I'm not joking about my second trimester energy levels. They are just soaring at the moment. And I can think again. I think about how I feel and what I want to do and eat, whereas before now, I was a zombie. I couldn't decide toast or tea, let alone make it!

I made myself some muesli, as I crave high energy, high nutrient, slow release food. I make it without all the awful, shriveled, inappropriate fruit they put in. Mango and paw-paw, I mean, really? And no fluffy, puffed bits, or oatbran noodles either. Old school- oats, wheatgerm, toasted with honey and all the good nuts and seeds. A few natural sultanas and a packet of dried blueberries I found in the back of the pantry. It's a comparably cheap but luxurious breakfast. Also there's a secret twist in the recipe, learnt from a lovely B'n'B lady in Byron Bay many years ago. I'd love to tell you, but I won't. Unless you ask.

Recently I received a gift of some gorgeous Meredith blue cheese, purchased before the giver knew I was pregnant. Not being one willing to miss out, today I decided to make it into cheesy biscuits, so everyone could enjoy it, though I will of course eat the lions share. They are flaky and melting, with a hint of mustard and freshly ground pepper. Divine.


The final highlight of another high energy day- I took baby G to the pool for the first time. What a ball we had! First we checked out the pelicans at the pier, fed our old bread to the swarming seagulls and then headed in to splash away a bit of time. Not long though, swimming totally knocks him out, and he was all ready for a morning sleep by the time we got dressed and walked back to the car. Which was all part of my cunning plan. Except that I was all tuckered out too! I going to make this a regular weekly date for us. He swims for free and I pay less than $5. Another item to factor into the budget, but happily.

Just a quick reminder- the last episode of Doc Martin tomorrow night. I'm going to curl up on the couch, barrel of cheesy bikkies and cold glass of Maggie Beer's Desert Pearl wine (non-alcoholic, another thoughtful gift, purchased when the giver did know I was pregnant!) and giggle and sob for an hour. Have a lovely weekend.

Golden, luscious love.

The colder weather has invigorated my appetite for cheap home-made puddings. Over the past two weeks we have had Lemon Delicious (using up lemons from the heaving tree), Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding (trying a new recipe from a 'cooking for toddlers book', but that much sugar is NOT for a toddler!) and tonight, Golden Syrup Dumplings. Except that we had no golden syrup, so they were brown sugar and treacle dumplings. No matter. Still so good.

I actually made them today at work, to sell tomorrow. My boss thinks we won't sell many, but I know he's wrong. Our first customer today demonstrated this for me. Harriet is a lady of a certain age with flair, a lust for life and a yellow Peugeot. The farmhouse kitchen I work in is right at the end of a rutted dirt road past a turn off to nowhere. I'm amazed we have any customers, let alone ones who would find getting there such a challenge. But she's a devoted regular and she interested in the more unusual things we cook. She wants tagines, not casseroles, rhubarb pudding, not fruit cake. She loves the flavour of juniper in her pork pie, as it goes with her taste for gin, she says. I get her.

Today she came in and once she'd collected together her purchases, I asked if she likes Golden Syrup Dumplings.
'Ohh, hmmm,' she said, eyes widening.
I said 'Great, I've just made some, but I bet you don't make it home with them, they're still warm,' and at that, she surged past the counter, around to my bench, fished out one fluffy, sweet orb of dumpling, still hot from its pan and promptly gobbled it up. An eighty-something old woman, twin-set, tweeds and sturdy shoes, cheekily swiping one of my dumplings, dripping syrup on the bench and grinning like a sugared-up loony!

It made my day. And since today is my wedding anniversary, I decided to make my husband's day, too.

Golden Syrup Dumplings.
It may feel a bit daunting, but just think of these as scones baked in a pot of syrup. Easy-peasy.
I wish I had a photo, but it would be of the empty pot. Sorry, next time.

for dumplings-
1 cup self raising flour
40gm softened butter
pinch salt
1 egg
50ml milk
Rub together the flour, salt and butter. Stir together the egg and milk and pour into a well in the middle of the flour mix. Stir together with your fingertips until a dough forms. Don't knead it, just bring it together.

for syrup-
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup
squeeze of lemon
Place all ingredients in a wide bottomed pot and stir over heat to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil and drop in golf ball sized pieces of dumpling dough. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Serve at once with dollops of heavy cream. Do not mention to anyone if there are leftovers, you'll be kicking yourself when there's none for a late supper.

Happy Anniversary, baker man.

cheap recipes

I had a flash the other day. It must have been going around because emzeegee had the same idea. The secret is cheap recipes.

I have an enormous cookbook collection. A book for everything, and I love every book. Since undertaking my saving task I noticed that many of my books require specialist ingredients. Expensive, beautiful foods that will make you a meal to remember. A meal to remember while you are crying over your credit card statement, in your rented house.

I needed to find a better source. I looked at what was about. Recipes for the people- Better Homes and Gardens, Good Taste, Delicious, Nigella, Jamie etc. Even they would have me out there buying eye fillet or salmon ($28 per kg), creme fraiche, proscuitto, gourmet cheeses, raspberries, blueberries..

Then it struck me. It's not about the ingredients, it's the recipe. I'm reading expensive recipes. So I changed what I am doing. No more out spending time, energy and money trawling for cheap ingredients. Do my research at home and find cheap recipes.

What makes a recipe cheap? Few ingredients, and not much of the expensive stuff. In main course and savory meals, you must look at what the bulk of the meal consists of, and what binds it together. Rice, potatoes, noodles, lentils, polenta, burghul and cous-cous bulk out a meal cheaply and beautifully. Utilising seasonal veges also makes a recipe quite cheap. Meat, cheese, prime pieces of fish or the need for protein portioned, like you get in a restaurant, will blow your recipe budget.

