A Month of Food

On my original blog at Livejournal I would occasionally do a Month of Food, where I would aim to make a cuisine's dishes at least three times a week for four weeks in a row. Of course, this came with pictures! It's the most requested feature on blog, and I've had a very busy few years now and haven't had the time and energy to do another one.

Until now.

So, I'll be doing a Month of Food. This one is going to be a reflection of my current diet, which is the Harcombe Diet. It's primarily whole foods based, with little to no processed food. I'll only be photographing dinners as breakfasts are pretty boring (bacon and eggs in some form for most of it) and lunches are also boring (salad and tuna, salad and steak, salad and chicken legs, salad and cheese).

The basic guidelines of this diet are outlined below. I followed this diet for four months and lost about ten kilos. After the car accident and my trip to America, I didn't bother to return to the diet until after Christmas, and yet I am back at my previous car crash weight within two weeks. I was pretty excited about that! I've lost about 8 - 9 kilos. I fluctuate a lot with my weight, often staying the same weight or gaining three weeks in a row, and then lose between 1.5 - 3 kilos in the week I get my period. It turns out a lot of women lose weight that way! So for those of you who give up within a couple of weeks, you need to try for longer!
:)

The Harcombe Diet is developed by Zoe Harcombe. Her into video is here:
http://youtu.be/QMCU_tjeg2k
Webpage:
http://www.theharcombediet.com/
Book:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Harcom.../9781906125080

Basics:
1) The reasons why we over eat are usually one of three reasons: food intolerances, candida, or hypoglycemia. To deal with those, stage 1 is five days long, and focuses on no sugar, no wheat, no dairy-free except for Natural Yoghurt, no caffeine. During phase one, mixing fats and carbs is fine as the focus is on the issues, not on weight loss. I lost 3.7 kilos in the first 5 days, and John lost 1.5 kilos (he is much smaller than me and he kept his caffeine and milk) when we did this in May.

2) Stage 2 is the weight loss section in which the basic theory is moderate/low carbs and high fat. Meals are primarily fat meals, though if you want, you can have a carb meal but it should be low in fat if you do. There are three rules:

a) Don't eat processed foods
b) Don't eat fats and carbohydrates at the same meal
c) Don't eat foods that cause YOUR cravings.

Stage three means you get to cheat

Rules for Phase 3 are:

a) Don't 'cheat' too much;
b) Don't 'cheat' too often;
c) Be alert and stay in control

Most of the recipes in the future month are from her cookbooks, which I am working my way through. The cookbooks don't actually have much beef in them. There's a wide variety of meat and fish in the recipes, which I rather like.

My menu plan for the month includes Prawn and Cucumber Soup, Roast Pork, Spicy Moroccan Chicken Legs and osso bucco. Hope you enjoy the month!

Sarah P

Coles Seasonal Vegetable Box

What's in the box??

A few days ago I ordered Coles delivery as I stuffed my knee, and the last thing I wanted to do was wander around a supermarket for 2 hours while hobbling. Since my preferred stupidmarket doesn't deliver to me, I usually go with GroceryZone, but this time I thought I would give Coles a try. Coles only recently started to deliver in my area.

My first hint that this was a well thought out concept was booking a delivery time. A two hour delivery window was $13, a three hour delivery window was $11, and a four hour delivery window was $9. I think 2 hours of my time is definitely worth $4.50 an hour! I hate shopping. Did you know that? I do. I love delivery. I like to do my grocery shopping monthly, and my fresh fruit and veg during the month. I hate shopping so much I'd rather meal plan and get it all done in one big shop so I don't have to do it again. I resent wandering around a stupidmarket, making faces at all the food. I must amuse some people if they notice!

Another thing I liked - when I checked out, it told me that a) my credit card would be debited once the order was picked and packed, and that if I wanted to, I could log in and change the order up until mid-day the day before delivery. I logged in three separate times over the weekend to add 'just one more thing'!

I hate Coles. I have always found their vegetables to be awful, and the range to be uninspiring. Coles is not the cheapest, and it doesn't have what gourmet items I do like, so Woollies has always received less ire from me. I don't like it, but I hate Woollies less than Coles!

And Coles has Seasonal Vegetable Boxes! I was so excited! I love random boxes of fruit and veg, and have been a part of a couple of co-ops, and also companies which deliver boxes of random F&F many a time. Some just stopped delivery for some reason, or others let their quality slip, so I was ecstatic when the Armadale Farmers Market started up recently. So, I ticked the box, and waited with great excitement.

Getting boxes of random vegetables are a great way to expand your recipe repertoire, and also to make sure you EAT MORE VEGETABLES. Getting the fortnightly boxes FULL of vegies meant that we also had a deadline! These days we're much better at it, but sometimes we slip.

