Costco opened in Canberra last Friday. we were pretty sure we'd join but weren't planning to check it out until the crowds died down. however curiosity overtook us and we headed out on Sunday morning, into the crowds! (we were smart enough to only take 1 child, and to become members online before going however ;))

we were impressed! it was a little hard to get around last sunday, but I went again today with mum and it was just pleasantly full.  both times we had to wait only minutes to get through the check out anyway.

while they don't (yet?) have the gluten free bread i was told they would stock when i called them a week or two before opening, there are quite a few GF products available, including:

• bhuja mix 800g $9.89
• Strawberry freddos 72pk $11.49 (now hidden from me and the kids hehe)
• corn thins 3 pk $9.49
• honey ham 500g $5.99
• organic quinoa 1.81kg $10.99
• hans hot dogs 1kg $7.19
• italian sausages 1.34kg $14.73 (we didn't notice they were italian, not sure about the regular ones!)
• Yumis 3pk dips 1.19kg (3 x 385g) $12.79 (beetroot, green olive, sweet potato & cashew)
• moira mac's chicken breast slices 400g $9.49

edited to add that there was also Carman's (?) gluten free muesli and also the muesli bars. and there is nothing GF at their cafe that i could see.

also my favourites - along with their weight watchers pro points (yes, i'm back on the wagon, and was very excited to see the fabulous points, especially for the beef!) - we don't usually buy ready made meals but we weren't sure if we might have had guests for dinner so thought we'd give these a try. so far we've had the beef rendang (delicious!) and thai green curry (nice, but a bit too sweet). we are using vegies to eke each 1kg tub to 2 meals which is plenty. so far they have been quite spicy so be warned!  weight watchers points below are for a 200g serve (which is a big serve so you might like to reduce it if you need to cut back the points)

• beef rendang 1kg $14.39 - 6 (yes SIX) WWPP per 200g serve
• thai green chicken curry 1kg $14.39 - 10 WWPP per 200g serve
• butter chicken 1kg $15.79 - 13WWPP per 200g serve

other non or not specifically gluten free things we bought include:

• 1kg frozen blueberries $6.29
• 3 pk sensodyne toothpaste $21.99 (usually around $9 per tube)
• 1.3kg fresh beef lasagne $8.99
• 2pk crumpets $2.49
• 1kg strawberries $10.99 (on sunday they had bananas for $10/kg but none left today :()
• 12pk tuna in springwater (the little ones around 120g) $12.99

i think we'll definitely get our money's worth for the membership, especially if we get out there every 2-4 weeks. maybe find someone to carpool with a 60km round trip to get there ;)

G's sister was down with her new partner (also gluten free) this weekend and wanted to catch up with us over dinner. So we had to find somewhere where we could get gluten free, something ryan would eat, and affordable.

first choice was Digress, which sounds amazing and comes highly recommended by a friend. however we just couldn't afford $25 for ryan's lasagne plus another dish for each of the rest of us. Plus they never called me back to confirm they were gluten free...

so then i had the idea of the Southern Cross Club. we'd only been to the Woden one (for my nephew's birthday a few years ago) and while it had been disappointing (and expensive as they'd made us sign up as members, though it expired a month or so ago) we figured it was worth trying the Jamison one , and we wouldn't have to sign up as no one else in my family had needed to at Woden, just us (error on the part of the girl on the front desk)

well, we were wrong. we DID have to sign up just to eat (this is ridiculous) but at least this time it was only $12 for the family, not the $40 the woden one was.

after a short wait in the queue i ordered - kids meals for ryan and emelia (ham and cheese pizza, and a junior beef burger). Rora and i had the malaysian chicken curry, and G had the chicken parmigiana.

by the time my SIL went to order she had a looooong queue to wait in, and it took about 15 mins to order - they only had one person taking orders. not to mention stupidly having the cash register right next to the door to the kitchen, so every order in or out had to go through the line waiting...

Ryan enjoyed his burger with chips and ate the lot. emelia got chips with her pizza and that was all she ate. she said she didn't like the pizza and i have to say it was DROWNED in cheese and looked awful (unless you like extra cheese!). Our curry chicken was disappointing. it was edible sure, and it was great quality chicken (either tenderloins or sliced up breast) but the whole meal was chicken! there must have been a good 400g of chicken on the plate if not more! the sauce was kind of bland and there were NO vegies in the meal :( it did come with boiled white rice. G said his parmigiana was ok, so so...

for dessert ryan and emelia got a free icecream to go with their kids meal (nowhere on the menu did it say this, or that they got a free soft drink), ryan had a frog in a pond, and rora tried the GF chocolate mousse, which she didn't like much. G & I ate the leftovers and it was DELISH but i think maybe a bit too much of a grown up taste for rora. G said there were around 4 different gluten free cake options which is great :)

there was an outdoor play area for the kids which was great (even though we hadn't thought to bring coats ;)) and an indoor play area where you had to pay to buy tokens to play etc, bit of a money sucker. especially when the kids won 59 tickets and went to ge ttheir prizes only to discover it was minimum 100 tickets for a prize which was one tiny bouncey ball, or one tattoo. bit disappointing.

the place was VERY busy though, so obviously popular. while it wasn't faublous it's certainly nice to have another option that can meet all our needs and keep the kids happy!!!

