Saving time and money are the catch cries of our modern era.  Anything that claims to do this will always gain attention to see if the holy grail of ‘less time and less money’ can actually be achieved.  In cooking for the family, one popular money and time saving idea is Once a Month Cooking.

The basic idea is the planning, shopping and cooking of a months worth of family meals is all done in 1-2 days.  This can be economical due to the savings from buying in bulk, reducing leftovers and minimising the need for takeaways or eating out.  It is also a huge time saver because there is minimal time required on a daily basis to produce the family dinner – simply pull a meal out of the freezer, defrost and dinner’s ready.

However, as with anything that does claim to be the ultimate time and/or money saver, there is usually some sort of a catch.  With once a month cooking, the catch is that you need to set aside a large chunk of time to plan, shop and cook for a months worth of meals.

For some families, this idea might be quite appealing.  But to get the benefits this type of cooking can offer, it is important to be very prepared.  Here are a few simple steps to undertake for once a month cooking success.

1.  Assemble your recipes

You’ll need about 25-30 recipes.  Some of these can be doubled to give two meals.  When compiling the recipes, look for ingredients that are repeated.  This will allow for bulk buying and therefore savings when you go shopping.  Meat in particular is an ingredient where considerable savings can be made if you use a similar cut or type of meat (or poultry or seafood) over several recipes.

To keep things interesting for the family, try not to use the same recipes month in month out.  Incorporate a few new ones each time alongside some of the well loved ones.

It would also pay to start compiling the best recipes for this type of cooking in a folder, ring binder or recipe book.  You can add to the collection as your recipe repertoire expands and it will become an invaluable resource.

2.  Prepare your shopping list

Ideally this should be done on a computer.  A spreadsheet is the best format to use for compiling the list and can be saved for next time.  After a while you will find there are staples to buy every month and the quantities can be filled in easily.  You can also add and delete ingredients as required as well as adding a recipe column so that ingredients can be aligned with the recipe to be used.

3.  Plan your shopping

Now that you have a list of ingredients, before heading out to the shops, take the time to go through recent supermarket, butcher and other food retailer catalogues.  See if there are any deals and discounts you can capitalise on.  It may be necessary to visit a few different stores to get all the ingredients and maximise savings – take the time to plan this out before going shopping.

4.  Go shopping!

With your list in hand, this step is pretty straightforward.  Don’t get distracted by unecessary items on sale – this is where you can waste the money you’re working hard to save.  Stick to the list and only get the ingredients required.

5.  Preparing the Meals

Time to cook.  Again, before starting try and formulate some sort of a plan and order in which to cook the recipes.  Those that take the longest should be started first.  If you are cooking several dishes with the same main ingredient, plan to cook these together as you will only need to assemble and chop the ingredients once.  For example if you are preparing several meals that require chicken strips, you only want to chop the chicken once – so plan to cook them together and chop all the chicken at the one time.

6.  Store the Meals

Most of the meals will be frozen so ensure you have plenty of containers on hand (you may need to add this to your shopping list), and there is ample space in the freezer.  Try to have containers that will be the right size for each meal quantity being frozen as you don’t want too much air space in each container.

Dish the meals into the containers, label and freeze.

By following these simple steps you are well on your way to once a month cooking success.  While it’s not a difficult process, it does take a fair amount of preparation, planning and time to execute.  Ultimately it will save time and money, so you just need to decide if it’s right for you and your family.

If (like me) the thought of cooking that many meals in one hit does not have great appeal, you could perhaps consider once a week or even once a fortnight cooking.  There will still be great benefits in terms of money and time savings, just less time required for preparing the meals.

So what do you think of Once-A-Month-Cooking?  Does is save time and money or not? Please leave your comments below.

On my last run to the markets I was lucky to find a wonderful bounty of sweet potatoes (the orange variety).  Fabulous, big fat tubers of yumminess!  Sometimes they can be a bit old and withered and in readiness to reproduce with little bits starting to grow out of them, but these were absolutely beautiful.

As a result we’ve been trying a few different recipes.  One of my friends who shared the bounty has had great success simply baking them whole in the oven, and then serving with mix and match toppings.  The family loves it because they get to customise their dinner and as a result eat it all up.  It’s a bit like baked potatoes with different toppings – a great idea we’ll be trying soon.

One of the recipes I’ve tried is this Curried Sweet Potato Soup.  It comes from a cookbook my Dad lent me (yes the cookbook fetish runs in the family) and came with high recommendations.  It was delicious and simple to make, so if you are fortunate to have some sweet potatoes on hand, give it a try.

