I should start off saying that the kids and I order pizza evey week or two. We have a great local family owned pizza place right around the corner that serves up great pizza at a great price. Two medium 3 topping pizzas, delivered, comes to $16.85. I usually give them $20 and tell them to keep the change. They usually argue that I’ve paid too much. I insist. And every so often they sneak an order of garlic bread with cheese “on the house” into my order. Unfortunately they don’t offer a gluten free crust option, they’re a very small family run place.

On Friday, after spending the day moving furniture and boxes around (I’m not moving but I’m rearranging, getting ready to paint, etc.) I was in no mood to figure out food. Pizza. I wanted pizza.

A quick bit of research showed that I had two GF pizza options in my area: Pizza Nova and Pizza Pizza

Both Pizza Nova and Pizza Pizza charge an extra $3.25 per pizza for gluten free crust and both offer only medium sized pizzas. At the time we were ordering we could not access Pizza Pizza’s web site (it’s working today though) so decided to try Pizza Nova.

Two medium gluten free pizzas, delivered came to just ove $32! I’m used to paying less than $17 for 2 pizzas! Pizza just doubled in price

Now for the pizzas themselves – we ordered a “Bruschetta” white pizza and a “Portebellismo” pizza. Pizza Nova did not list the prices for their pizzas on the website so we were flying a bit blind on pricing. I’m sure had we ordered some basic toppings the prices would be a little lower.

The crust is a “multigrain” crust with flax seed in it. It’s sort of a dense, flat, chewy crust – not really awesome. While we all ate the pizza none of us were too excited about it. Leftovers the next day were so hard that you just couldn’t eat them even after reheating.

Overall, after the initial excitement that we could indeed have gluten free pizza delivered, we were very disappointed in the results and the wasted uneaten pizza that was left.

We do intend to try again with Pizza Pizza for comparison but we’re not feeling very hopeful at this point.

photo by "pain_amp1013" on flickr.com

My Ukranian Mother-in-law used to make what she called “Smashed Cabbage Rolls” all the time and it was always one of my favourite meals.

Basically instead of making cabbage rolls (or stuffed cabbage) by hand, which can be time consuming, she’d often just chop up cabbage and mix it with rice, onions and ground beef in a big roasting pan, top it with canned tomatoes and cook it in the oven. All of the taste of cabbage rolls with a lot less prep time.

Last night I made cabbage casserole myself for the first time. I didn’t make it quite like she did but the kids liked it enough to go for seconds and 19 year old Girlchild announced that she’d be “down” with having it for dinner once every week or two.

It’s basic so far…

Smashed Cabbage Rolls

half head of cabbage, coarsely chopped (about 3 cups of cabbage)

2 onions, sliced

1 tablespoon oil

5 hot Italian sausages, cooked and chopped into 1/2 chunks

3 cups of cooked brown rice

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon oil

Saute the cabbage and onions in the oil over medium heat until the onions start to brown and the cabbage softens. Mix with remain ingredients, put into large casserole dish, cover and bake at 300 F for 30 minutes.

Makes 6 – 8 servings

I was surprised by how much the kids liked this. Both kids said they preferred the chunks of sausage instead of the ground beef (which Girlchild says “creeps her out”). This is inexpensive to make, takes very little time, freezes and reheats easily, and is healthy and gluten free. And the kids liked it. What more can I ask for?

Update: I found The Gluten-Free Homemaker today and added this post to her “What do you eat that’s gluten free” Mr. Linky. Head over there for more great recipes!

Photo by Sifu Renka on Flickr.com

Cereal. Bagels. Waffles. Muffins. Toast. Porridge.

How on earth are we going to manage quick, easy gluten free breakfasts?

A bowl of fruit, even with some cottage cheese is just not going to be enough to keep anyone going. Especially a pair of always hungry teenagers.

My budget just does not allow to stock gluten free breads, etc. so that’s not even a option.

Eggs, bacon, sausage, ham – all are good sources of protein and will keep you going for longer than the fruit would but they all take a bit more time and thought to have ready on time.

Tonight I’m making a big pot of coconut rice pudding. My thought is to have it ready so that all the kids have to do is heat up a bowl in the morning and they’re all set. Both of my teens dislike rice pudding and it’s not something I make usually. They like the taste (especially if I make it with coconut milk and cinnamon) but they hate the texture. I’m hoping that instead of cold rice pudding as dessert I can convince them that warm rice pudding is almost exactly the same thing as eating warm oatmeal porridge. I’ll let you know tomorow of this ploy works (along with the recipe).

What are your gluten free breakfast favourites?

photo by "whatshername" on Flickr.com

When I first started planning FridgeForagers.com I had intended it to be a blog about batch cooking, once-a-month cooking, quick and easy meals all on a budget with easy to find ingredients.