I've decided to join in this challenge after thinking about it for a year or so lol. i'm hoping it might help me get a bit more inspired. I've decided to adopt Petra from Adventurous Me, Gluten Free, who i found by googling!

here are the details for the challenge, from the Book of Yum

some recipes i might like to try:
deventer koek (dutch spice cake)
chicken patties
maple pudding
vegetable patties
roast vegie, chicken and haloumi salad
quinoa porridge

:D

that's right, my depressing week in food.

well, a confession, it's school holidays here, i'm stressed at home and work and really couldn't care what we are eating (oops)

so, on Tuesday i rejected the beef curry and we had Crust pizza for dinner (again) unfortunatley i ordered a pizza geoff refused to eat (it had fruit on it - see, fussiness!) and i didn't like it - bleh :( first crust pizza i've really hated (was the 5 spice duck btw). usually adore crust pizzas...

wednesday night we had ummmmm i can't even remember! i know I had the leftover satay chicken (which i had also had for a work lunch one day) and the rest of the family had something else but no idea what lol

thursday night geoff cooked with emelia and we had spag bol - no complaints there! (me, i'm a bit over it but will eat it just for the sake of peace lol)

tonight i realised we still hadn't eat the damn beef curry. but it was so meh the other day i just couldn't get into it. decided pastry fixes everything! bought pastry, heated pie filling in thermomix while thickening and chopping at the same time. well, when tmx decided to cooperate and not beep error messages at me :( discovered gluten free pastry i knew i had in the freezer was sweet pastry not puff *sigh* made pie for ryan who hid it in the bin. added extra curry to ours which improved it somewhat. emelia made her own baked beans and some for rora who also had a frozen GF sausage roll. so minimal whinging tonight but no one all that excited...

so, so far this week has not been too bad whinge-wise - mainly because we have eaten pretty crappily!!! *sigh*

to my life :D

i thought it might be interesting (perhaps depressing for me) to see what a week is life in my cooking life - juggling the needs of one child who is gluten free and becoming increasingly fussy, another who has the fussiness of asperger syndrome, the poor middle child who is luckily the least fussy, given she has to just go with the flow, and a husband who is reasonably fussy too (though i'm sure he doesn't think so, and admittedly he is less fussy than many dh's out there...) plus my own need to avoid dairy, which i am extremely pathetic at doing...

so i'll start on Sunday, because that is the day i spent preparing meals in my slow cooker :D  geoff was at work from midday til the kids' bedtime so i had the joy of the afternoon on my own with the three fighting children.

in the slow cooker i made satay chicken, and in the other beef and mushroom curry.  these were for nights during the week, and the freezer.

for that night i cooked a beef roast with smashed kipfler potatoes, roast parship and carrot (for me, i knew no one else would eat them ;)) and steamed carrots, green beans, broccoli and brussels sprouts, plus homemade gravy.  I let each child pick 2 vegetables to have and they all had meat.

• ryan rejected his straight off. he said he'd tasted everything but i saw no evidence of it. I was not in the mood for whinging and told him to make himself something else instead. he made rice cakes with peanut butter (which was a little exciting as he has always rejected rice cakes until now! think he must have tried them at after school care...)
• Rora ate most of hers :)
• emelia ate half of hers then realised that ryan was getting something different and decided she wanted to jump on the "i don't like it, i want something else" bandwagon. i made her finish her vegies (she LOVES brussels sprouts and is fond of broccoli ;)) and then she was allowed to make a sandwich.

on Monday night (after work) i got home and made side dishes to go with the satay chicken: asian noodle salad (sans noodles), stir fried veg with garlic and steamed rice. ryan doesn't eat  chicken (except in chicken nuggets) so i heated him a beef pie to have with the vegies.

• ryan ate the pie, left the vegies.
• emelia ate the rice, rejected the rest
• rora ate it all and asked for the leftover of the salad and rice for lunch today :D (it's her fave salad)
• geoff and i were underwhelmed by the satay chicken recipe. so happy we still have enough for another 6 meals and no one else wants to help us eat it! (ha) next time i will make the indonesian chicken instead!

tonight (after work, but home early with a glutened rora, thanks to vacation care :() we'll have the beef curry but i have to say that the taste test i had of it didn't blow me away either :( stay tuned....

PS: i got the kids to write the menu plan and it was full of "nuggets & chips" "sausages and mashed potato" "spaghetti bolognese". luckily rora rubbed it all off so i can pretend i can't remember ;p