What We Ate ~ Week 4 ~ 2012

I am so loving this ! I love looking back on the week that was ... Would love to see what the rest of you are eating too ! How 'bout it ? Anyone want to join me ?

Often at the end of a shopping week, we will just have something simple. This was not only the end of the shopping week, we also had been away for the weekend and needed something easy. We thought omelets because we had plenty of eggs. Well, we thought we had plenty of eggs. But the second dozen, which I had gotten from someone at work who has chickens, was less than pleasing ! Every egg had two yolks and something that looked like blood in it ! We were grossed out and not sure what the deal was so we didn't use them. That meant we had to split the one omelet we had ... I put a big chunk of feta and avocado on the side and called it good. This omelet has spring onion, black olives, pine nuts, feta and tasty cheese in it.

Oops ! Totally forgot to take a photo ! I had been at Zumba while this was in the oven, came home to a bowl already served up, sat down and ate ! Unfortunately that means I had to draw the picture ... drawing is not my strong suit ! What I ate, not that you can tell from my drawing, is my Mom's mac and cheese !

This was another throw together meal. Just using up what we had. It's garlic and coriander chicken (minus the beans sprouts, didn't have any of them), jasmine rice, and some zucchini that I sliced (kinda thickly) and them sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil, sprinkled with lots of garlic powder and a little bit of rock salt. I LOVE zucchini this way !

These Low-Fat Chicken Enchiladas were delicious but SUPER SPICY !! We fed the kids earlier because I suspected they would be over the top hot ! We smothered them with Greek yoghurt and iceberg lettuce to dull the spice to an edible heat !

I loved these black bean stacks ! So yummy ! Originally found them here but I did a few things different ... here's what I did.  I served these with these yummy steamed carrots with garlic-ginger butter (only 69 calories per serve!!).  I couldn't find baby carrots so I just chopped up normal carrots ... they were tasty.

We love this salmon with pepita-lime butter. It's so easy to make too ! You just grill or pan fry the salmon with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Toast 2 tbls pepitas (pumpkin seeds). Melt 1 tbls butter and then add a bit of lime zest, 2 tbls (or the juice of a small lime) lime juice and a pinch of chili powder. Drizzle this on top of the cooked salmon. SO GOOD !

Served it with this Fresh and Delicious Quinoa ! (my new favorite quinoa dish !!)

Went out to dinner last night ! So yummy ! I had "Creamy Prosciutto and Wild Mushroom Carbonara" with a side of creamy garlic prawns that I added to it.

What We Ate ~ Week 1 ~ 2012

It's a New Year and time to make a change. Instead of posting our menu before we eat it, I'm going to post WHAT WE ATE each week, after the fact. I'll simply snap a shot on my iPhone at dinner time and then can link to recipes from there ...

I find our menu chops and changes so much and I want a true representation of what we actually eat each week so I'm going to give this a try !

You are welcome to join me ! If you post on this blog ... I'd love to see what you are eating ! If you have your own blog ... link in the comments !

I'm going to post Sunday to Saturday each week ....

Here we go !

Buffalo Boneless Chicken with Roasted Cauliflower/Broccoli

Dukkah Crusted Pomegranate Marinated Cod with Greek Quinoa Salad
and Sauteed Silverbeet (from our garden !)

The fish and the quinoa were new recipes. They were both very tasty. We decided not to bother trying to 'crust' the fish next time as the dukkah all fell off. We will just use the remaining marinade and some dukkah to make a nice sauce (we did that this time too ... just simmer together for a few minutes and then top the fist with it ... as you see in the photo) The quinoa I will make again and again. Such good flavor. The only thing I did different was roasting the red bell pepper ... and I didn't add a green one.

Homemade Pizza !

Mexican Cous Cous w/steamed asparagus

Lemony Chicken w/Israeli Cous Cous and Italian Salad with Fresh Basil Vinaigrette

Cheeseburgers

Toast, vegemite, dill pickle slices, fried egg. Mmmmmmmmmm !

Oeufs Poches

if

you are my

friend on facebook

this won't be news to you

but ...

yesterday i ate

my first ever poached egg

i love eggs ~ i hate runny yolk ~ always have ~

but yesterday the part of me that loves trying new things was

stronger than my life long hatred of runny yolks

so i tried it and get this ~ i liked it

runny yolk and all

this is not the poached egg i ate.

the one i ate was not what one would call pretty.

this one is better ... but i took the photo on my cell phone

(and then made it look like an oil painting to try and hide the poor shot ~ didn't work !)

this is the egg that rory ate ~ after craig the poached egg chef ~ had a couple practice runs.



i'm sure it won't surprise any of you

that since i've discovered i like eggs this way

i'm going to have to learn how to make them myself !!