Curried Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2-3 teaspoons curry powder

1/25kg orange sweet potato, peeled and cubed

4 cups chicken stock

1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated

½ cup coconut cream

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook gently until soft then mix in the garlic and curry powder.  Cook a further minute until fragrant.

Toss in the sweet potato, chicken stock and apple mixing well to combine.  Cook for 20-30 minutes until the potato is tender.

Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.  Blend in batches using a food processor of blend in the saucepan using a stick blender.  Return soup to heat, stir through coconut cream and reheat gently without boiling.

Recipe from Family Circle’s “Soups and Stews”, 1997

The Klutzy Cook Notes

• I used 3 teaspoons of Keens Curry Powder which we found a bit hot.  Use your favourite blend and start with less rather than more, you can always adjust later.
• Recipe serves 6

So what are your favourite sweet potato recipes?  Please share them below.

On the weekend I attended a short Japanese cooking course that covered some of the basics including making sushi (the main reason I wanted to attend), tempura cooking and how to cook perfect rice.  Finally I think I may have conquered the art of sushi rolling – something that has alluded me in the past.

Luckily I got to take home all the sushi I’d made (and hadn’t eaten) for the family to try.  For a bit of fun, we decided we’d set up our own Sushi Train (just like the restaurants of the same name) to serve the sushi.  On our recent visit to the Ekka, my son Stewart got a show bag with several different train sets in it.  The ‘steamie’ is our favourite (because it actually blows real steam) and has a couple of flat beds – perfect for serving sushi.  So we set the track up, put some cling wrap on the flat beds, and lunch was served.  Here’s a short video to show you our very own Sushi Train…

Of course I’m now getting endless requests for sushi so we can setup the train again.  Making meal time a little different and entertaining can be a an enjoyable experience for everyone – so give it a try in your home.  Even if you don’t have a Sushi Train, there are plenty of ways to inject some fun into meal time.

Any fun mealtime ideas you’d like to share?  Please leave them below.

Recently there was a local, tasty event called Regional Flavours which showcased a lot of wine and producers from the South East Queensland Area. While there were lots of wines, preserves, cheeses and other tasty morsels to sample, one of the most popular places was the Gourmet Stage. It featured a great line up including Ben O’Donoghue (TV Chef and co-owner of South Bank Surf Club) and MasterChef Series 2 contestants, Sharnee and Skye.

Below is a clip from Ben discussing some home economics.  He makes the point that we throw away an incredible amount of food on a weekly basis, and if we took the time to add it all up, it could be as much as 20% of our food budget.  For many families that’s a lot of money that simply gets thrown away.  It’s also a lot of food, particularly when you add it up on a local and national scale.

One way around this food waste is to better utilise all parts of any fresh ingredients we use.  A classic case is making chicken stock from a leftover roast chicken carcass.  It doesn’t take hours and can certainly deliver a better tasting and much higher quality product than pre-packaged alternatives.  So without further ado, here’s Ben to explain how…

In case you didn’t have a pen and paper ready, here’s the recipe:

Roast Chicken Stock

Ingredients

Leftover roast chicken carcass and bones

1 tomato, cut into wedges

1 small onion, cut into wedges

1 celery stick, cut into chunks

Some parsley sprigs

Method

Throw it all into a nice deep pot, cover with water and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and let bubble away for 45 minutes to an hour.  Turn the heat off and let the stock cool down.  Strain it into a jug or container (Ben uses a milk jug – a great way to recycle) and freeze or put into the refrigerator if you will be using it in 3-4 days.

After the ‘show’ I managed to say a quick hello to Ben and catch a happy snap…

I was quite inspired by how easy something like this chicken stock can be and it makes great economic and health sense.

There are plenty of other ways we can enjoy the double benefits of economy and health in the kitchen.  Any you’d like to contribute?  Please let us know below.

At this time of the year we are fortunate to have a glut of avocados available.  Having said that, the trouble is they all tend to ripen at once so there is a need to consume a lot of them very quickly.

Apart from guacamole and other avocado dips, I love avocado spread thickly on hot toast, drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with black pepper.  This would do me for breakfast, lunch and dinner most days.   We also use avocado on sandwiches instead of butter or margarine.

Another recipe that I use when there are plenty of avocadoes around is this simple Pasta with Avocado.  It is quick and easy to make and always a huge hit with the whole family – although I must admit we are ‘avocadoholics’.

Last time I served it with fresh homemade pasta and it was divine.  Hope you like it too.

Pasta with Avocado

Ingredients

375g pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 large avocadoes

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons cream

½ cup parmesan cheese, grated

Method

Cook pasta according to packet directions, or if using fresh homemade pasta, cook for 2-3 minutes until al dente.  Drain and return to pan.

