Recipes - Day 3: The Experiment

Day 3's recipes below.

Recipes - Day 2: The Experiment

UPDATE: I realised that I neglected to write the instructions for "Macaroni American".  My apologies!  Here they are below:

Cook macaroni according to directions for Boiled Spaghetti (Day 1).  Combine tomatoes, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and bay leaf; heat.  Cube cheese.  Alternate layers macaroni, tomatoes and cheese in greased baking dish.  Cover; bake in moderate oven (370oF.) 15 minutes.  Serves 4-6.

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Phew!  Day 2's menu was much quicker to collate, as you can see below!

Recipes - Day 1: The Experiment

Below you will find the recipes you need for Day 1 of the Experiment.  Whew!  It's taking a bit longer for me to collate these than I thought... making everything from scratch leads you from one recipe to another just for the ingredients list.  But, I'm still excited (even though it's hard work!).

The pictures below are jpeg, but should be a standard A4 size to print out.  Please let me know if you have any issues with printing them out legibly and formatted okay.

(Update: I just did a test run of printing them out and I think you will need to save these images to your computer and then print.  If you print directly from this page, they come up very small.)

 

Desserts and Snacks - The Experiment

Hey everyone!

It's only a week until we begin the "Cooking Like Grandma" experiment!  I hope you're as excited as I am!  If you haven't registered your interest yet, please make sure you do on the dedicated Cooking Like Grandma page.  And don't forget to pass this on to any family and friends who might be interested in joining us!

So, you will have seen from a previous post the anticipated Menu Plan for the week.  You'll note that I haven't included snacks or desserts.  I didn't want to make it too strict and regimented for you, so I didn't add these things as well.  If you are interested in a meal plan for these as well, please let me know and I'd be happy to include some recipes that I'll be using during the week.

I'm actually going to use the Master Mixes for most of them, I think.  Although these are from my aunty, not my grandma, they are in line with my 'new' food philosophy in regards to cooking from scratch and getting rid of as many additives and preservatives from my diet.

In regards to how deep you and I want to go regarding the purging of additives and preservatives, here are some suggested steps during our experiment week:

Step 1: Getting on board this experiment and using the meal plan I've prepared (which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner).
Step 2: Using 'vintage' dessert and snack recipes instead of store bought/prepared food for your morning/afternoon tea and treats.
Step 3: Buying organic fruit, vegetables and meat.  I haven't looked into organic food before.  I've never considered buying it because it's more expensive and harder to come across (although it's become more and more accessible), not to mention my lack of passion for any one particular 'healthy eating' view... until now!).  I'm planning on doing more research to find out what organic actually means, but my gut tells me that there wouldn't be chemicals on/in the food from insecticides, washing, hormones etc.  It would replicate food grown in your backyard.

Life in Alphabet - X

is for X Generation... Generation X! "The generation born after the Western post-World War II baby boom ended^.  While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960s through the early 1980s, usually no later than 1981 or 1982"  Born in 1977, I definitely fit that criteria!

I did a little more research and found this list of traits of Gen Xers...

• Individualistic
• Technologically Adept
• Flexible
• Value Work/Life Balance 

I think I can relate to each of those characteristics, even if not for the same definition that was given on the website!

What generation are you, and do you agree with the 'generalisation' that is made of your generation? 

Just 2 more letters to go and then I'm finally finished my Life in Alphabet... this was suppose to be a month long project, but has turned into quite a few months!  Oops!

Menu Plan - The Experiment

In case you're a little worried about what we'll be eating during my Cooking Like Grandma Experiment, here's the menu plan to ease your mind!

 (If you click on the menu, it will take you to another page, where it will be larger and you can read it much easier).

There's nothing too out there!  No liver, or offal or anything else equally not-so-pleasant.  Then again, maybe that's your cup of tea and are disappointed there's none on the menu!

Most of these dishes are taken from the books I received in the package that started it all, but I have also taken a couple of recipes from Grandma Ellie's recipe tin, so there are a couple of 'newer' dishes dated around the 1960s.

I thought I'd ease into the whole Cooking Like Grandma thing... if this menu plan goes well and I get some good feedback, I hope to do this again in future, and might find some dishes to get a bit more adventurous with my taste buds!

If you have any thoughts on the menu plan, feel free to share them on the blog.  The experiment hasn't started yet, but initial feedback is welcome!

14 days until we start!  I'm excited!  I would like to have started earlier, but because of what the coming weeks look like, it might have been a little hard to stick to the plan for the whole week.  I hope you're getting excited as well!

As always, stay tuned for further updates... I'll be posting more information leading up to the start date, to ensure you have all the resources you need to 'experiment' with me!

Bargain

I love a good bargain, especially when it comes to clothes.  And today I found just that!  At the church where Little Spring and I go to playgroup, they were having a sale of all the clothes they didn't sell at a fair they had over the weekend.  "Fill a bag for $5".  I filled 2!  I don't if all the clothes fit, but for $10, even if I only get 2 items out of it, I'll be happy!

3 tops, 4 skirts, 5 dresses and some clothes for Elijah... I definitely think $10 is a bargain!  Now to go and try them all on.  If they don't fit, I'll just recycle them back into the goodwill pile.  We've recently had a huge cull of our clothes and other things, so there's bags full at the front door, waiting to be given to the op shop... and few more donations won't hurt!

What bargains have you discovered recently?  Or, if it's been awhile, what's the best bargain you've ever found?