Canberra Costco - Report, Gluten Free & WW points

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 ;)

Cheers and Boos for Aldi (GF)

Aldi have been updating all their gluten free information and labelling. the great news is that there are more products actually labelled gluten free and that by making their labelling clearer they are making people who need to eat gluten free safer :)

the bad news is that MANY of the products we used to buy there are no longer gluten free, but carry a "may contain traces..." warning :(

my last list contains many products we no longer buy, such as:

• plain rice crackers
• fresh rice noodles
• baked beans ( you need to buy the cheaper brand as the other brand contains gluten)
  
• curry pastes
• lollies
• plain chips and corn chips
• aldi version of twisties

things like the rice crackers are a huge disappointment - they are a staple for rora and now i HAVE to go to another supermarket to get them! i hate shopping! lol

they still do have their gluten free range occasionally (i cannot understand the logic of actaully developing packaging etc but not having it as a permanent line) but not all the time.

there are some items that are now labelled Gluten Free such as the hot dogs. i can't remember what else! lol

some items no longer seem to be available readily such as the marshmallows or mini meringues, and I've just been told that the organic corn chips and salsa are no longer available. i'm really sad about the corn chips as they were on eof the few flavoured chips available GF without buying some special (expensive) brand :(

so while i am pleased they are looking after us it does make life more difficult at the same time!

Gluten Free in Spence - yum!

the Spence supermarket (aka a Friendly Grocer) opened a month or two ago and we finally popped in to check it out (after finally making it to choku bai jo* to buy some DECENT F&V at last *breathe sigh of relief*).

the new (old) owners have made some nice changes including a deli and cafe there! you can even sit out in the sun to sip your latte :)

along with it - almost all the cakes there are gluten free! the owner told me they were made by a lady who just makes GF cakes. we tried a blondie which was very yummy - if very sweet, and quite expensive at $4.75 for a piece approx 2.5" x 1.5"

other GF cakes included large raspberry ones (not sure if they were big friands or cakes or muffins lol), brownies, a choc cherry slice, a pistachio cake that looked delish, and at least one other kind i can't remember, oh and there was a date one too.

scattered through the shop are plenty of GF items including heaps of brands of pasta, and cereals etc.

definitely the place to go if you need something GF at the last minute in the area!

*choku bai jo please please PLEASE do home delivery! please! we just can't make it there every week and i HATE having to eat F&V from anywhere else :(

Review - Absolutely Delicious Naturally Gluten Free Bread

Last weekend we took a trip to the local Farmers Markets to have a look around as a friend had told me there was lots of gluten free stuff there.

we did find quite a lot including the cupcakes above, delicious GF sausages (the best we've had so far and not too expensive!) and the bread my sister had been telling me about for a while.... Naturally Gluten Free Bread.

we got to try as many varieties as we wanted, and we bought a loaf of the crunch, the mediterranean and the banana bread. they are all delicious!

they were $7.50 a loaf which seems like heaps, but I did the sums for Geoff last night (who was complaining that rora refused to eat the crunch bread - the loaf we got has far more poppy seeds in it than the sample we tried) and it's actually cheaper than the Country Life bread we buy in woolies - $97c/100g compared to $1.11/100g (i think they were the figures anyway lol)


If you're interested in trying it you can order online, or go to one of the outlets that sell it (click stockists to find your state / area) .

I highly recommend it!

Gluten Free Shopping & Eating, Where? (Canberra ACT)

It's ALL gluten free at Deeks in Dickson ACT :)

I've just been tweeting with a young girl in the US who was bemoaning the fact she has to drive 40 minutes to get a gluten free meal, and has to order most of her food online (mail order shopping is much more a part of life in the US than in Australia though). It has made me feel very grateful for what is available in Canberra and in Australia!! but I thought that any gluten free visitors, especially those from overseas, might like to read about where we buy all our gluten free supplies and food.

Gluten Free Supplies:

• Aldi (we buy these things). I shop here probably once a fortnight.
  