As a single mom with 2 teenagers who seem to be always hungry and always on the go – combined with the fact that I’m away often for days at a time for work reasons – batch cooking and freezer stockpiling has kept the kids going when I’m not here and kept the budget under control.

We’ve just learned that all three of us must go on a gluten-free diet – no wheat, barley, oats or rye. Considering that pastas are a staple in this household and my kids go through a loaf and a half of bread per day this is going to be a big adjustment.

My 19 year old daughter can’t grab a couple of english muffins or a bagel at the campus coffee shop when she has an early class. My 14 year old son can’t make a mountain of egg salad sandwiches to snack on. I can’t leave a lasagna and a casserole of mac & cheese in the freezer for them when I’m away.

Life just got a little more difficult around here.

The first thing I did after getting rid of everything that contained wheat, barley, oats or rye in my kitchen was head to the grocery store. The store I typically shop at has a special diet & health section, a section I’ve never actually been into, but I figured that was the first place to start.

As I approached the gluten-free aisle I saw a box that said “gluten-free breadsticks” and my heart skipped a beat. Wow. GF breadsticks? Ok, maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as I thought. I was pulled up short by the fact that the box of GF breadsticks (which looked to contain maybe 8 or 10 skinny sticks) was $6.99. *GASP*

Further investigation of the gluten-free aisle found pie crust mixes, cake mixes & pancake mixes. Gluten-free pasta, cookies & bread. Even a box of gluten-free turkey stuffing mix! Oh but the prices! Double, sometimes triple what the ‘oh so yummy full of gluten’ versions were. I might manage to talk myself into buying some of these items for special occasions but I just cannot fathom using them on a regular basis at those prices.

So it’s time to rethink everything about how I cook, how we eat, and how we relate to food.

From today on, as I learn more about living gluten-free, as I experiment with new recipes and new ways of doing things, it’s all going to be here. The good and the bad. Suddenly the name “fridge foragers” has taken on a whole new meaning.

If you have any suggestions for blogs, websites, products that are gluten-free please post them in the comments. If you live in the Toronto/Hamilton area and have any recommendations for restaurants or places to find gluten-free products I’d really appreciate that too.

Photo by karimian - flickr.com

We’ve all heard it before – kids and adults need anywhere from 4 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables daily will:

• Meet your needs for vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
• Reduce your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain types of cancer and osteoporosis.
• Contribute to your overall health and vitality.

But the question that I always get hung up on is how many serving of fruits and vegetables does each age group need? Clearly the nutritional needs of a 4 year old are different than that of a 14 year old. And how large should a serving be?

The following chart helps answer some of the questions:

And what exactly makes up one serving of fruits and vegetables?

• Fresh, frozen or canned vegetables one serving =  125 mL (½ cup)
• Leafy vegetables one serving =   250 mL (1 cup)
• Fresh, frozen or canned fruits one serving = 1 fruit or 125 mL (½ cup)
• 100% Juice one serving = 125 mL (½ cup)

Eat at least one dark green and one orange vegetable each day.

• Go for dark green vegetables such as broccoli, romaine lettuce and spinach.
• Go for orange vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes and winter squash.

Choose vegetables and fruit prepared with little or no added fat, sugar or salt.

• Enjoy vegetables steamed, baked or stir-fried instead of deep-fried.

Have vegetables and fruit more often than juice.
All of that information is well and good but how do you get your family to eat enough fruits and vegetables each day? Especially when it comes to their lunches?

Juice boxes will count for 1 to 2 servings each (depending on size)

Try cutting up a sweet bell pepper (green, yellow, orange or red) as a snack. (This was a staple in my household as my kids always preferred peppers to fruit.)

A small container of ranch dip with some carrot, cucumber, celery sticks and even some broccoli florets for dipping.

An apple or pear sliced up into bite sized wedges.  (Dipped in lemon juice before putting in a container apples and pears won’t turn brown and “yucky”).

Add shredded carrot or finely diced celery to tuna salad or egg salad sandwiches.

What are some of your favourite ways to slide a little extra fruit & vegetables into your kids’ lunches?

First, a big thank you to the folks over at Nestlé Foods for sponsoring this great Back-to-School giveaway. I honestly hadn’t considered how many of the brands and products my family eat were part of the Nestle Family and it was a lot of fun finding out that Hot Pockets, Wonka candy, Stouffer’s and even my cats’ food, Purina was all from the Nestlé Family.

A huge thank you to everyone who entered the contest. We had a great response and I wish I could give away prizes to everyone this time. I can’t do that but what I can do is point you all over to the Nestle Foods Back-to-School Calendar of Savings which is free and is loaded with money saving coupons.

Over on my Frugal Family Life blog I’m running another Back-to-School giveaway sponsored by Mott’s, Pepperidge Farms and Smuckers where one lucky reader will win a Back-to-School Gift Package with all sorts of great school supplies including an insulated lunch bag, Crayola markers, an iPod Shuffle, a Walmart Gift card and more. The contest ends at 11:59pm Friday, August 28, 2009 so make sure you head over to Frugal Family Life to enter!

