EHOB Part 4: Making Stock From Scratch

It would seem that "bone broth" was right up there in terms of 2015's health food trends. I have seen the savoury liquid lauded as a cure-all, which is not surprising considering its mineral and protein content and its long history in the human diet.  It is a little bit much,  though, to see simple ol' stock hitting the superfood health-claim trifecta: it apparently heals the gut, detoxifies the body, and reduces cellulite! Gee whiz, that's a reputation to live up to isn't it? I can't find much in the way of scientific evidence to support these bold claims (not surprising!), but that doesn't mean I'm not a big fan of homemade bone broths and stocks.

Having homemade stock at hand is a cheap and delicious way to add a bit of pizazz to your home-cooked meals and - despite what is suggested by the number of complex recipes passed down through generations and uploaded to the internet - it's a pretty forgiving dish for a new chef. Stock makes a great base for soups and sauces and you can use it to cook rice and quinoa; it also does well solo as a warming drink on a cold day.  It is indeed nutrient dense, much more so than shop-bought stock, and the benefits in nutrition and flavour so far outweigh that of, say, stock cubes, that it should be a no-brainer to make your own if you can!

You only really need three things handy for a DIY stock: bones, water, and a big pot. Everything else is extra but will help make the resulting stock more tasty.  Let me break it down for you.

Chicken Quesadillas + Homemade 100% Corn Tortillas

Ok, it took a little longer than expected but I'm getting there with the chicken recipes!  The first is a gluten free quesadilla recipe made using home-made tortillas.  You heard me: home-made! It's sounds more daunting than it should, and as with anything made from scratch, it is worth the little bit of extra effort.

I first taught myself how to make tortillas after I chanced upon some tortilla flour in a bulk food store.  The flour used to make tortillas and corn chips is different to anything I've worked with before; it's called masa harina and it is made from corn. It's prepared very differently from corn flour or polenta: the corn kernels are treated with an alkaline solution that, basically, affects the cell walls of the corn in such a way that it is able to form a dough when mixed with water. The chemistry is quite interesting to read about if you're into that kind of thing but the main takeaway is that you can't sub in regular corn meal!  I haven't seen masa flour in supermarkets, but I have seen it at Bin Inn and in online stores so it's not too hard to get hold of. 

Making my own tortillas was an awesome culinary breakthrough for me, since I have had trouble finding 100% corn (i.e. wheat-free) tortillas that aren't also crazy expensive, and because I love making any kind of food from scratch!  These are not hard to make at all, and while it might take you a bit of practice to find a technique that works for you to get the tortillas thin and flexible, eating the "practice" tortillas is not something I'd complain about in a hurry! If you get any real duds (fingers crossed no!), maybe a too-thick tortilla that won't bend or a too-thin tortilla that breaks apart, you can always cut them up and fry or bake them with some olive oil for home-made corn chips.

I am only using my phone's camera to visually document these recipes and the light was fading fast so I didn't get the greatest snaps, however I wanted to provide photos to show you what the dough should look like and to better demonstrate how I roll it out.  I assure you the final product is much prettier in real life, and regardless, you musn't judge a book by its cover, nor a quesadilla by its amateur photographic representation.

Gluten Free Chicken Quesadillas (makes 10, serves 2)

EHOB Part 3: Make 9 Meals With One Chicken!

As noted in a previous post, last week my local supermarket was selling size 16 whole fresh chickens for $9 (the standard price for a chicken that size is around $15).  The weight of a size 16 bird is approximately 1.6kg, so you’re paying about $5.60 per kilogram at the sale price, which is a very good deal indeed. Buying a whole chicken is one of my favourite budgeting hacks, since you can get a lot of use out of the meat and bones. I can usually make a standard bird last for six chicken dishes and three or four servings of soup. And I want to share with you how I do it!

The first thing you need to do of course is cook the chicken.  There are a couple of ways to do this (slow cooking, barbecuing, beer can method, the list goes on…) but I think the safest and easiest is to roast the chicken in the oven.  Most whole chickens actually come with roasting instructions on the back of the bag.  Let’s be honest, it’s a pretty simple task, and I don’t think giving you a recipe for roasted chicken is a good use of our time! However I can give you a couple of tips to make sure this simple task doesn’t become a hilarious story about that time you failed at roasting a chicken!