• Coles and Woolies - they tend to have different stock so I do shop at both, though Woolies more often as they are more local. I can use my Coeliac Society discount card at Coles though. They both have a selection of gluten free products in the health food section & frozen section, as well as a lot of products that just happen to be gluten free. I get Rora's bread (Country Life) when i haven't baked any, Diego's corn tortillas (Coles) and San Remo pasta from there. I usually shop in one or the other at least once a fortnight or more.
  
• Occasionally I shop at IGA (national chain) or Supabarn (a local chain) - both of them have quite a good choice of GF products that the larger chains doesn't stock, and IGA actually marks the GF products on the shelf.
• I manage to find a lot of GF products in the discount stores such as GoLo, the Reject Shop or the $2 shop. This is the easiest place to buy lollies of all kinds in my experience. I can also often buy GF snacks such as Rice Rounds, Mamee Snacks and Rice Wheels for less than in the supermarkets.
• Toys R Us is another good place to buy lollies and marshmallows
• I get most of my health food store ingredients such as GF flour in bulk and nuts in bulk from the health food store at the Belconnen Markets (Natural Living) or the Organic Store (As Nature Intended)
  
• Indian ingredients and products I can find elsewhere - such as jowar or sorghum flour i get from Bharat International Shop in belconnen. (it's a great place to eat too!)
• All of the places above are within 10-15 minutes of home. If i want to go a bit further afield and see what different products I can find I have occasionally been to Mountain Creek Wholefoods
• I can also get some GF supplies at our fruit & vegie shop Choku Bai Jo (which we don't get to as often now that neither of us work in the area :()
• Other shops that we don't use include Brumby's Bakery (am lol at them having a GF FAQ with no answer) and Deeks Bakery (though my saviour when Rora was first diagnosed)
  

So far I haven't had to buy anything online, though if I could buy in bulk and save by ordering from somewhere great online I'd love to!!

Muffin Break in Campbelltown NSW

As for eating out, we are very lucky here in Canberra, there are lots of places we can eat out. For a morning or afternoon tea the choice might not huge but most cafes in Canberra will have GF options such as a cookie (most likely) or a cake. Cafes that we know will always have something include:

• Gloria Jeans almost always has 1-2 cookies (Chocolate Mud & White Chocolate Macadamia) and now has the Jaffa Cake too - well they've had that cake for a while but we didn't know! We do have to be careful now though as some stores have started putting marshmallows in teh babycinos - though the one time rora ate one by accident she wasn't sick so we suspect they're gluten free (but so far our local store hasn't had the packaging available to double check). also while our local store gets you to put your chocolate / sprinkles etc on yourself, some stores do it for you so we sometimes get caught that way...
  
• Michels Patisserie usually has a pre-packaged orange cake, though rora is not so keen...
• Muffin Break always has gluten free sweet and savoury muffins and usually another product as well. We don't go to MB often at home as they will only accept cash and are quite pricey, but it's great to know they are around if we are travelling.
  
• If we are in the Dickson area we know we can always go to Deeks or to My Rainbow Dreams for a yummy vegetarian meal
  
• Ricardos at Jamison strangely has only a couple of options for morning / afternoon tea, but its entire menu for breakfast / lunch is available gluten free!!! (that's about 30+ options, which i plan to post on here one day)
• The Coffee Club is a bit unreliable because sometimes they will have a cookie or two, but other times they will have nothing, only "low gluten" things

OK, I've just about had enough now and I'm not even half way through, i think this will be part one lol...

babycino & cookie at Gloria Jeans

We LOVE Aldi!!! (GF)

First of all we love Aldi for their fantastic prices, then we love it because of their cool specials, then we love the fact they've gotten rid of the worst colours (or are in the process of doing so, and as a result have woolies and coles following their lead)

We started shopping at Aldi when they first came to Canberra, which must be 8-9 or so years ago I think. We didn't shop there a lot back then as it was a 45 minute drive to get there, but when we got our first store on this side of town we started shopping there a lot more often.

