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 Solutions for getting around the soaring price of dairy products, make your own yoghurt and step by step beautiful biscuit bouquet for valentines day or as gift.
Eat Well Spend Less
Latest news from Sophie Gray
Thanks to everyone who entered our Maxwell and Williams Christmas Prize draw. We loved reading your stories and learning how you've changed your spending and cooking habits. We'll be featuring some of the stories on our site to encourage others who are struggling to stay on a budget.
The winners of the M&W gorgeous Rose Bloom teapot and cake stand were:
Natalie Fearnley, Winston Hills; Joanne Piper both from NSW Australia
Avalon Sanders, Warkworth; Melanie Bartlett, Auckland; M & B Hillas, Palmerston North; Lara Moss, Queenstown.
If spending less on groceries is a new challenge for you in 2008 check out Sophie’s top 10 tips for Eating well and Spending Less.
We want to do a shout out to our friend Trina Moesbauer who moved to the UK last year. Great to hear from you, let us know what the challenges are for all you dg’rs in the U.K so we can better support you – we promise to do a dg class for you if we make it over!
Many people have told us they’ve found their dg books invaluable when they moved to New Zealand as its hard to identify what is and isn’t “good value” in unfamiliar territory and new currency. We are keen to know what does and doesn’t apply elsewhere.
The next significant foodie event on the international calendar is Valentines day. Yup commercial it may be but it’s also a fun excuse to “treat” the ones you love.
Forget the $100 roses and corny cards, how about making a bouquet of gorgeous heart shaped cookies to share with kids, classmates, colleagues and your beloved. The recipe and step by step instructions for this pretty bickie bouquet are in the recipe section below..
Ever wanted to make your own pasta but weren't sure how?, to watch me demonstrate how to make delicious (and cheap) fresh pasta click view video.
If the daily lunch box drill is wearing you down already in 2008 our lunchbox breakdown is in the September 07 newletter - you may find that helpful.
Speaking of helpful, Healthy Food Guide magazine has been helping thousands of readers in New Zealand and Australia make healthy choices. Their easy to understand articles, expert advice and loads of great recipes have made it a success right from the word go. I really enjoy writing the regular "Eat Well Spend Less" column and recipes for the New Zealand mag and have prevailed upon them to give us some magazine subscriptions to give away. See the competition details below to enter.
Cook, eat & enjoy
Sophie Gray
Competition: Be in to Win!!
  Healthy Food Guide have given us 6 x 12 month subscriptions for the New Zealand edition and 3 x 12 month subscriptions for the Australian edition.
To enter the draw
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your favourite cheap healthy recipe. It can be a snack, sweet, meal or treat. All entries go in the draw
Only entries from Australia & New Zealand are eligible for the draw.
Entries close March 31st 2008 Winners notified by email the following week.
The Dairy Dilemma:
By now you will have noticed that the price of dairy products has increased substantially over the last few months. We’re now giving our kids petrol to drink instead of milk as it’s cheaper!
Seriously though, it’s worth thinking through the way you use dairy products to ensure your household still gets sufficient calcium without blowing the budget.
- Grated cheese goes further than sliced, train the family to grate cheese for sandwiches and sauces.
- Substitute béchamel (white sauce) for cheese sauce, just add a sprinkling of grated cheese to the top of your dish – lasagne, pasta bakes, cannelloni etc
- Use a strong flavoured cheese such as parmesan or gruyere and use less of it
- Bulk buy butter when on special and freeze. It freezes well.
- Have you considered milk powder? In my local stores a 1kg bag of Home brand reduced fat Milk powder ( makes 10 Litres) costs $9.25 or 93 c per litre. Compared to 1 litre fresh Home brand reduced fat milk @ $1.89 per litre.
Milk powder dissolves quickly in water.
The taste of milk powders these days is excellent and if you are accustomed to “trim” milk, you probably won’t notice much difference.
For drinking it's best to refrigerate over night. However it can be used immediately and cooks just like fresh milk but at half the price.
If the family don’t like the idea of milk powder just don’t tell them or use milk from powder for all cooking processes and save the fresh milk for cereals and drinks. You could split fresh milk with an equal quantity of milk made from powder to make your fresh milk go further.
Yoghurt is another victim of the dairy price rise. Many people who don’t tolerate milk can comfortably eat cultured milk products such as yoghurt. The good news is that yoghurt is easy to make and you can make it from milk powder (which is mostly what you get in a sachet of yoghurt base anyway.