My first tip is, and I have mentioned this before, cook a couple of things in the oven at once.  This could be a baked fruit dessert, a loaf of bread, or some veggies to go with the chicken.  Heating an entire oven takes a fair amount of electricity and therefore costs money at the end of the month, so cook as much as is sensible while the oven is hot.  I was asked recently if cooking more than one thing in the oven greatly affected the cooking time. The short answer is not really but it depends. The temperature and humidity differences are negligible and the general rule of thumb for cooking time is “it’s done when it’s done” not “remove from oven after 33 minutes and 15 seconds”!  If you’re making temperature-sensitive dishes like pastries and soufflés, then it can be an issue but generally speaking, and for most household cooking, it’s not something you need to worry about.

Choc-Top Banana Bread (gluten and grain free, with vegan option!)

This recipe is one of my favourites. When I was on an elimination diet a few months ago, I put a call out to friends for an allergy-friendly banana loaf recipe to keep my baking hands busy. I was, and still am, very new to cooking without regular flours and none of the recipes I could find online made rhythm or sense to me.  The recipe I use now is adapted from one I was given during that time of crisis.  The original was okay, but I'm a perfectionist! I've made this loaf a fair few times now and have managed to get the recipe just right for me. I've also been able to experiment with ingredient-swapping so you don't have to! Below are options in case you need to make this loaf suit your dietary or lifestyle needs. The base recipe is grain and gluten free, and I have tested it using different types of milk and replacing the egg with flaxseed gel. If you aren't familiar with using flaxseed as an egg replacement, I found this article on a vegan baking website extremely helpful in understanding how it all works.

No Fuss, No Grain (Banana) Pancakes

I love pancakes with all my heart, and have written about them at great length in a previous post.  In my searches to find a good, healthy, preferably grain-free, pancake I've found that the internet only seems to host recipes sitting at extreme ends of a very odd scale. On the one hand, there are ingredients lists typical of many gluten free endeavours: five kinds of flour, two or three raising agents, and at least one kind of gum you can't pronounce. On the other hand, there are those who oversimplify: one or two ingredients, boldly going where no gluten free chef has gone before!

I have to admit that this recipe for banana pancakes sits on the latter end of the spectrum, and is offspring of the dreaded "two ingredient miracle pancake". You know the one.  Headlined by bold claims like "these really work!", "won't burn in the pan!" and "so quick and easy!". I had expectations of that recipe.  I read tips on paleo and gluten-free forums. I tried, internet, I really did. The trick is to use ONE egg. No, three! The pan needs to be extra hot! Extra low! Use lots of oil, no oil, try adding baking powder, maybe there's something wrong with your spatula?
How about, maybe, there's something wrong with your recipe?

pancakes made with mashed pumpkin, sweetener, and cinnamon

The "two ingredient miracle pancake!" is a myth and I am here to debunk it. You can not make pancakes with a banana and an egg.  After a very small amount of tweaking, and the addition of a few pantry staples, I found a ratio of ingredients that works every time and perfected a flipping technique that's simple and effective. A bonus with this recipe is that you aren't stuck using bananas! Other starchy vegetables, like pumpkin and kumara work really well too, so you can have a bit of variety in your breakfasts and desserts. I recommend added a bit of stevia and spice if you go down that route as bananas offer a lot in the way of flavour and sweetness, but knowing you can sub in other veggies gives you another means of using up leftovers!
The below recipe serves one, and makes a complete breakfast, packed with proteins, fats and carbohydrates to keep your appetite at bay all morning.

Eating Healthy on a Budget: Food Diary #2

Hello all, thank you for you patience! Here is the second half of my food diary for the first week of this series. As a bonus, my flatmate returned from a trip home with a substantial harvest of home-grown plums, three cheers for fresh fruit!
It's been seven days since my shop, what am I left with? On Thursday morning I had two eggs and a banana spare for a pancake breakfast. Otherwise, I am left with just a small amount of lettuce, one remaining potato, the tinned corn, and half the cheese.  This means that none of the produce has gone to waste and that I bought a good amount of food to last the week. I was lucky to be able to get a few free snacks, from the haul of plums, but I have enough odds and ends in the pantry that I could have easily made it work without. I have been a little lacking in appetite this week for a few reasons, and it has been too hot for my morning run, so it would be usual for me to eat a little more than this (I often snack on flourless, sugar-free mug cakes to top up for the day but didn't feel the need this week). The following is the remainder of my food diary, and below is my intention for shopping and blogging this week. Enjoy!

