Meal Planning

My good mate in Brisbane introduced me to the concept of meal planning in 2010. I have since become a meal planning convert and know that it saves me money and time.

I sit down at the end of each month and flip through my cooking mags, recipe books and online recipe websites. I try and find three or four new recipes to add to my monthly meal plan to spice up our culinary repertoire.

I then open up Microsoft Word and make a table, Monday to Sunday across the top and weeks one to four down the side. I then insert my recipe name and relevant recipe book page numbers. If there's any extra ordinary ingredients needed, I jot these down on my shopping list.

Each Monday, I make a quick list of the ingredients that I will need for the forthcoming week's recipes. When I go shopping on Tuesday, I quickly zip around the supermarket and only buy what I actually need.

To make cooking easier on myself, every Saturday night is automatically takeaway and Friday night is a simple meal e.g. frozen ravioli with a pre-prepared sauce and vegies that takes 5 minutes to prepare.

The beauty of meal planning is that I don't have to think 'what's for dinner' every day and my family gets to try new recipes.

Bon appetit!

Home Made Greek Yoghurt

For those of you who have made my homemade natural yoghurt, I have tried a new twist to this original recipe; turning it into Greek Yoghurt.

I love the creaminess of Greek Yoghurt but many of the store bought Greek Yoghurts use thickeners to get this consistency and add $1 to the price for the privilege.

Using the wisdom of the internet, I searched Greek Yoghurt and came up with the following method:

1. Make my homemade natural yoghurt and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hrs

2. Tip the yoghurt into a fine muslin bag (a bag that will let the liquid drain without the yoghurt escaping)

3. Place the muslin bag into a flour sifter/colander and then place the sifter over a bowl. Make sure that the sifter does not touch the bottom of the bowl as you want the liquid to drain freely from the yoghurt

4. I would suggest tasting the yoghurt after one hour to see if it's thick enough for you. I let mine drain for 2 hours and it was a bit too thick so I will try 1.5 hours next time.

Enjoy

Yoghurt Making

I have been going to make yoghurt for the past couple of years but it always seemed to be an inprecise science so I put the idea to the back of my mind.  However, yesterday I motivated myself to google some yoghurt recipes and I found one that sounded basic enough.   Forward 24 hours and I have made YOGHURT which is edible and it only cost me $0.40/half kilogram.

I was talking to a Dairy Farmer today at an Australia Day BBQ and he said that when milk was deregulated in Western Australia, his milk prices went from $0.40/$0.30 per litre to $0.10/litre and of course many dairy farmers went broke.  He now sells his milk to a boutique cheese maker and is given a good price for his efforts.

I get frustrated when the big supermarkets sell 3 litres of milk for $4/$5 depending on brands and the dairy farmer gets next to nothing for his milk.  So, the motto of the dairy story is to buy dairy products that are owned and produced by local co-ops so that the profits go to the farmer and not to the supermarket giants.

I can now (hopefully) say goodbye to spending $5.50/kg on natural yoghurt by making my own for $0.40.

Ingredients:

2 cups of milk (I used skim milk powder to cut costs but you can use fresh milk, full or skim milk)
2 tablespoons of yoghurt - must have live cultures

Tools:

1 cooking thermometer
I used my Easi-yo yoghurt container to keep the container warm overnight but the website I consulted just used a thermos
1 jar (sterilise with boiling water to kill any bacteria)

Method:

1.  Heat milk to 180 deg F
2.  Let milk cool to 105 - 110 deg F
3.  Mix in 2 tablespoons of yoghurt
4.  Put mix in jar and put the lid on
5.  Fill thermos container with hot water 110-120 deg F and add jar
6.  Leave for 24 hours then put in fridge

I made my yoghurt at 1pm, left it over night and had a peep at 11am the following morning.  It had set so I put it in the fridge and had a nibble along the way!

Enjoy