And now our Winner is…

Justine from Turnvale, Washington

... Justine Pierson from Turnwater, Washington!

Justine is a mother of two, a 12 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. When I asked her if she had pets she said,   “ I have a ton of pets lol, you’re probably gonna laugh.  I have a chihuahua Speedy who is my best friend, 3 cats (all rescues), a crazy ferret and a tank full of fish.”

Justine doesn’t have a blog but is considering one in the future. She’s apparently a Night Owl and with my being an Early Bird and in very different time zones we had a bit of a time connecting  over the last couple of days to do this interview- she’d be going to bed just as I was getting up!

I asked Justine if she and her family bought a lot of Nestlé products – “Yes, I love tons of Nestlé foods, Lean Cuisines are one of my fave which I buy nearly every shopping trip.  We also love Wonka (a little too much maybe!) and Dreyers Ice Cream (the only kind I really enjoy cause it’s ‘flaky’), and I’m sure there must be some items I’m missing since Nestlé is a huge part of the food industry and I am constantly enjoying their items.”

Once again, Congratulations to Justine and thank you to everyone who entered the contest. I’m hoping we’ll have more great giveaways soon!

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Mini Wonka Candy Lunchboxes

Last month my 14 year old son found these awesome Wonka Candy mini lunch boxes while on holiday in Florida.

How cool are these?

I’m not sure if other USA Walmarts have these in stock still, I’ve never seen then here in Canada, but he had to have all 4 of them. These are ideal for packing snacks into school lunches. Fill them with your kids’ favourite Wonka candies or even with Raisinets, crackers, GORP or other favourite snacks.

And now the contest info.

Nestlé Foods is sponsoring a contest for one lucky FridgeForagers.com reader to win a $500 Walmart gift card for Back-to-School shopping.

You’ll have an opportunity to enter every day for 5 days (today is day 4) so check back here daily to enter to win! The winner will be selected randomly on Monday, August 24th at 11:59pm (eastern time) and will have 24 hours to respond.

CONTEST is open to residents of Canada and the USA only.

How to enter:

1. Subscribe to the Fridge Foragers email newsletter. You may have seen the sign up form when you visited today – if not you can also sign up by entering your name and email address in the Subscribe box at the top of the right side column on this page.

AND

2. Leave a comment. Tell us what one of your favourite snack ideas is for school or work.

Note: You must subscribe to the newsletter and leave a comment to qualify to win.

Additional/Optional ways to enter, leaving each one in a separate comment:

• Twitter the giveaway, including a link back here and my handle, @Merlene -1 entry
• Share on facebook or similar social networking site and leave a comment telling me. -1 entry
• Create a Whrrl story using photos of your recipe and I’ll give you an additional (include link to story)-25 entries!

FINE PRINT

This giveaway is sponsored by Nestle. Giveaway closes on August 24th at about 11pm EST.

When we think of lunches for school or even for work we tend to think of a sandwich or salad which are both great options but sometimes you want something a little more interesting.

Last year, when I was working with a general contracting company, I had to take my lunch and I got pretty tired of sandwiches pretty quickly. My friend Chaz French had been raving about his Mr. Bento lunch jar for quite some time so I decided to invest in one. It took me a while to locate one here in Canada but finally found one at a little Asian market in Toronto. It was $65 and worth every penny. It even comes with it’s own spork and carry case. (My son was particularly excited when he saw the spork lol).

The jar is insulated so it can keep your food hot or cold all day. It comes with 4 bowls, the larger 2 stay in the bottom of the jar with either hot or cold food and the 2 smaller bowls stay at the top of the jar with things that can be kept at room temperature.

My lunch options expanded considerably once Mr. Bento came into my life. In mornings I could fill the jar itself up with boiling water for a few minutes. While that was sitting I’d heat up rice and curry or beef stew and mashed potatoes or fried rice and shrimp stirfry from the night before to fill the 2 larger bowls. I’d fill the smaller bowls with some sliced up fruit or veggie sticks and some nuts mixed with Nestle Raisonettes. Empty out the jar and dry, add the bowls, close and off I went. Even 5 or 6 hours later the hot food in the bowls would still be steaming.

Being a frugal sort it took me a few days to talk myself into “splurging” $65 on the Mr. Bento jar but I’d have spent more than that eating out a few days over a month so it really paid for itself quickly. Those of you in the USA can order the same Mr. Bento jar for around $42 at Amazon.com . Unfortunately Amazon Canada doesn’t carry it.

Mr. Bento has caught the love and imaginations of others too it seems. A quick search on Flickr yields literally thousands of photos of lunches people have packed in their Mr. Bento jars. I don’t think you’d ever run out of ideas if you kept up with the Flickr pool.

