Saving Time

With this little baby.

It is a Thermomix and it is all mine. I am in love. I have wanted one of these after hearing Cindi O Meara talking about how they have made her life so easier.

Cindi O Meara is a nutritionalist with a few bestselling books and she speaks such common sense. She promotes eating food that is natural and chemical and preservative free.

http://www.changinghabits.com.au/


I almost choked when I heard just how much they were. Lets just say that they aren't cheap. The price turned me off for months and months. That is until I went to a cooking demostration and saw one in action. And I was blown away. In a little over an hour it made sorbets, dips, bread dough, coleslaw, lentil hot pot, smoothies, butter ... all in the one bowl with next to no mess to clean up afterwards.
It is a one stop kitchen appliance.
It can grind wheat grains into flour, raw sugar into icing sugar.
It can knead bread and dough.
It cooks and stirs at the same time - no need to stand over the oven while cooking anymore.
It cuts and mixes.
It can even wash itself.
So far I have made bread using wheat grains (remember the Thermomix will grind the wheat into flour.
I have made tomato sauce - it cuts the onion, tomatoes, herbs, then heats and stirs and cooks them.
Sorbet in a couple of minutes - ice, egg white, sugar, mango and banana.
Mushroom soup.
Chocolate spread (similar to nutella) but with hazelnuts. The Thermomix grinds the nuts smooth, melts the chocolate and mixes.

So enough raving! If you have a chance go and see one in action. You can only buy direct from a demonstrator which is another thing that turned me off initially. But I found there was no hard sell. The demostrator I saw using it just cooked and answered question and then let the machine speak for itself.
People who want to cook from scratch like myself, those who grow their own fruit and veges, and those like myself who just run out of time each day will love this. It is so fast and easy.

Hmmm.... did I say I love it yet?

Bulk Buying

It has been a while since I have posted. But now the holidays are over its back to day to day life.
Since being back I am more determined than ever to get back onto track with our food - both buying and eating. Before I was getting rather overwhelmed with trying to make too many big changes all at once -
- buying local foods.
- eating organic foods.
- growing our own vegetables and fruits.
- supporting local shops.
- eating foods with low or no additives.
- preparing foods from scratch, unprocessed.
- bulk buying.
- preserving our own foods.
Finding the time to do all the above was proving difficult.

Well I could go on with the list of changes I want to make.

Instead I am focusing on one thing at a time and getting that system into place and making it a habit before going onto another change.

So the first thing I am concentrating on is bulk buying. I am lucky to be in touch with a great group of people living locally who are also interested in eating and cooking more healthily. We have formed a bulk buying group and have got our fruit and veges, grains and red meats covered. We haven't found a good supplier of organic chicken or turkey yet though.

I have been part of a fruit and vegetable goup now for over 5 years. At the moment there are six of us in the group. Each fortnight we put in $30.00 and two of us each fortnight go to the farmers market and buy for the group, come home and sort it into 6. This all takes about 2 1/2 hours. Our turn comes around every 6 weeks which makes it very easy. We are going this Friday so I will take a photo of the amount we buy for our $30.00 and post it - huge amount!

We buy our grains wholesale from here
http://www.goodness.com.au/
The wholesale prices are good, its organic and products are great. We divide each up into 1 kg or more lots and share them around.

Meats (lamb and beef) are brought direct from the farm here http://www.moppitymeats.com.au/index.html. Their meats taste so much nicer than that from the supermarket!

Our eggs come from the fruit and vege market and so does our honey.
Milk I still buy from the supermarket. I wish I knew someone with a cow.

And we are very lucky to live close to this shop
http://www.bibina.com.au/content.php3?p=aboutus
They stock a huge range of Australian and imported foods and bulk amounts, hard to find ingredients etc. It is a cooks dream just to wander up and down the aisle.