Costco Shopping and Prices 11/05/14

Just a selection of goodies priced today- let me know with a comment if you want the price of anything pictured but not in the list. Some items I didn't know what to compare them to, others I have listed before.

Costco Shopping and Prices 27/4/14

So I have continued to shop at Costco even though I haven't been posting anything about it. I usually go now for smaller trips and park outside the building and just take my own shopping bags in. The experience is much easier and shorter when you don't have to get a car park or a trolley! But today I bought quite a few things, mostly things I don't think I have posted about before either, so I have done another price comparison between Costco, Aldi and Woolies. I get my Woolies prices online, so the savings in store wouldn't be as large I think. However you will see that on these products the difference is so large between Woolies and Costco that even the lower in store prices won't be better than Costco.  If you want more details or a review of any particular items please let me know with a comment, I'd be happy to let you know :)

Items I didn't mention in the table: Yum Cha at Home Steam Selection seafood dumplings (scallop, prawn and prawn+ginger) So much yum. This is $19.99 for 52 piecces. Frozen Blueberries 6.46 for 1kg, Ceasar Salad- The lettuce is ok, the bacon is ok....but the dressing is sooooooooooo good. This is a much better shopping treat than the jerky I usually by too, I think. In this picture you also can't see the skim milk box, that blue one is full cream. 

Pre-vacuuming

After Vacuuming- Enough to last a day or two fresh
and the rest sealed up to last until we need it. I
will need to keep track this time of how long it takes
us to use it up and how nice it stays.

So even though the spell check was on, I missed a couple of 'real' spelling errors. But I couldn't be bothered fixing it and getting a new screen shot. I am truly sorry for letting you down. But not really.

Chia Puddings

Chia seeds are something I don't know much about, but having bought some at Costco I have a lot of them to experiment with. Previously I have made some Banana, Blueberry, Chia and Oat muffins which were really nice and great to freeze  Today I made a batch of puddings in different flavours. Before now I made a chocolate chia pudding with a recipe from Food Wishes, and then I made a vanilla one with almond milk and vanilla bean paste with a small amount of sugar added.

Looking at many online recipes I think the basic mix for a pudding is 1/4 cup Chia: 1 cup liquid. 

Today I used almond milk for all my puddings and made Chai, Banana, Chocolate, Mango, Cherry+Raspberry and vanilla. I made them in little yoghurt pots that came with my Aldi yoghurt maker, so they will be great to take to school. Chia is very healthy with lots of protein, omgea 3+6 and fiber. Almond milk a little watery to drink for my taste, but not bad at all and with only 40 calories per cup its s great option instead of regular cows milk if you would rather use your calories on other things. 

1. Pour one scoop full of Chia seeds (1/8 cup) into each jar or container.

2. Add other flavorings:

Chai: 1/2 a Chai Latte pod (or some Chai powder)

Banana: 1.5-2 Tbsp banana milkshake syrup

Chocolate: 1 heaped teaspoon cocoa powder, 1-1.5 tsp sugar

Mango: a few cubes of chopped up mango, 1 level tsp sugar

Cherry+Raspberry: 3 tsp Cherryberry Jam (recipe here)

Vanilla: 1/4 tsp vanilla paste, 1 tsp sugar

3. Pour in 1/2 cup almond milk or as much as you can fit. If you can't fit enough liquid in your pudding will be crunchier, so you might need to play around with how much of different fillings can go in.

4. Put the lids on and shake up the jars. Open and stir if any seeds have stuck in bunches to the sides. Leave the jars for a few minutes and shake again. Then leave in the fridge for 3 hours or overnight.

 I haven't tasted them all yet, but I know that chocolate and vanilla are both yummy. Out of the others the only two I think some people might not like would be the chai and banana, but given they are both normally milky drinks I like, I think they will be good. Anything fruity and sweet I always like, so I know the mango and cherry+raspberry with be good. 