Sunday
Breakfast - Pumpkin pancakes and a banana on the side (recipe!)

Lunch – Lettuce and cucumber salad with lots of olive oil

Snack – Tangelo

Dinner – Quick Spanish stew-like dish of fried chorizo, 1/2 tin of diced tomatoes, 1 diced carrot, 1 tbsp olive oil, topped with grated cheese

Protein: 49g

Monday
Breakfast - Brown rice porridge with a sliced banana and splash of soy milk, 1 plum
Lunch - Lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad with tuna
Snack - 1 plum

Dinner - Spanish tortilla, served with mixed veggies and a handful of grated cheese.

For those unaware, a Spanish tortilla, or Spanish omelette, is a dish similar to a frittata, consisting of just potatoes and egg (and sometimes onion, depending on who you ask!).  It's a really simple dish, full of protein and healthy starches, totally delicious, and very budget-friendly. One tortilla (5 or 6 eggs and one medium potato) makes two serves or four snacks.
Protein: 48g


Tuesday
Breakfast - Smoothie: 1 banana, 1 tbsp cocoa, 1 cup soy milk, 1 plum, 1 tbsp quinoa flakes
Quinoa flakes are another handy to thing have in the pantry, but are definitely on my "luxury items" list!
Lunch - Lettuce, tomato, cucumber salad with tuna and olive oil

#mealprep

Snack - 1 plum
Dinner - Spanish tortilla, served with mixed veggies
Protein: 57g

Recipe, as above

Wednesday
Breakfast - Banana pancakes

Lunch - Lettuce and cucumber salad with tuna (my last tin!)
Snack  - 1 plum
Dinner - Lamb stew with quinoa, left over from earlier in the week
Protein: 56g

 


It's supermarket day today.  I'm aware for my shop that I still have my frozen vegetables and oven fries in the freezer, and I've checked the in-store specials - if you are in NZ and ready to shop today, Countdown is selling size 16 whole fresh chickens for $9, which is a decent price, and I'll be describing how to make the most of a whole chicken in the blog this week.  I will also be posting some recipes, starting later today with no-grain pancakes and continuing with a few more simple baking recipes. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Kitchen 101: Making the Most of Your Freezer

Update 19/1/16: I've had a comment from a reader with regards to food safety and the quick-cooling of foods and I want to make it clear that hot foods need to be cooled as quickly as possible before freezing. The best way to cool hot liquids is through use of an ice bath, while solid foods can be cooled in shallow containers (place in the fridge once they have stopped steaming). Click here to read the guidelines on cooling and reheating foods by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and click here for a very helpful article on food safety and storage. 

This post is geared more towards kitchen newbies, whether you have just moved out of home for the first time, or are simply new to cooking from scratch.  The following are my top five tips for making the most of your freezer to save both time and money.

5. Cook in Bulk
This is the most obvious one.  This is even easier if, like me, you are cooking for one most of the time; following a mantra of “eat one, freeze one” will save up time and effort at a later date.  Having pre-cooked meals ready to go can also be a life-saver at the end of pay-week or if an unexpected expense creeps up.
While the first things that spring to mind when I think of typical freezer foods are casseroles, soups, and stews, almost anything you cook can be frozen – I regularly freeze meals like stir-fries and risottos. You can think bigger with batch-cooking too. Some foods are considerably cheaper when bought in larger portions, think whole frozen chickens or large halves of pumpkin, and these can be roasted or baked all at once and then separated up and stored to make a variety of meals at a later time.  I find doing this great to add variety if I’m getting bored: eating seasonally sometimes means one or two cheap vegetables take up too much space in my diet for months at a time!

