If you’ve been following my tweets lately, or my facebook page, you may know I’ve been using the new book available from Aldi titled, ‘One Family: One Supermarket’. (This isn’t a sponsored post and no-one’s asked me to review this. I use this book and felt like talking about it)

Written by Bronwyn Cameron, the beginnings of this book are a great story. See, Bronwyn wanted a cookbook that contained only ingredients from Aldi, so she could buy all her food at the one store. Since no such book existed, she decided to write one herself.

She spent five months dreaming up 150 recipes! After that, she spent another five months cooking the recipes all over again to test them. She then contacted Aldi with her brilliant idea, and lo and behold, they decided to get on board and help Bronwyn make this book a reality.

I knew nothing about this great book until my partner bought it as one of my early Mothers’ Day gifts (not because he believes in female stereotypes, he knew I’d genuinely like this as a gift). Considering it was from Aldi, and given their reputation for being inexpensive, I had to ask him how much it was. Ten bucks. A beautiful, useful cookbook with glossy colour photos, for that price? It’s pretty amazing in this day and age.

I decided that next time we did our fortnightly grocery shop  I’d write  a meal plan for dinners, all based around this book. I admit that a few nights I didn’t cook from it, for instance, one night I was too sick and tired to cook we had takeaway. (My partner used to do all the cooking in this house, but with his medical issues this is something I’ve taken over). Here’s our experience:

The cost

Bronwyn, like me, has three kids and by her own admission makes generous batch sizes. To source out all the ingredients for my meal plan plus cleaning goods, nappies, and fresh fruit and veges to snack on (lots!), our grocery bill came to only $400 for a family of five. I was gobsmacked to see that we had much more food than we normally buy, and we shop at Aldi all the time! By the end of the fortnight, we had plenty of extra food left over, which we used to treat ourselves for lunch and extra-special snacks.

The food

The minute I got home from buying groceries in the afternoon, I immediately started cooking dinner early, thinking it’d take a while. I prepared the lamb and vegetable soup. It was very fast and easy to make. On serving it, Mr 5 (my fussiest eater) said, ‘I’m not eating that! It’s disgusting.’ It had loads of foods in it he likes, but he didn’t try it. (Really, this is no reflection on the author’s cooking skills! He’s turned his nose up at many beautiful foods)

My partner tasted it and swooned. Missy 10 drooled. Missy 3 shoveled hers in greedily. Missy 10 told me it was the nicest thing I’d ever cooked, and my partner agreed. Missy 3 told me it was yummy. I loved it too! My only regret was not making a double batch so we could have it again later in the fortnight.

The second night, we had this:

Pear and walnut roast chicken. (No bitching about the photo quality please, I’m not a foodie photographer!) My son watched me lovingly prepare this chook for the better part of the afternoon, and made a point of letting me know it was disgusting and he would not be eating any of it.

We don’t have an oven currently, but we have a little Foreman oven (yes, there’s an oven by George Foreman. Who knew, right?) About half an hour before dinner, my son could see it was no longer a raw chook when I lifted the lid to check it, but a beautiful roasted chook. He said, ‘is that the chicken?’, and I knew I’d won him over to at least try this one.

We sat down to eat this with a salad (to bribe Mr 5 to the table to try dinner). Everybody else loved this meal, me included. As I was savoring a tasty bite of chicken, Mr 5 got up from his chair, ran over to me, gave me huge hug, and said, ‘thanks so much for my dinner mum, I love it!’ I even got a big kiss. I wanted to hunt Bronwyn down then and there to thank her!

Unfortunately, I didn’t  take anymore photos of the meals I made, because we were all just so keen to eat what I made.  I made a beautiful pumpkin and chicken cannelloni (hint: you cannot taste the pumpkin, so don’t be put off if you have pumpkin-hating children. I do, and my two girls loved it). My son didn’t want to try this one either, but I think this one was everyone else’s favourite.

I made the lamb hot pot, which I was hanging to try. It didn’t turn out well, as I tried it in the crock pot (slow cooker), and this recipe really doesn’t suit it. I’m sure if we’d done it in the oven, it would’ve been lovely, though.

I have since made the chicken and vegetable rissoles many, many times. They are very easy to make, and such a hit with the kids. They’re absolutely packed with vegetables. I make a double, sometimes triple batch of these, and freeze them into portions for the other nights. Then all I have to do is defrost them, and my partner grills them. I’m pretty fussy when it comes to rissoles, but I really find these ones to be melt-in-your-mouth yummy.

The mozzarella burgers were tasty, and everyone loved them. My son wouldn’t touch the pide rolls, but he scoffed the whole patty when he thought we weren’t looking and he enjoyed the pineapple and salad that was on the roll.

The cottage pie (pretty much shepard’s pie) was also delicious, although funnily enough, my youngest daughter, my least fussy eater, decided she didn’t like it. Mind you, she’s going through an anti-potato stage (her old sister went through the same thing at her age and now loves them again), so I’m not really surprised.

We tried the red wine and beef casserole, as well. I couldn’t source the sweet red wine from Aldi, and was told that it’ll be available in my area in a few month’s time. So we did have to cheat and buy a cheap, alcohol-free wine from Woolworths, but I really didn’t mind.

Again, my son didn’t like it, but everyone else did. Missy 10 liked it, but it was probably her least favourite.

Missy 10 was dying to cook a recipe on her own as well. She decided to make the cinnamon toast and this was uber-easy for her to do. I’m kind of regretting trying it though, because it’s so simple yet more-ish. It tasted pretty much like a donut, and my partner and I got hooked on it as a snack many times in that fornight. Regret.

I honestly can’t remember which other meals I cooked that fortnight, as there were so many. Also, I know one got scratched from the plan, when we bought takeaway instead. Mr 5 eagerly asked me what was for dinner. I told him, ‘chippies’. His face fell, and he said, ‘but I wanted you to cook one of your different meals.’ On asking, I discovered he wanted me to cook something else from this cookbook.

Will I use it again?

Yes, yes and yes! I love the fact that I’m making inexpensive meals that are absolutely delicious. I love that it’s encouraging my children to try new foods. I’ve always been a believer in making a menu plan, but I’ve always found it too overwhelming to actually get around to doing. I can open this book up, choose what will be for dinner (usually with help from the kids), write a shopping list for one store, and buy and cook it more easily than ever before.

I’m enjoying eating more interesting meals, and I think the price of this book is excellent value. I think if it cost fifty bucks, it’d still be worth it when I think about how much money it’s saving us. I’m sure you’ve noticed a running theme with my son’s pickiness throughout this blog post. As you can imagine, it’s a constant nagging thought in the back of mind, ‘will Mr 5 eat this? Will he try it?’ So when I find a book that even has one recipe in it he likes, it’s like winning the damn lottery. I’m finding the great thing about this book is that he seems more keen now to try new foods from it, especially if I just include some salad with it.

I’ve been using this book in conjunction with my magnetic meal planner, and am starting to feel as though I finally have dinners under control after oh, say, ten years of motherhood. I just think Bronwyn’d better make sure she and I never meet, because I may just grovel at her feet for how much she’s helped me with my son!

Have you bought this book? What did you think of it?