Now we do most of our shopping at Aldi. Going gluten free threw a spanner in the works! We couldn't buy GF at Aldi!!!! (not to mention the fact that suddenly I had to shop at 8 different shops, when i LOATHE shopping! lol). so I'm excited everytime I discover something new at Aldi that is gluten free, and it does seem like everytime I go in I find something new....

disclaimer: products can change at any time (especially at Aldi!) so PLEASE check labels before purchasing as gluten free, even if it's on the list below!

Here are some of the products we have found which are either marked as gluten free, or gluten free by ingredient, and containing no 'may contain' warning:

• Marshmallows
• "Ropes" (like very long skinny snakes)
• plain rice crackers
• rice cakes / thins
• mini meringues (haven't seen these in a while but they were in vanilla and chocolate flavours)
• organic pasta sauce
• organic corn chips - including cheese flavour
• Hoisin sauce
• sweet chilli sauce
• Lil chocettes (mini chocolate bars)
• Kinder surprise (3 pack)
• ham
• american frankfurts
• cocktail frankfurts
• salami
• custard - individual serves
• some of their frozen chips, fries and now wedges (yay)
• fresh rice noodles
• shortcut bacon
• Sesame Snaps
• tomato sauce / ketchup
• grated cheese
• icecream
  
• iceblocks and icecreams
• cornflour is now 100% maize!
• taco kits (i think, haven't bought one for a while)
• rice cream (tinned, i think, again, haven't bought this in a long time)
• cream cheese, including the herb one
• cheese rockets (cheese sticks, these are non refridgerated though)
• organic salsa
• baked beans (** we have just discovered that the Corale brand ones are marked as possibly containing gluten :( still to check the usual Pantry Value brand ones)
  
• and of course most of the usual GF things such as milk, plain meat (not the processed or marinated ones), rice, tinned vegies etc etc
• Aldi also have occasional special GF products in store
  

you can check products and their prices here. of course there are no doubt many more, but these are the ones we buy sometimes.

there are some things we used to buy - such as the plain corn chips (not organic) that are now marked with 'may contain traces of' :(


posted by Karen at http://brazen20au.blogspot.com

Aldi Gluten Free!!!

as of thursday 26th march Aldi will have gluten free stock :) it looks like it might be a permanent range but it's kind of hard to tell from the catalogue and it's not appearing on the website yet. *fingers crossed*

Basco Muffin mixes $4.49
Remiga Pastas 500g (corn & rice based) $3.49
Basco cake mixes $2.89
Hole-Sum Chips 100g $1.99
Lemon Myrtle macadamias 250g $4.99
Chickpea Crisps 175g $1.99

I"m not sure what I've been paying for the basco mixes (i can't find them on the homeshop site and i don't buy them all the time to find the receipt) but a google brought them up at $5.50 from one of the big online stores.

Menu Plan

yesterday we did our food shopping for the week. we went to jamison because it has the allergy centre as well as coles (great selection of GF - not that we made it in there yesterday) and aldi. because choku bai jo is closed until after new year and we forgot about the farmers markets on saturday we bought our F&V in aldi and at go troppo. i have to say that shopping elsewhere every so often is a good thing as it reminds me just how fantastic and fresh the produce at CBJ is and the prices are the same if not less than anywhere else. i HATED paying the prices for the crappy stuff we bought yesterday :(

anyway, here is our menu, in no particular order...

GF homemade chicken nuggets & chips (last night)
tacos
mini meatloaves, potatoes & veg
falafel & amaranth tabouli
a lentil & vegie dish of some sort
nasi goreng (probably tonight)
spag bol (will make a big pot to freeze)

what else?

this weekend i have been pretty busy in the kitchen, but not doing anything worth taking pictures of!!