Banana,Blueberry, Oats + Chia Muffins

So earlier today I went to Costco. Two of the things I bought were a giant tub of cake mix and chia seeds. So this afternoon I made muffins using the cake mix and the chia seeds with banana, frozen blueberries (which I also get from Costco) and rolled oats.  They're very yummy and not too sweet (by my standards anyway) for a packet mix cake base.

Ingredients (makes 12):
spray oil
340g  all purpose cake mix
3 tbsp oil
1 cup blueberries
1/3-2/3 cup of milk (start mixing with less and add more if you think it needs it)
2 small-medium bananas mashed
2 scoops chia seeds (around 1/4 I think)
2 eggs

1. Pre-heat oven to 180, spray and line a muffin tray.
2.Measure out the cake mix or your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, mix through blueberries and create a well in the center.
3. Mix the oil, milk, banana and eggs in a separate bowl- this is to reduce mixing with the dry ingredients as over mixing is bad for muffins).
4. Add the wet ingredients to the well and mix until just combined.
5. Spoon into tin and bake for 20-25 mins (mine were in for around 25, but I think they would have been fine with a little less)
6. When cooked through and a skewer or knife comes out clean, remove from oven and when cool enough, place on a wire rack to cool.

These muffins are so yummy fresh. The banana and blueberries mean it is moist, the cake mix kept things nice and fluffy and the chia seeds add some extra crunch. I will freeze these individually for work, hopefully they defrost well wrapped up over the morning, if not, they will be tasty defrosted in the microwave and eaten hot!

Costco Shopping and Prices 27/01/14

Back to Costco today. It was really busy, almost as busy as it was just before Christmas, but it took about 10 min to get a car park and we were then in and out fairly quickly. This time I got lots of things from the specials, you can view them on the Costco website here .
Just a small bunch of things this time, although the cost still gets high easily with these things!

Overall I'm pleased with my items. The toothpaste and brushes were the let down for me, but that's what I get for not checking. I have been happy with the Aldi toothpaste, however I didn't love the toothbrushes, so that is a good saving. I will see if I notice any difference with the Colgate toothpaste. If you are loyal to your brand for toothpaste the saving is very good.

The facial wipes are significantly more expensive than the Aldi brand ones, but much cheaper than brand name ones from Woolies, so I will have to use them and see how good they are. That said, it comes in a convenient package and has some smaller travel packs in it which will be handy.

Everything else was very good value and I'm pleased with my purchases. The cake mix will be so handy, being in the tub makes it easy to use and make whatever quantity I like. I will be making some Banana/Blueberry+Oat+Chia breakfast muffins later today hopefully, so we will see how they turn out.

Easiyo Yogurt- Home Made Yoghurt

Today I had a lovely trip down the Smith's Beach at Philip Island. It was busy, but not TOO busy. It was actually a nice amount of people to watch surfing and snorkeling etc, without everyone being on top of each other. If I was a better blogger I would have taken photos. But I didn't...oops. This might have been somewhat related to the downside of my day which was the large filling I had to get in the morning. The dentist was great and it didn't hurt at the time but has been very uncomfortable all day since the anesthetic wore off.  So dinner today will be some home made yogurt, jam and berries so that there is minimal chewing involved.

I thought I would share my recipe with you while I'm at it. I got this from another blog some time ago and I can't seem to find the same one any more. THIS blog looks like it has a similar recipe however and a few variations such as coconut milk which might be very tasty to try out. My recipe varies only slightly in that I will use a couple tablespoons of sachet mix (eg. Easiyo mix or similar) to get the culture in there.

Home-Made Yogurt
just under 1L milk (I use long life)
100g milk powder
2 Tablespoons yogurt mix.

1. Whisk your powders with about 1/4 - 1/2 the milk until it is dissolved. 
   
2. Add the rest of the milk and whisk again.
   
3. Boil water and fill your Easiyo thermos to the fill line.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Put the lids on and wait 8 hours or so until your desired taste and consistency is achieved. Move to chill in the refrigerator. 
   