For home yoghurt making we use a fresh yoghurt culture– in other words a spoonful or two of good quality active yoghurt.
Recipes:
How to make Yoghurt
Makes 600 ml
Yoghurt making seems to have taken on an almost mystical quality despite the fact that it is relatively simple to make.
You will need to “incubate” the yoghurt for 8-10 hours in a warm place. A yoghurt maker will incubate the milk culture at exactly the right temperature so use one if you have it.
If not, try either a warmed thermos, or glass preserving jar. Set it in a Chilly bin or Eski full of hot water, or wrap in a blanket and place in the hot water cupboard (provided it is good and warm in there). I have made yoghurt successfully in just a few hours on a very sunny windowsill!
600 ml milk: Use whole or skimmed milk or milk made from powder
1 big dessertspoon fresh, natural yoghurt containing live cultures – I use a small pottle of Cyclops natural unsweetened yoghurt (pottle with a green top)
For a thicker, creamy consistency an additional ¼ cup milk powder can be added.
Heat the milk to a simmer, then cool till luke warm.
Add the yoghurt starter (your big spoonful of fresh yoghurt) and mix it in well. Pour the liquid into a warmed jar or flask and seal.
Leave undisturbed in a warm place for 8-10 hours. The yoghurt is ready when it is set. Pour off any watery liquid and store in the fridge till required.
Before you flavour the yoghurt, scoop out a dessertspoonful to use as the starter for your next batch.
Homemade yoghurt may be sweetened with sugar, honey or molasses. Add fresh or pureed fruits or use in sauces and baking.
Tips:
If the yoghurt is too thin add more milk powder
If there is a lot of watery whey in the container the yoghurt may have simply incubated too long.
The culture weakens over time. You will need to use a new starter every 5th batch or so.
Insulated yoghurt canisters can be picked up second-hand very cheaply, serious yoghurt makers may want to consider an electric one – like a slow cooker, you have to use it to get the benefit!
Beautiful Biscuit Bouquets
Good for Valentines Day, Mothers day or to just to share
 Tin, vase, pot or other wide mouthed container
Sand or pebbles
Polystyrene/Styrofoam – left over from packaging, if you don’t have any see if you can scrounge a chunk from an electrical store or some other retailer whose product is packaged in polystyrene
Popsicle sticks, wooden skewers or heat proof chopsticks
Decorated Cookies
To make the base fill your chosen container 1/3 full of sand or pebbles. Pack the top with polystyrene.
Prepare the biscuits
125g butter or shortening
½ cup sugar
1½ cups plain flour
1 egg yolk
1 tsp of vanilla
Wooden or bamboo skewers
Non stick baking paper
Glace icing
1 cup icing sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice or a drop or two of artificial colour and flavour such as raspberry or peppermint
Decorations such as silver balls, celebration sprinkles, icing flowers, small candies…
For filled biscuits – Strawberry or raspberry jam and a dab of glace icing
Makes around 30 + frosted biscuits depending on size.
Pre heat the oven to 180°C
Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and mix well, then stir in the flour and mix to a firm dough. Knead the dough lightly then roll out on a floured surface slightly thicker than you usually would. Cut into shapes using decorative cutters. Insert skewers almost all the way through each cookie. If you are making jam filled cookies, use a small cutter to cut a shape from the centre of half the biscuits. Skewers will be inserted in filled biscuits once baked. Place prepared cookies on baking trays covered with non stick baking paper and bake for 10 – 15 minutes until lightly golden.
 Combine the glace icing ingredients, using only as much water as you need to make a spreadable icing. Ice the top of each cooled cookie with icing and decorate as desired, Sprinkles, silver balls, edible glitter…
For jam filled biscuits, remove from trays and when cool spread the ½ biscuits with jam. Add a few dabs of glace icing around the edge, position a skewer in the middle ensuring it is not visible then top with the biscuits that have no centres. Sticking them in place with the dabs of icing.
 Cooks tip: If you haven’t got the right size cutters improvise with a drinking glass for the biscuits and use a screw top bottle cap to cut out the centres.
Raid the kids play dough cutters and see what they’ve got.
To assemble the bouquet, carefully insert the skewers into the polystyrene, arranging them until the container is full. Cover the polystyrene with tuille, curling ribbon or tissue paper.
If the cookies are not likely to be eaten immediately you can individually wrap them in clear cellophane and tie with curling ribbon to keep cookies fresh.
Any prices quoted are in NZ$ and are a guide only
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