Big Meat Shop! and getting ready for our party...
yesterday morning after my ww meeting i went meat shopping, hoping to stock up and prepare for the party ahead of time. i ended up with $300 worth of meat! (not all for the party lol it will hopefully last us for at least a few months)

i got about 15kg of chicken, packaged in double breasts and all marked down $2 per packet (originally $12.99 / kg - which was the cheapest i could find anywhere - so not bad, especially on the smaller packets. it was only marked down because they had too much stock too which was great, as i prefer not to take chances with nearly out of date chicken - i'm not quite so fussy with other meats)

at least half of those have been diced and placed on skewers with a marinade / dressing and then into the freezer so all i need to do is defrost. i do have one lot of chicken left, waiting for me to buy some fresh thyme tomorrow so i can put this marinade on it. i'll also use some of that marinaded chicken to make meatballs later this week (will post my menu plan later today).

i also bought a whole rump (though unfortunately i could have got it $2/kg cheaper at the second shop) - i'll cut this up shortly and make mince from at least half of it - i'll make a heap of rissoles / hamburgers for the bbq. i'll dice some up to go into the freezer for curries etc too.

i got quite a few other meats for our own eating, including some lamb cutlets - really nice ones with not much fat and lots of meat - for christmas day at $23.99/kg - compared to the $32.99 we have paid the past few years :-0

Chick Peas galore...
i don't think i had the slightest idea how many chickpeas 2kg of dried peas would be when cooked!!! though honestly it was probably only enough for 4-5 meals plus the roasted chickpeas (which are becoming more crunchy as they cool - yay!). i also picked up a packet of this chick pea bhaji mix at the butcher and it will be an easy crockpot meal before christmas.

in non-kitchen news i have also (nearly) made my christmas cards (soon to be featured on my craft blog) , done the F&V shopping for the week and taken the kids swimming at the dickson pool so i have been very very busy!

a meat free week...

i've been meaning to do this for a while and keep procrastinating because meat is so much easier to cook with than vegies - you can toss it in the slow cooker whole and slice it up later, or let it fall to pieces. vegies NEED chopping. plus my kids are little carnivores.

anyway, i had no menu plan or list ready for today's choku bai jo shop so decided this week is it! so now i'm trawling for ideas.

so i've already decided the following -

one of the weekend nights will be a huge indian feast with a couple of vegie dishes, some fried breads and some accompaniments. that give me time to buy the spices i need too.

one night will be a simple pasta with sauce (after work)

dixie's roast vegie tacos (but in burritos, and with lentils)

chickpea and sweet potato fritters with soem more roast vegies in a ratatouille type dish

probably a soup of some kind

and a mexican style bean dish i can do in the slow cooker


in other news choku bai jo had BIG parsnips!!!! I have been desperate to make more of the honey roasted parsnip soup but as it is so time consuming as it is i wasn't going to faff about peeling finger sized parsnips lol

i have been disappointed lately though in their garlic, and also in the response i got when i told them (not complained, just told) as every bit of garlic i have bought in teh past few months has been mouldy :( so i've given up on garlic til november, which is when it is back in season again apparently, and am using horrid jarred stuff for now. i'm also hoping to plant some to try growing my own (i have a black thumb so we'll see lol)

and in still yet more news i broke my recipe book buying ban today for this book which is truely drool worthy Curry only problem (so i disocvered this afternoon) there are very few vegetable dishes in it!!!! it's 95% meat! we have a book seller who leaves discount books in our kitchen at work and though i often drool i generally convince myself i dont' really need it, but i just had to have this one, especially for only $16!

some shopping...

forgot to say that today i went to the belconnen markets and picked up a few things i'd been wanting for a while.

first stop was the Food Lovers store which smelled divine! no idea what they were cookign but everyone who was walking past was intrigued too! lol anyway, i picked up my usual sweet chilli jam, which i had just used up, and after a sample got a jar of spicy bush tomato chutney. YUM!

then to the health shop there to stock up on bulks beans and grains. i finally got some whole wheat to try using to make my bread, though it's actually very expensive compared to ready ground flour (though i just noticed it's organic) at $3.45 / kg and i couldn't find a bag bigger than 1kg. there other bulk food places in town, i just don't ever go near them! if this works in our house i will investigate further ;)

i also bought dried pinto beans (the ones they make refried beans out of - from what i've read online they're supposed to be quite hard to get in australia?), kidney beans and something else i've forgotten LOL Lara tells me that it works well to presoak and cook the beans and freeze them in portion sized packages. perfect for me as i can rarely plan ahead far enough to go through that process and hence we have about 40-50 - tins of assorted beans in teh pantry atm !!!