When you bake (if you do) then eggs, butter, chocolate, nuts, almond meal and honey will get you. These luscious ingredients make your baking luxurious and indulgent, which is why you would bother to make it in the first place. But the generations before us baked cheaply and filled the biscuit jar three times over for the cost of a flourless chocolate torte.

Out came the old Country Women's books (again!) and the vintage Good Housekeeping books, which I kept for the pictures. A quick scan and I found Asian, Middle Eastern and Jewish cuisines particularly lend themselves to cheap eats. In fact, the trend for peasant cooking like Italian, provincial French, Spanish and Portugese, brings us an abundance of great recipes. Out came clippings and old copies of anything I had from my Mum.

And I found a gem. Yum-yum Cake, from Joan Campbell. It's very easy and has water in it, for crying out loud. How cheap is that? Start with

1 cup raisins
1 cup sugar
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and cloves
1 1/2 cups water
50g cocoa, sifted
pinch salt

Combine these ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the boil, simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool.


Then stir through
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
3 drops vanilla

Pour into a prepared 21cm ring tin and bake at 180c for 35-40 minutes.

When it's cool glaze with
150g dark chocolate
1 tablespoon honey
60g butter
which you have melted gently together in a bowl over hot water.

The glaze will bust your budget, but it was hard to go cold turkey on the first cheap recipe! Because there's no eggs, it keeps well for about a week. If it lasts that long.

the truth about mince

OK, I have spent the week scanning catalogues, butchers windows and the places where I shop for meat and I have made a discovery. Mince is NOT the cheapest meat. Not at all.

The various grades alter the price, and the day you shop for it can affect markdowns. But the per kilo price puts mince up there with other meat cuts. We will not be eating as much mince as anticipated.

Which is just a relief for me, as I was not looking forward to a year of minced meat at all. In spite of my chirpy, upbeat tone, and optimistic outlook, my year of mince posed quite the spectre. The pasty, mushed up texture gets me very quickly, and however it's disguised, it's still mince to me. Now I have to perfect reason not to buy it so regularly.

So what have I bought?
Lamb neck ($3), lamb shank ($1.99), chicken necks (.67c, and which look like severed penises and attracted a crowd at my stockpot), BBQ sausages ($4.60). Odd sounding cuts, but much more interesting to cook with than mince.

I can try one of the gorgeous tagine recipes from my Claudia Roden cookbook with the lamb neck, and a soup with the shank. Make strachitella (eggy Italian soup) with stock from the chook necks and I can stretch a pack of sausages for many meals- two in a pasta with fresh garden tomatoes, top a homemade pizza with a couple, curried sausages, sausage stew with some eggplant and potatoes or barbequed with fresh 'slaw. That's budget meals for a week, without too much trouble and not a meatball or hamburger in sight.

To celebrate I made my favourite vegetarian meal, pilaf. It's a rice dish, of which there are many versions across the world. You may know it better as biriyani, kedgeree or pilau.

I make mine by sauteing some cubed vegies (onion, garlic, pumpkin, peas, zucchini) until they're sweet and slippery, then throw in 1/2 cup of red lentils, 1 cup basmati rice and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring it to the boil, cover tightly and turn it onto the lowest flame. Cook for 12 minutes. Once your time is up, without lifting the lid, remove from the heat and allow to stand for 10 minutes. Then you are ready to season and fluff with a fork.

If you lift the lid early, precious steam escapes and the rice will fail. The standing part is crucial. If you don't take the time, your rice will be gritty and undercooked.

To make it truly gourmet, you can add some toasted almonds, toss in some shredded chicken or stir through chopped fresh herbs at the end. It's actually a great vehicle for leftovers, but it deserves pride of place as a meal in it's own right. I haven't worked out the cost, it's so cheap.

Don't get me wrong, I love meatballs, but gosh, they're expensive, aren't they?

the great loaf

Quick off the mark, our first meal of meatloaf. Such an evocative symbol of economical home cooking. Good for a meal and three lunches at least. Delicious, really. Sadly we devoured most of it before I gained the presence of mind to take a photo. I'll get the hang of this blogging thing soon. More importantly, what of the math of the meal?

I used
500gm regular mince, $6.48 from Safeway. (Having scanned the catalogues this morning, this is not cheap mince. At current prices, I could have paid $2.20p/kg less.)

Boosted with one large onion (.12c),
one wilting carrot from the bottom of the vege bin (written off a week ago),
one zucchini from Dad's garden (free, with love),
one egg (.50c, free range),
1/2 cup breadcrumbs from the back of the cupboard (.05c)
and some secret herbs, spices and seasoning.
Grate veges, mix everything gently but thoroughly, 'enloaf' in a lined tin and bake at 180C for about an hour.
Total cost: $7.15

In a salute to the Country Women's Association and their gem of a leaflet 'Mince Matters', from where I drew inspiration, I served a baked potato and lightly boiled pumpkin and peas. Splodge of sour cream and some great relish on the table and a grander meal was never had.

Feeding two people for four meals, the cost per person, per meal is .89c. That is pretty good, I'd think. But you have to watch the add ons. Potato, pumpkin, peas, sour cream and relish all add about another $2 each to the meal, pushing the cost to $5.80 for the two of us. And I ran the oven for and hour and the stove for 20 mins. So we are in the realm of $6 for dinner for two. For dessert we broke into the chocolates that we received for Christmas, so the cost was not increased further. Phew!

Since I promised the baker I'd cook my way through 'Mince Matters' this year, you can look forward to some mystifying dinners. There's a dish called Stroganoff requiring mince, a can of tomato soup, a cup of rice and a pot big enough to boil it in. For CWA recipe lovers, yes, there's a dish requiring a tin of apricots. I'll have to work up to it. Bon Appetite