and i'm going to have a go at hollandaise sauce

it's a good thing i recently bought myself

" mastering the art of french cooking "

i just had to

after

watching julie and julia

(and after finding the boxed set on sale at target !)



i also bought the movie

i don't usually buy movies ~ i'm happy watching

something once and then never seeing it again ~ but over the easter

weekend i went to rent this to watch with my sister in law and decided i'd better

just buy it as it's one i already know i'll watch again and again

~~

speaking of the easter weekend, i meant to tell you all about how we went staying unprocessed. for the most part we did ok. we had decided in advance that we'd make a few exceptions. we were celebrating my birthday and we had loads of family at our place for many days and couldn't expect everyone to eat like us.

(some highly processed foods we enjoyed for my birthday dinner !)

but we didn't do too bad. it's interesting though. rory and i both got really sore stomachs one night after eating a few pieces of raisin toast. we think it was the white flour just sitting in our guts. gross. not the raisin toast. we loved every bite of that. the tummy ache wasn't worth it to me to do again though. i didn't have one piece of chocolate. but that's no temptation for me. the pavolova on the other hand ~ i had it two days in a row. the second day i got a headache. one that i had to go to bed to get rid of ! weird eh ? i find it so interesting to see what happens when we eat these things that we haven't been eating~ it makes me wonder what happens in our bodies when we eat them regularly.

(this was last years ... i didn't take the camera this year)

i never did get around to posting the rest of this weeks menu ~ mainly because i didn't ever plan it ! we've just been eating easter weekend leftovers, and meals we've previously cooked and froze. the kids and i had fish and chips on the beach with a friend one night and last night we had ~ excuse the drool ~ sashimi at one of our favorite restaurants. we haven't been there since my birthday last year !!

~~

i didn't mean for this to turn into a book

sheesh !

i will finish here

i did try out the new tagine this past week

delish !

photos and recipe coming soon !!

but enough for today !

bye !!

What on Earth Happened to Weeks 6 & 7 ?!

I'll tell you what happened !  We had a house full of family for two weeks ! 
My sister Ellie. My brother in law Ryan.  And their three sweet boys who are 8, 4 and 1 !!
Visiting from the USA ...

HOORAY !!!

I started the first week trying to take my dinner photo but by day two I forgot !  Day three ... the same.  We ate out, we ate in, we ate out, we ate easy, we ate here there and everywhere ... 

I just didn't remember.

Back on track this week ...
I've already taken the first photo !!

What We Ate ~ Week 25 ~ 2012

So, we are more than halfway through the year, and I've done one of these posts every week ... well, minus two weeks when my sister was here visiting. 

I was thinking about not doing them anymore.  Just yesterday, I was weighing it up.  And then this morning I get a facebook message from a friend I haven't seen in years.  Just out of the blue. She told me she has been following the blog and mentioned that she enjoyed seeing these posts of what we eat each week. 

I decided then that I'll keep them going.  At least for til the end of the year ... and then, we shall see ...

Here's what we ate this week .......

 

Broccoli Pesto Pasta

This recipe is not on the blog.

I want to modify it a bit, 

try it again and then

maybe I'll 

share !

 

Greek Lamb with Spinach and Orzo

 

Chicken Pot Pie

 

Nachos

 

Souvlaki Chicken ... cooked by Rory's Mum !

Burgers ... Our standard

 

Spaghetti Bolognaise

Green salad with cos lettuce, rocket and tomatoes from our garden !!

A New Challenge & Pearl Cous Cous

I mentioned in my post on Sunday that I was going to start feeding us out of what we have here.  I said it like this:

Every now and then I decide that we need to try and eat out of our pantry, freezer, fridge and garden. There are often a few factors that go into my deciding this. One is that sometimes when we are extremely busy, I feel like planning a menu and then going to the grocery store could send me over some sort of imaginary 'edge' ! Two is when we've made a large purchase (like putting solar panels on our house!) and not shopping for a week would help pay for them. Three is when I look into my pantry and freezer and see that what's in there could probably feed a family in Africa for a month. And so, I get creative .... 

Then yesterday I was looking around on the internet and I stumbled upon this challenge ! It starts Monday and I'm going to join them !  It goes for four weeks and basically it's about eating out of your freezer and pantry in an effort to save money.  Tomorrow I will make an inventory of what I have in the house ... I will share that with you.  At the end of each of the weeks (I'm going to do the whole four week challenge) I will share with you what we ate (as per usual) but I will also share with you what I had to buy (I do plan to keep feeding my family fresh fruit, veg, milk etc ...)  and how much I spent each week.  My grocery budget, including toiletries, is $350 a week.  I do pretty well keeping within that most weeks.  I'm very interested to see how much I can save over the four week challenge !  And also what interesting meals we will come up with ...

