Cheaper Mince

On my blog here not only do I show how to use the harvested foods from my backyard to the best value, I also show how I save money elsewhere in the kitchen.

My latest find (been after one for a while now) is a mincer.

I'm not a big fan on supermarkets and the only red meat I buy is the Coles mince as I find this is the less fattiest I can find for our food budget allowance. I only buy the mince when its on special.

Now that is changing. No more buying meat at the supermarket from now on. I can 100% support a whole sale butcher we go to. While still having mince that is 100% fat free.





Check it out. I wasn't going to pay for an electric mincer, this baby was only $40.00 brand new. As a kid I used to help my mum by mincing the lamb meat on the sheep station. Or mincing vegies for my Nanna & Grampa when they made their yummy pasties.

Now when we buy our whole rump for around $7 a kilo I can mince a large slice for Pat & I, with all the fat removed and less than half the price of the supermarkets and I don't have to wait until the mince is on special.



Chicken patties with vegies for tea that night..........

technorati tags: food savings, mince, chicken

White Eggs

Not very often we see white eggs in the shops. People seem to want the brown eggs. I read somewhere it was to do with people thinking, brown eggs are like bread..... better for you. When really there is no difference with the eggs.

I have 3 new white chickens and its been years since I have been able to find and buy them for my backyard.

Called them the "Blonde Bombshells", seems to go well with the red chooks I call the "Blue Rinse Set". They have blue rings on their legs, so I can keep track of their ages.

Anyway this is the "first" big egg one of them has laid. I was getting little white eggs the size of a bantam.

All the best for 2010.....

Chicken Nuggets

When James was little he loved chicken nuggets. I used to pop some on his plate with a small salad as a lunch meal on weekends.

I must say I like them too. Well nothing like an reformed cook who is more in touch with what is in food and what isn't.

The stupidmarkets sell the nuggets either in the deli, meat section or the freezer. If your eyesight is good and you know all the words...you know what is in the nugget.

You can go to one of those chicken franchise shops and pay about $10.99 a kilo for some of their chicken nuggets.

Or you can do what I do and save yourself a heap of money and get a great feed of chicken nuggets.

Lets take a look.



First off you need a healthy salad to go with your nuggets. In the colder months you may need to supplement your own garden salads with some from the green grocer. Now this is all done..the chicken nuggets are next.

This is nice and easy.

I buy my chicken breasts from a butcher who sells them for $8.99 a kilo. One small chicken boob will do just nicely.

Cube the chicken breast into bite size pieces and coat them with some of these crumbs.




That is what the chicken franchise shops use and into some oil the crumbed cubes go.



So there you have it....chicken nuggest that are made with pure chicken meat..and a few crumb to coat the meat.

Why don't you try it and see what the kids or yourself think

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: chicken, food savings, salads

Eggs Equal Pasta.

I have found another way to make good use of the chook eggs I collect each day.

Today I made ribbon pasta for the first time. Never even seen it being made or tasted home made pasta. Tonight we will be guinea pigs for my first pasta batch.




It was my birthday on Sunday and Pat bought me the pasta maker. Seeing the pasta dough going from this stage to.....



This stage and thinness, so easy was really interesting and way so cool.



The end result, ribbon pasta for tonights meal with cream chicken & mushroom sauce to go on top.

Even if it's a flop....I'll post a photo tomorrow of the end result of the whole meal.

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: chicken, eggs

Fishy Tale

Tonight for tea, I had a surprise for Pat. Rainbow trout, grilled with a fresh side salad.



Not all of the salad is from our vegie patch. But the fish is true blue Aussie.

Those fish shops at the market give a great range of Aussie caught fish and good prices. This little fella was $13.99 a kilo and it set me back $5.10.

We have also started to buy marinated whole chickens for roasting from a butcher in the markets. Bigger than the stupidmarket ones they sell and only costing $6.00. This will easily feed 4 people or in our case a hot meal and then a cold meal with salads.

Also pork chops are a better price as well. Plus a bigger size than some of scrawny loin chops that are sold in stupidmarkets.

Start looking outside your stupidmarkets for cheaper meats.....its worth the look round.



Someone asked me ....."Why do you call them stupidmarkets"?


I answered with...."What is so super about them"?????


He laughed and said that made a lot of sense and he liked my reasoning.

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: chicken, leafy greens, salads, fish

1 Chicken Breast Equals 8 Pies

With meat getting even dearer time for another food tip from my kitchen. This one is wonderful and so cheap.

All you need is 1 chicken breast and making it into a pie mixture adding any vegies you like. I use the water I cook the chicken breast as chicken stock. Season to your taste.

1 0r 2 sheets of puff pastry.






My pie maker, great for those pies, made in my kitchen. Be savory or sweet.




After the pastry is cut out with the pie cutter, into the heated up pie maker. Pop on the covers and cook until pastry is brown.


That was my lunch today.

I bought 5 chicken breasts for $15.00. So that was 5 chicken boobs for $3.00 each.

By thinking what I can make with1 breast, it was made into 8 pies. As I have a shocking cold and we had 2 pies each for last nights tea. The other 4 pies I cooked for lunch today and we will eat the 2 left over with tonight's meal.

Hope that all makes sense as my head is all mush with this cold.

Until next time....hoo roo