While pasta is cooking place peeled avocadoes into a bowl and mash well with a fork or potato masher.  Do not puree.  Mix in lemon juice and season to taste.

Heat oil in pan and add garlic followed by avocado mixture.  Heat the mix without boiling and stir in cream.

Pour over hot pasta and combine well.  Spoon onto serving plates and sprinkle over parmesan cheese.  Serve.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this recipe, please leave them below.

Last Christmas my daughter received some great cooking cards as a gift, and ever since she trots them out on a regular basis and we pick a recipe to make together.  Although she’s a bit of a savoury girl, the sweet cards always seem to come out first, probably because the pictures make the food look so good.

One of our favourites so far has been the ‘chocolate cookies’ card.  There are a few variations that can be made and our most recent (and most popular) was what we dubbed ‘Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookies’.  The reason they’re reversed is the chocolate chips are white instead of the usual milk chocolate, and the biscuit itself is chocolate rather than just a plain biscuit base.

Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients

125g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened

90g (3oz) soft light brown sugar

90g (3oz) caster sugar

1 egg

125g (4oz) chocolate spread

2-3 drops vanilla extract

200g (7oz) plain flour

30g (1oz) cocoa powder

Pinch salt

½ tsp of baking powder

150g (5oz) white chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).  Grease baking trays – 2 to 3 will be required depending on their size.

Add butter and both sugars to a large bowl and beat until mixture is creamy and fluffy.  Add the egg, chocolate spread and extract to the mixture and beat until well combined.

Sieve the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder into a separate bowl and mix gently together to ensure ingredients are uniformly mixed.  Add the sieved flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and gently mix them together with a wooden spoon.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

Place heaped dessert spoonfuls of the cookie dough onto baking trays.  Ensure to leave enough space between each mound to allow for spreading.

Bake for 14 minutes.  Remove trays from oven and allow cookies to ‘set’ for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

The Klutzy Cook Notes

• When the cookies come out of the oven they will be soft.  They will harden as they cool.
• If you don’t have enough trays, simply cook them a batch at a time.

Talk about in your face.  The last few days I have found myself hit between the eyes with a strong reminder of what an important role food plays in our lives.

Food brings family, friends and neighbours together.  It provides a central point around which we communicate and congregate.  Just think about any gathering of people, and food is inevitably there somewhere.

On another level, food is the fuel for our bodies.  If the fuel is not the best quality, our bodies aren’t running at their peak.  Sure, they’ll still run, but not optimally and if we continue to put sub standard fuel into our bodies, ultimately they will break down.  The break down may be minor and able to be fixed easily.  Or, it could be major resulting in a shortening of our life or worse, causing the end of it.

The stark reality of the sub standard fuel many of us are putting into our bodies was where I got hit between the eyes.  Two separate media pieces coincided in the last few days with exactly the same frightening message.  One was from the other side of the world; the other was right on my own doorstep.

Firstly, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution aired in Australia on Friday night for the first time.  Ironically it was scheduled right after Masterchef.  One show is all about mastering the skill of cooking while the other is just trying to get people to cook.

Earlier this year, Jamie Oliver spoke at TED (a small, but powerful, non profit organization in America devoted to ideas worth spreading).  His wish was…”to help a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, to inspire families to cook again, and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity”.  Below is his speech to the TED community, a must watch for everybody.

So if watching Jamie wasn’t enough to get me thinking, on Monday there was an article in our local paper, The Courier Mail, with the headline “Obesity knocks off smokes as top killer”.  The statistics in this article were frightening.  Here’s just a few:

• 55.3% of the population is overweight or obese (this figure is projected to hit 65% by 2020)
• 25% of Queenslanders aged 5 to 17 are overweight or obese – an increase of 21% from 3 years ago!
• Only 9% of people eat enough fruit and vegetables

While these statistics apply to Queensland only, we are seeing similar ones across Australia, United Kingdom and USA – as evidenced in the Food Revolution.  So, not only are we doing unprecedented damage to ourselves, we are hurting our kids too.

One of the main contributing factors is of course food, or more specifically processed, pre-packaged and junk food.   The population as a whole is eating too much of the wrong stuff and not enough of the right stuff.  They are also lacking in skills for cooking real food.

Of course, this does not apply to every person, every family and every child.  Nonetheless, it is something we all need to be aware of and wherever possible ensure we are doing our best to provide our families with the best food we can.  Try cooking new things, sample some new foods, improve your cooking skills and think about food as an all important fuel for your family.

Also, take the time to involve kids in food and cooking.  These are life skills that will greatly enhance their quality of life.

For me, the last few days has provided a reality check.  On the whole my family eats well, but I know we could do better – more vegetables and fewer sweets for a start.

