• pears
• apples
• mandarins
• oranges
• kiwi fruit
• walnuts
• almonds
• tea
• coffee