lastly i bought some popping corn and YAY! i've discovered (at last) a healthy snack all my kids love!!!

after that up to the deli where i spent a bit more than i should have (unintentionally) buying expensive dips and cheeses and maple syrup when all i went there for was turkish bread!! (and i needed pancetta too)

over to the F&V shop where i totally forgot to stock up on 99c bread (aaagh) and discovered they no longer have their huge rack of huge sized herb and spice packets wahhhhh where to get them from now???? i don't know of anywhere else that sells them!

then i snuck a quick coffee in the sun at beppe's before racing back to M&D's to pick up the girls (well actually i raced straight to preschool to pick up ryan as i'd lost track of time - again! ooops)

today's choku bai jo shop

doesn't it look purdy in the boxes?! this lot cost me $76. it was still a LOT more than anyone else in teh shop LOL

meat at last and dinner tonight...

$200 later and i have meat to last for a while LOL i will probably need to buy more next month, but not too much. i do need to get chicken as that is the most popular meat in teh house and it wasn't particularly cheap today so i only got 2 breasts. i did get a whole scotch fillet as well as a few whole fillets of beef, which is where the biggest cost came from, as well as a roast of every version (except chicken, i always buy the aldi marinated ones. not because i don't think i could marinate my own but because as a teenage i was caught too many times with the giblets etc left in the chicken and i'm too scared to chance it again LOL i hate handling chicken and have no intention of sticking my hands inside a chicken!)

so anyway, dinner tonight was mostly a success. i pounded out some veal steaks i bought and made my own crumbs in the thermomix. $10 of veal seemed excessive (not that we won't spend $10 on a meal's worth of meat every so often) but after pounding it will go far enough for 2 meals :) unfortunately g slightly burned it during cooking :( ryan and emelia didn't like it but rory loved it .

geoff did the sides - mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, carrot and surprisingly the little pale green zucchinis i bought went down a treat. rory ate not only her whole entire plateful but half of g's and then the leftovers in teh kitchen LOL she is an eating machine!!

the kids want strawberry custard for dessert (the thermomix means all natural custard consisting of a little sugar, flour, eggs, milk and fresh strawberries) but i'm too lazy LOL maybe they'll nag g enough to make it instead! mwahahahahhaha

Weekly planning...

time to post a few recipes from my collection already typed up on the puter ;)

just waiting for one to open - my puter is in the late stages of dying and until g can reformat it and rescue me i need to be very very patient...

in the meantime i did my weekly shop at choku bai jo yesterday. i know i bought a lot of F&V as i still haven't had time to buy any meat so we are eating vegetarian atm (and funnily not a complaint from anyone yet) but why is it that i always buy 3-4 times more than anyone else in the shop???!!! i spent $73 and this is what i got:

apples (about 6 or so)
oranges (about 4)
3 punnets strawberries ($3 ea)
kiwifruit (4)
dill ($1.20)
chard x 2 ($3 ea)
3-4 green capsicums
1 red capsicums
heaps of carrots
few tomatoes
mushrooms
lettuce ($1)
eggs x 2 (freerange, $4.50 ea)
about 3-4 kg potatoes (half of 2 different kinds i can't remember but both teensy ones, one good for salad and one good for roasting or mashing)
beetroot (3, think that was $3)
plums ($1.20 for about 10)
zucchinis
avocado ($1.50 i think)
bananas (about 3-4 kg, i think they're $10.50 or around $3/kg)
asian greens
and shallots / spring onions or whatever you call them!

last night i used the asian greens and one of the carrots, plus sweet potato and potato from last week and made a very quick (as we weren't home til 6pm) vegie stirfry with satay sauce made from peanut butter. it was very popular :)

other things on teh menu are
spanakopita (or my version at least) tonight
homemade pizza
a warm potato salad with a green salad and grilled meat (chicken or steak)
a chocolate cake with beetroot in it!
and more beetroot dip ;)


hmmm not sure what else. i need to use last week's cabbage, the zucchinis, a few capsicums and corn on the cob, as well as the shallots. so maybe a warm asian salad such as a thai tofu one, plus a meal of meat and 3 veg to keep g happy LOL - that will be the zucchinis steamed, mashed potato and steamed corn on the cob (totally not m sort of meal, in fact i think he can cook it ;))

