Tag: meals

What we ate last week – Week 1 2026

Welcome to what we ate last week, a series of blog posts I’m intending to write every Monday in 2026 to document our meals, how I cobble together a healthish menu for three adults from meal kits for two, Aldi runs, food bank discount purchases and food rescue freebies and my lil brain. It’s to rekindle my food blogger ways, reassure myself I can do this, and give me a goal that’s focused on looking after my lil family that still lets me write about the systems.

bags if groceries in my trolley
Ozharvest haul from Friday

Like everything I do, it may peter out quickly, we’ll see.

two bowls of spaghetti Bolognese and a garlic bread

On Monday we had a jar sauce Bolognese. I got a bulk pack of 3 star mince from Aldi and froze 5 portions and because there was only two of us cooked 1 of the garlic breads from Aldi. Sneaky grate of parmesan cos it was in the fridge.

three places of mashed potatoes, beans or peas, silverside and white sauce in the background ts the rest of the meat and pot of sauce

On Tuesday I slow cooked a silverside. And made white sauce based on this recipe. I didn’t even make it lumpy because I was slow and patient. We had the leftovers the next day.

Cooked portion of silverside and a pot of white sauce on a wooden cutting board

Rissoles for a New Years meal. No, we didn’t see midnight, but that’s okay. The rissoles stretched to the next day. I kept forgetting to get onions but that’s okay because I never chop them small enough for rissoles and my meat cakes fall apart! Perhaps a skill to work on this year.

2 plates of rissoles, mashed potato and peas3 plates if rissoles and mashed potato and greens

I went to Aldi on Friday morning and bought poatoes, onions and a tray of sausages. But just after I got home, the local charity posted that they were getting an Ozharvest soon, so I went down and they pushed so much food on me, including a tray of porterhouse steaks, so I cooked three of them for dinner (overcooked :/ again out of practice) and froze the other two. We had beans and corn I also got from that delivery, along with mashed potatoes. I could have gotten free potatoes but since I got a bag that morning I didn’t grab any. Should have a chance again this Friday so I’ll hold off on any grocery shopping til after that. Also got some yummy sodas in that haul.

three plates of steak, beans, corn and mash

The sausages I cooked Saturday night and froze the other six. There were two bags of free beans I brought home so extra greens since they were each 4 serves.

three plates of sausages, mash and beans

Punnetts of cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, salt, pepper, oil, herbs, tomato paste, mince, penne, passata, butter, onion, garlic bread and garlic.

Last night I cooked up a Bolognese with mince from the bulk pack, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes from the Ozharvest haul, the other garlic bread from Monday and Harris Farms penne I’d gotten for $1 a pack from the food pantry before Xmas. The tomato pasta and passata were from Everyplate meals I didn’t make or they sent too much for. How cute’s the oil bottle? Someone got it off my wishlist for Xmas and it’s so handy for my oil, and I have olive in that one and a black lidded one for canola.

3 plates of penne Bolognese

So this coming week I have a Marley Spoon box coming, so less planning from my part, and then next week I’ll try to use some things from the freezer and whatever I get from the community centre Friday and supplement with Aldi or Woolies shops as needed. We got a new Woolies in the next suburb just before Xmas which is super convenient, but they don’t have a great bakery so don’t have nice breadrolls *sadface* but there IS a Baker’s Delight opening soon, so will check out their end of day $10 bundles they sell through the Too Good To Go app, plus when everything reopens at the end of the month I’ll be getting plenty of free bread again. Yay!

EveryPlate Bulk Cook meals

I decided to give the “bulk cook” weekly meal options a try from EveryPlate by cooking them up for my sister and her kids. For them, there’s a few I’ve taken or minimised the dairy from for them – using almond milk, or just not using butter and cheese. There’s a different recipe each week (I’m sure there’s repeats), though the ones you’ll see are similar in some ways. Using tinned legumes, mince, one had chicken tenderloins which were quick to cut up. I’ve added veges  – zucchini in the first photo – when I’ve gotten something I can throw in at our Friday foodbank run.

Like all other EveryPlate meals, you get the recipe card, the fresh ingredients, herbs and spices, stock, and any grains like rice or cous cous. The price for the bulk cook meal is $25 as an optional add-on when you go through and select your recipes for the week. Some I didn’t get – like a tomato spaghetti that just didn’t inspire me as freezable, but yeah, the casseroles, stews, and potato pies have gone down well.

You then supply things like olive oil, salt and pepper, butter/milk (that I leave out for my sister so some of these are easily made vegetarian and vegan). They get you to use the water from the chickpeas and beans so there’s no rinsing and you can use that salty water as stock.

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There’s a mix of stovetop cooking – which my huge Misen pot is great for both frying and simmering the large amounts, oh and boiling potatoes. There’s roasting of vegetables too. And things like the cous cous to make up to serve I just send along dry and Jen can take care of that as she needs it, along with any toppings like almonds, or the cheese for melting over for the big kids.

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I tinker a little – I find sometimes if you add all the stock powder things start to get a little too salty, so I’ll use less rather than more and add in later if I think it could do with it.

This pork mince/cottage pie I made at home, but took over to Jen’s that evening and we finished it off in the oven there, and I got to eat with them. I left a mini-pie for my partner in the noodle bowl to heat for himself :p

The recipes also give you other time-saving options, like not peeling the carrots of potatoes, I I prefer to.

As far as value for money, the way that prices have been going up at the shops for fresh veges and even tinned ones with transport costs, $25 for the supplied ingredients, recipe card, and inspiration and motivation to then get it cooked up works out well for me. Giving me a tangible way to help out and getting to cook too.

I also gave the $20 fruit add-on box a go. I couldn’t really justify it. After pricing the items I got in this one at $13 on woolies online. But you might like the convenience, there is a larger $25 option which might be better value too

I’m still getting the weekly boxes, and it’s still working well for me. I like that I can still put together a nice healthy meal even if I’ve had a big day and my brain is a little used up! The box I get has gone up in price, but given the semi hyper inflation at the moment it’s still great value for us. You can see my overview of them in this previous post.

I also regularly get free trial boxes to share – I currently have three, you just pay $10 shipping. If you want to try EveryPlate, let me know below or use my referral link for $60 off.

What have you been doing to keep fresh veges on that table with inflation and supply issues?