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Easter Sunday Blueberries

We decided to forgo easter eggs this year and instead took a trip to the Akatarawa Blueberry farm to pick our own organic blueberries. It’s getting towards the end of the season but they are still good quality for cooking and freezing. The farm closes at the end of April I think. We delivered some around to mum as her easter egg for something a little different. My freezer is now groaning with stewed apple, stewed blueberries and frozen blueberries. Can’t wait to make blueberry and apple turnovers for dessert. Also thought I might try the berry and apple strudel recipe in this month’s Healthy Food magazine which was the winning baking recipe.

Berry & Apple Strudel  

3 Braeburn or Granny Smith Apples

¼ cup dried apricots, chopped

1 tablespoon custard powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

½ cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

6 sheets filo pastry

1 tablespoon trim milk

Icing sugar

 

Preheat oven to 180oC

Grate apples

Add chopped apricots, custard powder, cinnamon, mixed spice. Stir. Add blueberries, Stir again.

Lay filo in a baking dish. Spread filling down one side. Carefully roll the strudel.

Lightly brush the top of pastry with milk.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. If pastry browns too quickly, lower the heat a little. Remove from oven and dust with icing sugar.

 

   

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Easter Saturday shopping

I worked it out today – I’m not the only one using a shopping list, I’ve just been hanging around with the wrong crowd! When we went grocery shopping this morning we were surrounded by un-familiar looking shoppers who I presume were the Friday lot who couldn’t shop yesterday (or maybe the Sunday lot shopping a day early?). Lots of them have shopping lists!!!! I counted at least 10 lists in my short 3 min survey. Unfortunately every group of shoppers acts in a different way and the Friday/Sunday shoppers were too annoying for me despite their lists. They wandered along slowly, left their carts in the middle of the aisles…………. We have shopping down to a fine art now so I’m glad Easter only comes once a year and next Saturday all will be returned to normal. 

 

Braeburn apples were on special today at $1.57 per kg so our shopping changed from a couple of apples to a couple of kgs of apples. My Sunday baking hour tomorrow will include stewing all that apple for freezing. I’ve set one hour maximum a week for baking as I don’t want to turn the clock back and end up being a wife stuck in the kitchen baking. One hour also allows me to make all the mess at once so it’s only one lot of cleaning, saving on products. I’ll have to look up a few new apple recipes – our favourite at the moment is apple crumble and apple turnovers. If you haven’t tried the Trade Me community recipe site give it a go TradeMe – New Zealand Online Auctions and Classifieds. Just found an interesting carrot cake I may try.

 

“Here it is again.I really recommend this.So easy.Ends up like a GATEAU. In WIZZ,chop 3 medium peeled carrots until finely chopped. ADD:2 cups sugar,1 cup oil,2 teaspoons cinnamon,4 eggs.Wizz again till blended.Then add:2 cups plain flour,2 teaspoons baking powder,1 teaspoon baking soda,1 teaspoon salt.(can add any xtra spices to taste eg nutmeg or mixed spice)Wizz all together till blended.Pour into 26cm large cake tin (lined)& bake @ 150 degrees c for approx 1 hour.When cold ,Ice with Cream Cheese Icing-100grms Cream Cheese,50 grms butter,1 teaspoon Vanilla,2 cups Icing Sugar,Lemon or orange juice & rind. Soften butter & cr cheese.then add other ings -mix till smooth and ice cake.IMPRESS YOUR GUESTS.”

 

 

 

 

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Food planning and recipe ideas

Walking around the grocery store this morning it still puzzles me how amongst all those people I’m one of the very few wandering around with a list, crossing off items as we buy them. This week was a small shop so with a list we scooted around the shop smartly and got out of there. Shopping lists have definitely changed the way we buy groceries – it’s much more efficient and relaxed and way quicker!! 

 

Our food planner is just drawn up on a piece of reused paper stuck with a magnet to the freezer door but if you want something a bit flasher you can download planning posters from http://www.healthyfood.co.nz. They also have a recipe search engine. Enter up to three ingredients and match up to a recipe. I haven’t used it yet but it looks like it might be a useful link when you want to try something a bit different to your normal recipes.

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‘Love Food – Hate Waste’

I was reading about an interesting British initiative the other day. A government agency is trialling going door to door giving advice about how to reduce food wastage. The estimate of this agency is that about one third of all food purchased in the UK ends up in the bin costing an average family about $1,100 each year. The article cites that the C02 impact of eliminating this waste would be equivalent to taking one in five cars off the road (Source: NZ Healthy Food March 2009 p. 14. Original source: Telegraph.co.uk).

 

In our household we have been trying really hard since the end of 2008 to minimise food wastage, planning our meals around what is about to expire etc so that we make the most of the food we have bought. Last week we had sickness in the house and were off our food a little so we ended up with a bit of wastage but even that was very minimal compared to what we used to waste. The cats play their part as well – we have found they are very fussy about the kind of food they get during the day but if we leave meat scraps from our dinner out during the night the plate is always clean when we get up in the morning.