I'M STARVING!!!!

dinner is cooking and i'm faint from hunger! i shopped at choku bai jo this afternoon and came home with 4 green bags full of goodies.

dinner tonight is baby zucchinis lightly fried with olive oil, a little bacon and garlic, and tossed with pasta. (based on a marcella hazan recipe i love which uses buffalo mozzarella instead of the bacon, plus a couple of beaten eggs - the heat cooks them enough to eat)

tomorrow night will be (bought) turkish pide bread with homemade dips - beetroot (fresh beetroots), hommus and maybe a carrot or something else. tonight i have to cook the beetroot and make the yoghurt ready for tomorrow.

also on the menu is cauliflower soup (maybe with bacon but i read an article today about the health concerns with red meat and processed meats which has made me a little nervous. i only use such tiny amounts but...) and probably with damper.

what else did i buy? hmmm serephina potatoes, carrots and baby eggplants for a beef casserole... i also have some broccoli and spanish peppers to make something with - maybe a stir fry. oh and tomatoes, lettuce and some of the beetroot to make homemade burgers...

i forget what other vegies were filling the bags but i also got apples, bananas, grapes (to send to daycare, we don't often eat them but i like to send something other than apples and oranges to daycare, the kids must get soooo bored LOL), honey and eggs, all organic.

i think dinner must be nearly ready, i HOPE!!! before i fall off my chair with hunger! LOL

Introduction

crazy i know, but i decided to start another blog (like i don't spend enough time online already) - i'm hoping it might get me a bit more inspired with food.

i USED to be great with food, in the kitchen. pre-kids this was. now i just resent it (until i get in there usually). on the other hand i'm trying (TRYING) to save money by cooking as much as i can, and reducing the number of pre-prepared food we have in our lives to reduce preservatives etc etc.

we buy organic F&V, that started because i wanted them home delivered and didn't want to have to pick what i wanted (http://www.organicexpress.com.au/) and then became hooked on the taste and freshness of organic F&V. i now buy some from organic express and as many things as possible from Choku Bai Jo in North Lyneham, which is run by the same people who have a stall at the local farmers market (which is too hard for me to get to) and is super cheap. sometimes the produce has only been picked that day too!!

i try to menu plan, but get bored with it easily lol

i have a cookbook addiction which i have severely curbed - i can't afford them and i rarely use them for anything other than inspiration! last count i had nearly 70 books - have sold some since then but also acquired more *blush*

in the kitchen i love gadgets and atm my favourite is my thermomix which i talked dh into buying last year. i don't use it much for cooking whole meals (though he does) but more for preparation and i am addicted to my fruit porridge every morning which tastes like heaven with way more calories than it has LOL

i had to fill my empty freezer so during the past weekend (after i recovered from being sick last week) i made several snacks for the kids:
chocolate chip cookies with oats and rice bubbles in them (i couldn't find any recipes so just kind of invented one based on this one which i hadn't been all that excited by, and this one (cna't find it now, will add link later) which i also wasn't excited by LOL
fruit truffles based on the thermomix vitality truffles (i used almonds and added cocoa)
apple muffins

tonight i'm trying to use up what's in the fridge as we're going away for the weekend so i'm planning to make pasta with a sauce based on a weight watchers recipe - with bacon, and grated zucchinis and carrots in a tomato base:

low fat pasta sauce:
finely dice 1 onion, fresh garlic (i used 4 cloves!) & bacon with all fat removed
fry lightly in a pan
add in grated zucchini and carrot
fry lightly until softened
add in diced tomatoes (fresh or tinned) and herbs if desired. (i like a little salt too)
cook until ready LOL (depends how much time you have)
and serve over pasta eg: penne