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One of the best jobs about homemaking for me is home cooking. There’s very rarely a day I don’t look forward to the planning, preparation and cooking of my meals, whether they be breakfast, lunch or dinner, even with the fussiest eater in the whole entire world, my 11 year old daughter. I just ignore her. (No, just kidding. It’s a work in progress and we’ve made great progress in the last couple of years.)

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I love food (if you haven’t already guessed) and I love how simple ingredients can come together for a taste sensation. I sometimes go weak at the knees when I taste things. I love looking at food and recipes and coming up with new and exciting ways to cook these ingredients.

Cooking from Scratch

So how can you get inspired to cook everything from scratch? And to keep costs down? I guess I learnt at a young age from my Mother (when the only takeaway was maybe fish and chips or Chinese food was just becoming the rage), the food wasn’t going to get on our plates without cooking it and sourcing it from the cheapest possible places.

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My family was a one income family with Mum helping out with babysitting, ironing, dressmaking and a little cleaning from time to time. Dad was a keen recreational fisherman and we lived on fresh fish and seafood. Steak was saved for Dad while us kids had beef mince or sausages. No chicken breast or thigh fillets in those days either. It was a whole chicken or nothing and Mum made sure we had the pieces we wanted, ie is breast, leg or wing and Mum got whatever was left. The bones went into a soup for the next night’s dinner.  There was always a Sunday roast for lunch and leftovers were made up into a Shepherd’s pie, rissoles (hamburgers) or meatloaf and sandwiches for school lunches

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I guess I’m saying that we’re spoilt for choice these days with convenience foods in the form of takeaways and meal kits, etc from the supermarket. If we kept things simple like generations before us, I think we’d start to enjoy food more and enjoy the whole

process. (Well, that’s what I’m hoping for.)

There’s a lot to be learnt from an outdoor market place

Sourcing Ingredients

Last month I wrote about buying versus growing your own vegetables and the importance of buying in season if you’re not going to grow your own.  To me, this dictates what I’m going to be eating. A local supplier delivers my fruit and vegetables. They only deliver what’s in season.  I use the supermarket for basic pantry staples like flour, sugar, milk, butter and other basic items. I buy my meat in bulk from a wholesale chain of butchers here in Brisbane. A little bit goes a long way. I try to keep the cost of my protein to $10 per kilo or less whether that’s beef, chicken, pork or fish etc. I  have a local egg and bread supply.

Finding Recipes

Recipe Inspiration

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I am forever on the hunt for recipes from different cuisines. With a few basic spices, you could be eating a spicy chicken dish from Brazil or a quick salad from Vietnam. Changing the Google search criteria will present many more recipes from other countries as well.  I have my ‘family favourites’ I cook without ever thinking about but I love to try new dishes all the time.  I hope that I’ll be able to pass on a few thrifty tips on how I can throw together these quick meals for next to nothing without giving up taste.