Eating Healthy On A Budget: Food Diary #1

So, Auckland suddenly decided to crank out the summer weather and the heat has done a really great job of zapping me of my appetite the last few days. I mean who wants to stand over a hot pan with 27°C sunshine blasting through the window? Being personally cooked is also draining my brain energy a little so the witty and coherent post I wanted to write is going to have to wait until tomorrow, when I will be comfortably and coolly seated at my air-conditioned desk.
The amount of time I’ve spent ducking into the freezer for ice cubes this week has encouraged me to post about how one can efficiently make use of frozen foods so, that shall be tomorrow’s read.  For today, I am going to share my food diary since buying my weekly shop.

This feels a little weird and personal but I think that it’s the best way to show how I do what I do! I’m going to include the approximate amount of protein eaten each day, according to calculations made with MyFitnessPal. Proteins are essential nutrients and seem to be the first thing people panic about when anyone changes their diet (as anyone who’s ever gone vegetarian can attest!). According to the NZ Nutrition Foundation, the minimum RDI of protein for a woman my age is 46g (source) and as you will see I easily achieve that in my day to day diet.  This stuff is important to know because eating less red meat is a great way to save a few dollars, and doing so doesn’t have to negatively impact your health.

If you have questions about any of the meals, or would like to see recipes, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer :)

Eating Healthy On A Budget Part 2: Forty Dollars Worth of Food

I did my weekly shop today, first hitting up Countdown after checking the specials online, and then heading to my local veggie shop on the way back.

Here is how I went at Countdown:

 

$21.88 worth of noms

And in words, for those who prefer:
1 x tin of diced tomatoes: 80c
1 x tin of corn kernels: 89c
4 x tin of tuna (95g): $1 x 4 = $4
1 x soy milk: $2.50
1 x lemon: $1.05
1 x 208g basa fillet: $2.08
1 x lamb leg steak: $4.56
1kg brown rice: $2.50
1 dozen eggs: $3.50
Total: $21.88

I made up a list using the online shopping tool that came to about $19 that looked similar to the above, but included an extra tin of tomatoes and an extra tin of tuna, but no lamb and half the amount of rice.  I scanned the Quick Sale area of the meat and picked out the lamb, and also spotted the 1kg rice on special and an in-store deal on basa fillets.  By swapping out a couple of tins I was able to stay within a reasonable budget and get more variety. Thrilling stuff! But it's in-store decisions like this that are important for frugality and I think it's a good example of how a little research and prep can go a long way. I mean, red meat? On my budget? :)

How I went at the veggie shop:

Eating Healthy on a Budget Part 1: Intro & Basic Shopping Tips

Ok, I'm trying a new thing and I'm not sure how it's going to go!  I've been asked a couple of times, particularly by people who've lived with me, how I'm able to eat healthy food most of the time while on a teeny tiny budget. This is a great question, and I'm never 100% sure how to answer. My guess is that it's been a combination of time, practice and slow-and-steady changes to the way I handle my finances and the kind of foods I eat.  It took me several years to switch from a run of the mill kiwi diet to the Mediterranean-style, produce-focussed diet I currently eat and it takes time, effort, planning and a reasonable amount of cooking knowledge to eat the way I do on the meager student budget I subsist on.

That's the short answer! In order to provide the long answer, I am going to do some write-ups on my weekly shopping and menu, as well as provide some pantry hacks along the way. I am not going to make promises about how often I will write but my intention is to show what I buy week to week, how much I actually spend, and at the very least let you know my meals each day.  I'm no expert, but I can show you what I do. Ideally, I will be sharing some recipes too!

So you can get an idea of what my budgetary situation is like, and how my lifestyle affects my pantry, here are some basic things you should know about me:

• I work sometimes as an extra, but the work available is haphazard at best! My guaranteed income is minimal so, to be brief, I have a budget of $40 a week for food. I know that income is not an appropriate topic for polite conversation, but in this discussion, it's kind of essential. 
• I don't drink alcohol - a major money saver!
• I avoid processed foods as much as possible
• I avoid waste as much as possible (whether it's unrecyclable packaging or perfectly edible leftovers)
• I am gluten free at the moment for health reasons - if you can eat gluten, go for gold, I have no vendetta against this handy protein!
• I am probably addicted to chocolate, having it in my diet is non-negotiable :) 
• I only have to feed myself. I don't have any children or dependents or even a partner to feed which I know makes things a lot easier.

With those facts established, I want to share a couple of top tips for a budget-friendly pantry. Some may be obvious, some... maybe not.