Hopefully this will also inspire you to look a little closer at your family food and see where improvements could be made.  Let’s all endeavor to do our best to fill our families with premium fuel and give them the gift of health.

If you have any thoughts or comments on this article, please leave them below.

With an overflow of tomatoes and capsicums in my kitchen at the moment, this Tomato and Capsicum Soup recipe came across my path at just the right time.  Another great reason to make it is that tomato soup is one that the kids will happily eat up and empty the bowl.

Of course the best part about soup is dipping the bread in and this time I served homemade garlic bread.  It was a great complement but of course you could serve any style of bread you choose.  The warmer, crustier and buttery it is the better.

Tomato and Capsicum Soup

Ingredients

Method

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.   Cook onion, garlic and capsicum until soft (about 5 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Add potato, tomatoes and tomato paste and cook for 5 minutes or until tomatoes have softened.  Add stock and cover.  Bring to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer for 15 minutes or until potato is tender.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before blending until smooth.  Reheat gently if required.  Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Recipe from Super Food Ideas, June 2010

The Klutzy Cook Notes

• It is important to let the soup cool before blending for two reasons.  Firstly, if it splashes on you it won’t be as hot (trust me on this one).  Secondly, your machinery will definitely prefer to handle a cooler mix.  Hand blenders in particular don’t like being immersed in hot liquid and can overheat very quickly.
• To blend the soup either you can use either a hand or stand blender.  The convenience of the hand blender is that the mixture can be left in the saucepan and blended all at once.  For a stand blender, simply transfer the soup in batches and recombine before serving.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this recipe, please leave them below.

Hello to everyone.  It has been quite some time since I posted, but with very good reason.  My beautiful family and I have been off caravanning for the last few months.  In fact we were away for exactly 90 days taking in the sights, sounds and beautiful landscapes of New South Wales.

This was the first of several caravan trips we plan to take over the next few years to see Australia.  Each year we will take about 3 months to explore a particular region.  For us that is a perfect length of time – not too long away from school and ‘regular routine’.  Next year we will visit Western Australia during the wildflower season.  Can’t wait!

While away, I didn’t blog about cooking but did actually blog about our adventures.  This was a great way for family and friends to stay posted of our travels.  So if you’re interested in reading more and seeing some great photos, head on over to Meandering McArthurs (I do have the last few weeks to add yet).

After being on such a great trip, I was worried about everyone settling back to ‘normality’ but it’s amazing how quickly this happened.  In fact, the weekend we were back we decided to move all the rooms around in the house and have a ‘cleanse’.  Having lived in a caravan for 3 months you realize how much ‘stuff’ you can do without.

It was also great timing as the school fete was looming and they were looking for all sorts of donations.  So far we have taken about 16 large cartons of rubbish, unused toys, magazines, books and other bits and pieces out of the house.  It’s amazing how clutter has its own breeding cycle and builds its own clutter.

Another thing that felt quite different when I first returned was the kitchen.  After preparing and cooking food in such a small space, my home kitchen felt huge (didn’t take long for that to change though).  I’ve really enjoyed getting back into the full swing of cooking since I’ve returned and have been cooking up a storm.  In fact the first night we returned home-cooked pizzas were on the menu – something we dearly missed (see Easy Pizza Dough).

I did very little baking on the trip.  The whole process of beating butter and sugar etc, etc, was just too hard in the confined space of a caravan.  Muffins were something I had planned to make as they are quick, easy and only need one bowl.  However, I discovered very early that my 12 hole muffin pan was too big for the caravan’s oven (should have checked before we left).  So that was the end of that.

I’ve made up for it since though and as it’s orange season here at the moment, I’ve made several batches of these Orange Muffins since returning.  The kids just love muffins and thanks to the buttermilk in this recipe, they are lovely and light and won’t last long.  Enjoy!

Orange Muffins

Ingredients

2 ½ cups self raising flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 egg

Method

Preheat oven to 180C (375F) or 160C (320F) fan forced.  Grease a 12-hole muffin pan or line holes with muffin cases.

Combine the flour, sugar and orange rind in a large bowl.

In a jug, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, juice and egg.

Stir wet mixture into flour mixture until just combined.

Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewers comes out clean.

Dust with icing sugar and serve.

The Klutzy Cook Notes

• Buttermilk makes these muffins nice and light.  If you don’t have any on hand combine one cup of milk plus one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, and allow to stand for ten minutes before using.
• Try other citrus flavours such as lemon or lime (or a combination).

It’s good to be back and I look forward to bringing you lots more cooking.  If you have any comments or feedback, please feel free to leave them below.