Now that I’ve sung the praises of Mr. Bento I will say that I don’t think it’s suitable for young kids but it would be perfect for tweens, teens, college students and adults who take their lunch to work.

And now the contest info.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about non-traditional breakfast foods, Nestlé Foods is sponsoring a contest for one lucky FridgeForagers.com reader to win a $500 Walmart gift card for Back-to-School shopping.

You’ll have an opportunity to enter every day for 5 days (today is day 2) so check back here daily to enter to win! The winner will be selected randomly on Monday, August 24th at 11:59pm (eastern time) and will have 24 hours to respond.

CONTEST is open to residents of Canada and the USA only.

How to enter:

1. Subscribe to the Fridge Foragers email newsletter. You may have seen the sign up form when you visited today – if not you can also sign up by entering your name and email address in the Subscribe box at the top of the right side column on this page.

AND

2. Leave a comment. Tell us what one of your favourite lunches is for school or work.

Note: You must subscribe to the newsletter and leave a comment to qualify to win.

Additional/Optional ways to enter, leaving each one in a separate comment:

• Twitter the giveaway, including a link back here and my handle, @Merlene -1 entry
• Share on facebook or similar social networking site and leave a comment telling me. -1 entry
• Create a Whrrl story using photos of your recipe and I’ll give you an additional (include link to story)-25 entries!

FINE PRINT

This giveaway is sponsored by Nestle. Giveaway closes on August 24th at about 11pm EST.

Photo by Muffet http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/

Over the years, the biggest battle I’ve waged with my children has been over eating breakfast. My daughter Madelin (age 19 and about to start her third year of college) has never liked cereals – hot or cold – so that was never an option for her. With her having to leave the house by 7:30am (and these days 6:00am) there was never time to cook pancakes, french toast, bacon, eggs or other hot breakfast foods. When she was younger she’d try to skip eating breakfast entirely which was always an argument.

My son Bo (age 14 and about to start grade 10) – was always hard to get up in the morning and often would barely have his eyes open when the school bus would arrive – no matter how early I tried to get him going he’d leave it to the last second. It wasn’t that he didn’t want breakfast, it was that there wasn’t any time (just ask the bus driver who’d be honking at the end of my drive at 7:20am every morning).

Mornings were a war-zone and everyone walked out the door hungry, stressed or angry. Sometimes all three.

They say the the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It took me  a while but I finally changed my strategy.

Why was I so hung up on “breakfast” food?

Who said that breakfast had to be bacon and eggs or cereal? Why can’t breakfast be leftover tuna casserole from last night? Or a ham and tomato sandwich? A bowl of chili? As long as they eat something (and something relatively healthy) what does it matter what it is? I talked it over with the kids (they were maybe 5 and 10 at the time) and we agreed.

On days when the kids have a bit more time they will have anything they can find in the fridge – leftover pizza, chili, half a hamburger, beef stew, etc.  A minute or less in the microwave and it’s ready to eat. Some days they’ll make a frozen entree (when did we stop calling them “tv dinners”?) – a minute or two and zap!

On days when they have to dash out the door a sandwich or a Hot Pocket (Maddy’s fav is the Hot Pockets Ultimate Ham and Cheese) that they can eat on their way to school is the way to go. Mornings are no longer a battle zone (well at least not over breakfast – laundry is another story) – the kids are happy, have quick breakfasts they enjoy. So what if it isn’t what most consider “breakfast” – their tummies are full.

Tell Us What Non-Tradtional Breakfasts Your Family Eats for a Chance to Win $500 for Back-to-School from Nestlé & Walmart!

Nestlé is offering a $500 Walmart gift card to one lucky reader of Fridge Foragers to help out with your Back-to-School shopping.  You’ll have an opportunity to enter every day for 5 days  so check back here daily to enter to win! The winner will be selected randomly on Monday, August 24th at 11:59pm (eastern time) and will have 24 hours to respond.

CONTEST is open to residents of Canada and the USA only.

How to enter:

1. Subscribe to the Fridge Foragers email newsletter. You may have seen the sign up form when you visited today -  if not you can also sign up by entering your name and email address in the Subscribe box at the top of the right side column on this page.

AND

2. Leave a comment. Tell us what non-traditional breakfasts your family eats, or would like to eat.

Note: You must subscribe to the newsletter and leave a comment to qualify to win.

Additional/Optional ways to enter, leaving each one in a separate comment:

• Twitter the giveaway, including a link back here and my handle, @Merlene -1 entry
• Share on facebook or similar social networking site and leave a comment telling me. -1 entry
• Create a Whrrl story using photos of your recipe and I’ll give you an additional (include link to story)-25 entries!

FINE PRINT

This giveaway is sponsored by Nestle.  Giveaway closes on August 24th at about 11pm EST.