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Another note on shopping a little differently . . . This time by bike.

Normally I would take the car. But last week I took Mundo. And yes, I had the kids on board as well.

I went for only a few things . . . But it never does quite work out. By the end of the shop even I was starting to have my doubts about everything fitting on the bike. But, somehow it always works out.

I can highly recommend a family outing to go blueberry picking. It's great for all ages.

As Andrew and I picked the kids joined in as well but somehow their bucket never got many in it. Samuel was quick to master his newly developed skill of picking straight from the bush and became familiar with the difference between blue and green instantly! Best of all the kids were safely contained by the bird netting that we were picking underneath. It was a worry free and relaxed family adventure.

We went to visit Jo from Blueberry Art on his organic blueberry farm in Levin. PYO berries for $10/kg or pop into the shop to buy them fresh or frozen for a little more. They are superbly delicious and very tasty. Well worth the drive from Wellington. Take a chilly bin along to bring them home in of you have one and don't forget your sun hat, sunblock and water. It's much hotter in Levin than it is in Wellington!

Models showing the very practical picking buckets - we headed in under the nets in the background

Andrew picking - the white above is the net

Into the bucket? Or into my mouth?

Little Pickers

Mmmmm

More

Blueberries on the bushes

Ella sporting her DUNS Sweden sunhat (watch out for new styles arriving next month) while picking berries

Attention to detail

The end result

Late last year I had a glut of parsley in my vege garden. It was big and bushy and starting to go to seed and it was time for it to go to the compost heap. But before pulling it all out I wanted to rescue as much as I could and put it to good use.

I pulled out one of my favourite cookbooks 'River Cottage Everyday' to find Hugh's wonderful parsley and pumpkin seed pesto recipe and set to work.

After a few batches of pumpkin seed I threw in some walnuts.

This recipe has become quite a favourite in our house and the pumpkin seed version is perfect for sharing with kids in early childhood education as its nut free.

My friend Michelle from Munch thought it was so good she shared the recipe in her recent blog post.

Parsley and Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Prep time: 5 mins
Total time: 5 mins

Makes: 1-2 cups

Ingredients

75g shelled walnuts/pumpkin seeds
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
50g parsley leaves
175 ml rapeseed or extra virgin olive oil
Juice of ½ lemon
Sea salt & ground pepper to taste
50g Parmesan cheese, grated

Method

Put the nuts/seeds, parsley garlic and lemon juice in a food processor and give it a good blitz.

With the food processor going pour in the oil until you reach your preferred consistency.

Pour into a bowl and add the cheese and season to taste. It will keep in the fridge in a jar, covered in olive oil for a couple of weeks or alternatively it can be frozen for use at a later date. If freezing add the cheese and seasoning once defrosted.

Shopping a little differently . . . One of a few notes.

A few years ago I had some inspiration to change the way our family shops for food. I can't remember where the idea came from but it was along the lines of eating local and not being at the supermarket every few days. What started as a challenge for a few months became a habit that still continues today.

The original goal was that we would not go to the supermarket between monthly shops. We bought fresh produce from the local market each Saturday, meat from the local butcher and coffee from the roasters. The exception to the rule was milk - for this we could enter the supermarket.

We wrote out a list: How much flour did we need to bake bread for everyone for the month? How many tins of tomatoes would we need? How much chocolate was allowed? How much cereal would we eat? Rice, pasta, tuna, cheese, butter . . . And most importantly how many rolls of toilet paper we would go through.

People used to look at us and wonder how many we were feeding as we wandered the supermarket with 3 bags of cornflakes, 2 bags of ricies, 2 boxes of wheatbix and some all bran (I was pregnant at the time with a craving for cereal!) not to mention the 36 rolls of toilet paper!

It was quite fun. It saved us time not going to the supermarket as often and encouraged us to use what we had left in the cupboards. And there was only once chance a month for extra things that weren't on the list to somehow end up in the trolley.

When we ran out of Wheatbix and toilet paper I knew it was time to go shopping again. Sometimes we lasted six weeks.