5. Eat with yummy toppings!
   

The current batch I have isn't my best. I didn't measure out my milk powder and used too much I think as I used half a sachet of vanilla yogurt to get the nice flavour...that is also quite old powder that has been sitting open in the fridge for some time. Also I left it for longer than normal. So many reasons for the strange texture I got, kind of gooey like honey but thicker. It taste really nice those, just a nice mild not too sweet vanilla. Of course once you add all the jam and fruit like me the 'lower sugar' reasoning is redundant. 

If you have never tried making yogurt before I highly recommend the Easiyo maker. It's easy and cheap and so much nicer than store bought!

Fast Day Feast- Low Cal Meatballs, Zoodles and Tomato Sauce

(Title stolen from this blog)

Today is a fast day. That means very restricted calories... It can get boring. The plan for dinner was zucchini pasta (thanks to the gadget my mum gave me) with meatballs and sauce, and that's what I made, but it all turned out much better than planned.

A quick stop on the way home from a friends house to get cauliflower (a brainwave I had to get more meatballs and lower the calories) also got me a giant bag of lovely, pretty much perfect, cherry tomatoes! So of course, I made sauce.

This is the total
collection of 'bad bits'
 I had to cut off

It is super yummy and overall, the meal is very low in calories for what you get.

10 mini meatballs= 180 cals
Zucchini Pasta= 15 calsish
Home made sauce= 70 cals (for 1/2 cup)

Total= 265 cals

This leaves a really decent amount even for woman sticking strictly to the limit of 500 cals for the rest of the day. I even had calories left for some after dinner yogurt and fruit (a very small amount....but just the idea of being able to have dessert on a fast day is exciting!). I think that I would have the meatballs mixed with some sauce on toast with veggies on the side next time, there's nothing really wrong with the 'pasta' but it's nice to have options, particularly when you have more calories to play with.

Where appropriate I have linked to the original recipes I used to base mine on.

Recipe Zoodles, Low Cal Meatballs and Tomato Sauce:

You will need:
Zoodles
-1.5 zucchinis per person, made into noodles or grated/sliced thinly
-garlic
-small amount of olive oil
Meatballs 
-400gm lean beef mince (Extra lean would be better but I didn't have any)
-200gm cauliflower blitzed in a food processor
-1/2 brown onion
-2 eggs
-salt + pepper
Tomato Sauce
-1.5 kg (ish, I didn't actually measure for this at all) cherry tomatoes, halved
-olive oil
-balsamic vinegar
-chili flakes
-1 brown onion, diced
-garlic
-salt + pepper

Sauce:

1. Pre-heat an oven to 200 Celsius and lay your tomato halves face down on trays, I had to do several batches. Bake for around 10 minutes until they begin to wrinkle and remove from oven.
   
   
   
2. When cool enough to work with remove the skins and set aside flesh.
   
3. Heat oil in pan and brown onions and garlic. Add tomatoes and seasonings. 
   
   
   
   
4. Simmer for 10 minutes if using a pressure cooker and 1.5-2 hours if on a stove top.
5. If using a pressure cooker, set the medium pressure, and set for 45 minutes. 
   
6. Release pressure, remove lid and mix.
7. Using a stick mixer, blend to the consistency you like. Simmer to reduce if you want, I simmered for about 5 minutes.  
   
8. Taste and season as you need. 

Meatballs:

1. Prep cauliflower: 
   
2. Steam cauliflower for 10 minutes or until it loses the 'raw' taste. Let cool.
   
3. Mix meat, cauliflower, onion, eggs and seasonings well. 
4. Form into meatballs (mine were 20-25gm each).
   
5. carefully brown and cook in a fry pan, or microwave at 30 second intervals, draining as necessary. They are very fragile, and using my dumpling steamer allowed me to make them evenly sized very easily. They taste fine microwaved and covered in sauce no-one will no they're not nicely browned ;) 

Zoodles:

1. Fry in oil and seasonings until just tender, too much and they go sloppy.
   
   
   
   
   

Put your Zoodles in a bowl, top with meatballs and sauce, yum!