I am impressed. I am very impressed. All of the vegetables were top quality, and there is heaps.

1 x whole cabbage
1 x medium zucchini
4 x onions
4 x carrots
4 x potatoes
2 x broccoli
1/4 punkin (Like I need more. I still haven't bothered to catalogue the ROI on my single pumpkin plant)
1 x red capsicum
1 x green capsicum
1 x punnet of mushrooms

I love the fact there's basics as well as more exciting items. I love the fact there's a red capsicum and a green capsicum. I love the fact there's a mix of stuff that will last quite a while and stuff that needs to be used ASAP.

Coles, I hate to say it, but I'm impressed. Now I'm all sad because WOOLLIES SHOULD HURRY UP AND FOLLOW YOUR LEAD! And give me Rewards points too LOL

Also, for those who do the Flybuys thing, Coles will put your flybuys onto your account with online shopping.

So I would have to give Coles an 'AWESOMECOOKIES!' rating for their home delivery service. If they had a partnership with Qantas, I'd totally be all over them.
--
Sarah

Monthly Household Duties

I hate shopping. I hate it with a passion. I hate spending money on useless crap that gathers dust but you can't chuck it out because you only just bought it. Ugh. I also hate shopping for food. I resent the fact that someone has to do it. I don't mind someone else doing it. I don't resent my family,or my DH or anything, I resent our society in which the SAHP ends up doing all the menial crap as well as raising the children.

Ok, so the short explanation is: shopping makes me whiney.

To have less whiney days of me wandering around shopping markets making god-awful faces at things, I shop monthly, and for months when I really, really, can not stomach the idea of shopping, or else when everything has gone to pot and I can't devote a few hours to the basic necessities, I get someone else to do it. It costs - and often your product or brand isn't there, but sometimes I feel like I need it. Cost versus convenience. Cost versus sanity. Cost versus time likely to actually get to a shop... I am sure we all get the idea.

Today counted as the beginning of the new month because the credit card is now paid out. We have one credit card as part of the house loan, and a couple of accounts with nothing in them, and the mortgage. So, flush with money for a couple of days, I like to do my monthly shop.

Today went pretty well. I am loving the list on the front of the freezer, wrote up a few more meals that can be whipped up using the ingredients there, checked out the pantry and did the same, and then looked through the refrigerator. From this I crafted a rough list of meals, a rough list of missing things, and then checked the toiletries for refreshing as well. It didn't take me long, but I think I should do a Master List again.

I've been doing monthly shopping now for a few years, and the biggest problem we have is planning. Sometimes things happen you can't plan around, but often I just find I don't have the mental energy to think ahead. So, the inevitable trip down the supermarket comes up, and the inevitable $30 bunch of spaghetti issue arises, and we lose money hand over fist. I need to lock down on that, have a few things for instant meals. I've been really good with milk, but since DS1 is now onto milk, we're going through about 12 litres a week. That's a lot of milk! Especially when milk can be as expensive as $2 a litre! Or more! DS1 is probably teething too, so we're using more than we will later, but it does mean that we have to go to Woollies more often than I would prefer.

So, I am going to try a different method of tallying my supermarket expenses. We'll see if it makes any difference, but mostly I just have to work harder at being more organized. With DS3 cutting down to one day of daycare a week next year, I won't have his spare days to recoup any misses I make. I have to get it all right the first time. It's an awesome responsibility, sometimes, making sure that every one gets fed, and every one gets milk, and the bills get paid and everything words in a solid and reliable fashion. God it's exhausting!

So... Monthly Duties...
I like to prepay some bills.
- Electrickery
- Water
- Mobile Phone (this one is new. I figure if I just prepay, then I won't get behind, and I don't trust them to debit my CC in a timely and acceptable fashion)

Meal Plan for the Month
- Rough ideas mostly
- Monthly Shocking List
- Monthly Shocking (Meat and Groceries)
- Print Monthly Meal Plan and attach to Fridge

Transport Costs
- Fill vehicles
- Top up trains cards if possible.

Banking (Automatic)
- Rates Payment
- Mortgage Payment

I have started to use Google Calendars to keep track of when things come out of the credit card. The different colours lets me know instantly if there is a regular bill coming out of the card, and in theory I should be able to budget all the other expenses to fit within the monthly payment. Unfortunately, it never quite seems to work that way.

Anyway, I have a few monetary goals I want to attain over the next few years. The mortgage keeps getting pushed back further and further, but we're happy here with me being a SAHM, and don't feel the need for me to be working for reasons other than mental health. This means it's time for me to start watching even more closely, or rather to do so in a successful manner rather than a hopeful manner! Lots of food for thought coming this way!

Anyway, hugs and kisses for now,

Sarah P