These days we aren't quite as strict on ourselves, although it would do us good to be. But I still do our big shop once every 4 - 6 weeks. And now I know roughly what we need to last us and when it's gone it's gone. There will be something else to eat.

I used to be a religious Saturday morning vege market goer. It was our outing, Ella and I. Or I would go alone on the scooter. It is a great place to get a weeks supply of yummy food, and if for some reason Saturday didn't take our fancy, there was always the Sunday market in town which made for a great family outing by car or even better, by bike. Sometimes we even bumped into friends there! Bonus.

But time got away with me, and we lost the habit, not helped by my regular appearances at the Wellington Underground Market at Frank Kitts Park with my Hoopla Kids stall. No excuse, but I chose my battles, and staying home, having a relaxing morning and getting into the garden with the kids is the way it's been rolling over here lately.

So, to avoid stopping by the supermarket to get a whole pile of over priced produce, or alternatively just not having any because I was too stubborn to buy it at the supermarket, in a moment of busyness I thought I would try a vege box. And that turned to a few more. So when the last box arrived I thought I would do a tally up of what had arrived:

• 400g Asparagus
• 1 x Fancy lettuce
• 1 x Broccoli
• 1x Cucumber
• 1 x Green cabbage
• 1 Punnet blueberries
• 880g Oranges
• 940g Apples
• 460g Green kiwifruit
• 550g Red onions
• 520g Brown onions
• 1.3kg Red kumara
• 1 x Bunch of silverbeet
• 1 x Fennel bulb (560g)
• 2 x Avocado

So all in all a nice big box of food that generally lasts us at least a week, if not a bit longer supplemented with some carrots, bananas and sometimes some beetroot as these are staples in our house that aren't always delivered.

The cost: Vege box $48, delivery $9.

And being that I have slightly geeky tendencies I thought I would do a comparison. How much would it have cost me if I had bought this food at our local supermarket? Not organic, just the standard produce on the shelves. So I collected some prices:

Total cost for the same produce: $51.88

So, I would have saved $5.12 by buying it from the supermarket. But would it really have been a saving? If I'd been to the supermarket what would I have added to my basket that day? Chocolate at $3.50 on special? Some bread that I didn't need as I could have just baked some instead, $3.50 per loaf. A packet of biscuits? And what if I had driven there. Sure its only about 1km each way and I probably would have taken the bike. But for the sake of comparison the IRD mileage rate is 77 cents per km. So my 2km return journey cost me $1.54 in mileage.

So already I'm at $56.92 just for the mileage and the chocolate I bought and the produce wasn't organic. I'm down to a saving of 8 cents, and you know what, if I set it up as a regular order I would save $2 per box.

At the end of the day, I got a box of yummy ORGANIC food to my door which challenged me to try new things and find new ways to use new ingredients I wouldn't have normally bought. And it probably saved me money in the big picture by keeping me out of the supermarket. It suited me these few times but it won't suit always. After all, I hope that soon we will be eating more from our own garden, at least a little bit.

And I do also realise, that if I was organised I could probably save a lot more money by getting down to the vege market, and I might even have fun doing it. But perhaps that's a comparison for another day . . .

Hi,

I’m Kirsten. I’m Mum to two small people (update Dec 2015 - now three small people) and wife to Andrew. We’re kept company by four chooks and a lovely ginger cat called Put Put. I’m a Piano Tuner/Technician. And I run Hoopla Kids, a small business specialising in fun, colourful, creative and practical kids clothing from Scandinavia.

Together we all live in a little house in Wellington, New Zealand.

We are just a normal kiwi family, but like every “normal” family, we have our quirks.

I get around with the kids on a cargo bike – fondly known as “Mundo”. We have a large vege garden which has the potential to produce lots of delicious organic food. And scattered around our 612 square metre section we have 12 fruit trees, a grapevine and LOTS of berry plants – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, currants, blackberries, boysenberries and gooseberries.

This blog is about many things. It’s about life with small children, being a stay at home mum, and running businesses. Its about growing food, running a co-op, trying to live a greener life. And about how much fun a family can have with a cargo bike. I’d love you to come along for the ride. And I hope that maybe some of my posts will inspire you to try something new or do something different.