Tonight's meal was just something I threw together in a hurry.  It was nice.  Simple. Easy.  I had all of the things in my fridge, pantry and garden.  I made it in the afternoon and refrigerated til we were ready to eat.  It was only the kids and me tonight.  Had Rory been here, I probably would have grilled some chicken to go with it.

Pearl (Israeli) Cous Cous

1 Roasted Red Bell Pepper, chopped small

1 Tomato, chopped small

1 Spring Onion, sliced

A couple spoonfuls of sliced black olives

A small handful of salted capers

Garlic, chopped,  to taste

Juice of 1/2 a lemon (or more to taste)

Boil cous cous according to package instructions.

Sautee garlic in olive oil til golden brown. (maybe 1/2 tablespoon of oil)

Drain cous cous.  Mix cous cous with other ingredients, including oil you cooked the garlic in.  Squeeze lemon juice on top and mix. 

Can be served hot or cold.

PS ... If I'd had feta in the house, I would have put that in too ...

What We Ate ~ Week 3 ~ 2012

Apricot Chicken with A Nutty Cous Cous

This was a healthy fish taco out of one of the Biggest Looser cookbooks. We didn't like the corn tortillas and ended up just eating it like this ... sort of like a salad. It was ok. Probably won't make it again so won't bother posting a recipe !

We ate out this night ! YUM YUM YUM !! This is a beef rogan josh with saffron rice and garlic naan.

Will totally make this again ! This fish was amazing ! Again, we only ate half a serve for dinner so had it for lunch as well ! Both of these recipes come from the low calorie section of the Eating Well website. The fish is Salmon with Pepita Lime Butter (pepitas are pumpkin seeds). The pumpkin is based on the Maple-Roasted Sweet Potatoes but we obviously used pumpkin. The potato we just coated with olive oil and roasted. The peas were frozen and we steamed them.

Salad ... from memory it was rocket, lebanese cucumber, roma tomato, pine nuts, fetta, avocado, sauteed mushrooms, and a bit of fried bacon. Topped with olive oil, garlic chive flower vinegar and flaky sea salt.

Homemade pasta. Roasted tomato, garlic and onion sauce. Will post recipe soon ...

We were at a family get together last night and I totally forgot to take a photo of dinner ! So .... you get a fabulous drawing. No, the children didn't draw this, I did. They would have done a better job. Their sausage would have been bigger than the corn on the cob ... like in real life !!

On this plate is ... sausage with ketchup, potato salad, onigiri, peas, corn on the cob, green salad, and I think that is it.

What We Ate ~ Week 15 ~ 2012

 

 

I was sick on Sunday night. Headache and upset stomach.
I tried to stay up but just couldn't. Rory made me some pastina and sent me to bed.
I slept for 12 hours !

Calamari with Fresh and Delicious Quinoa



Homemade sushi



Mexican Cous Cous and Asparagus



Japanese Mince and Rice


Homemade Pizza ... at a friends place. Pictured ... The Funky Lime.




Greek Lamb with Spinach and Orzo (but we couldn't find any Orzo so used Israeli Cous Cous)

And there you have it folks ... another week of What We Ate.

What did you eat ?  I'd love to see !

If you post it to your blog, link in the comments so I can come see !

What We Ate ~ Week 7 ~ 2012

After a full on couple of weeks with five extra people in the house, and basically an empty fridge, I had no idea what we would do for dinner on the Monday after we dropped them all to the airport and then tried not to cry the rest of the day at work ... :)

I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine told me that she was cooking her amazing veggie stack and it would be on sale in the cafe that day !! I ordered two, they came with salad, I cooked up some corn on the cob and dinner was taken care of ! Deliciously !

Tuesday night was just as crazy ... I remembered that there was some bacon in the freezer so I just whipped up some of Rory's carbonara and we all inhaled it as quick as possible ... so quickly that I forgot to take a photo !

Wednesday ... still hadn't had time to get to the grocery store so we ordered Indian takeaway ! YUM !

Thursday ... eggs, yep. potatoes, yep. one chicken breast ... defrosted. leftover pesto. one piece of jarlsburg left from burger night.

We worked together and came up with tortilla espanola,  chicken topped with pesto and cheese and a garden salad. 

Friday night. It was pouring down rain and we were exhausted ! I quickly stopped at the store on the way home from work and got the fixin's for Mom's mac and cheese ! It was perfect !

Last night we tried these buffalo chicken tacos that I found on pinterest (do you pin ? let me know, i'll come follow you !). They were delicious. I didn't do them exactly as on the recipe I've linked ... I'll post my version soon.