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Thumbs up to The Warehouse

Well I guess I’ll have to stop hassling The Warehouse over plastic bags for now. Went shopping yesterday in Upper Hutt and got asked if I wanted a plastic bag – back to normal again! The weekend newspaper (Dominion Post 21/03/2009) also reported that of April 20 The Warehouse is going to charge 10 cents per bag to encourage shoppers to reduce their plastic bag use. 

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The Warehouse and Plastic Bags

I’m not sure what’s been happening with The Warehouse lately. The last two trips our items have been automatically put in a plastic bag at different Warehouse stores – Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. The other day my husband bought one DVD and it was put in a plastic bag???!!! If my husband is asked he will say ‘no’ to a plastic bag so it is important that consumers like him are given the option by the checkout operators. I would have thought that with businesses trying to save money that asking consumers if they want a plastic bag would be a good way to reduce costs. Up to now in my survey (see ‘Say no to plastic bags’) the Warehouse has always been great at asking about plastic bags – what’s going on? The Warehouse signed the Packaging Accord so it would be good to see them not dropping their standards. Although Woolworths is part of the Packaging Accord also and they, as I have commented on before, put everything in a plastic bag! The Packaging Accord is due to expire in June – save this link for keeping up to date with what is happening re the new packaging product stewardship scheme Packaging Council of New Zealand (Inc) : Media News

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Vinegar update

Well I’m just about to finish my first spray bottle of white vinegar and still have litres of the stuff stored in the cupboard. White vinegar as a cleaner is definitely an economically sensible purchase as well as eco friendly. The thing I still like best is the fact I can use it while I’m in the kitchen cooking if I see a stain or fingerprints all over the fridge etc as spraying isn’t going to be harmful in any way.

 

The Summer 09 Greenpeace magazine ‘kakariki’ has a page of useful eco cleaning recipes – some ecocleaning recipes can be accessed from

 

Green cleaning – share your recipes | Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog. You can also pop your own recipes on the site. I like the look of the toilet cleaning recipe. I always use toilet duck but it gets used up quickly so I would rather use a cheaper alternative. Recipe: Sprinkle baking soda into the toilet bowl, then squirt with vinegar and scour with a toilet brush. Will clean and deodorise. I still have my bathroom weekend cleaning to do so we will see how it goes!

 

 

 

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The poverty trap

Although things are tight around the household at the moment we are lucky that we have some flexibility when it comes to spending. We are mortgaged to the hilt, our newly renovated house pretty much all belongs to the bank and we have lost one salary due to the recession but because we presently have a mortgage in that respect we are doing better than before the recession because of lower interest rates. Because we have a mortgage we also are able to try and ride the recession as we have access to borrowing money. We can buy in bulk if we see things on special – toilet paper, meat, toothpaste, coffee etc. As a result of being able to buy in bulk cooking at home is a cheaper option than takeaways and we can therefore save money. As an earner I received tax cuts last year. We insulated our house while renovating it and were able to put in heat pumps so we can heat our house more efficiently. While renovating we chose not to go with gas sticking with electricity figuring that in the long run having one daily charge is better than two regardless of the unit charge.

 

Those on or below the poverty line don’t have all this flexibility, as prices rise they have few options to pay full price as their weekly spending can’t take benefit of bulk spending. Those without jobs don’t get tax cuts to assist them to survive the price hikes and those who rent make no savings from lower mortgage rates. Often those who rent live in houses with poor insulation so heat is a necessity for their health not a luxury. My mum, living on superannuation, lives in a house that has both gas and electricity. Even if she never puts any appliance on she still has to pay two daily charges.

 

At times like this it’s easy to stop payments to charities and donations to food banks but now is the time that those who are struggling most need the support of those of us who are in situations where we can at least try and buffer ourselves against the recession.

 

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I don’t want to use your toilet Grandma

A few weeks ago my mum commented that her grandson had told her he didn’t want to use her toilet. When she asked him why, he replied that the dolphins scared him. Mum couldn’t think what he meant until she realised that he was talking about the dolphins on her toilet paper! It got me wondering as to why we scent our paper and go to the bother of printing designs on it. It would seem a rather pointless exercise. For most of us our toilet paper sits under a toilet roll cover so we hardly see the image printed on the paper. The scent isn’t strong enough to make the toilet smell nice and once the toilet paper is used there is no disguising what it has been used for – why on earth is toilet paper scented?????????

There does seem to be some indications too that certain females should stick with plain toilet paper as they get easily irritated by the scented type. Anyway at the end of my musings I realized that there is absolutely no reason why I buy scented, printed paper and I have just automatically done it all my life. So the last few weeks we have changed to plain, unscented, recycled, not re-bleached toilet paper made in NZ. It was also on special this week – 42 cents per roll so we bought up quite a bit. So far there haven’t been any complaints about the change from my rear end J.