Real Foods Co-op - First Order

It's been a while between blog posts.  Things have gotten busy(ier).  I popped on to share this: Thanks to Bruise Mouse over at Living a Little Greener, I was put onto the Real Food Co-op.  I received my first order Friday and am very pleased.  End of the week, work and collecting children etc and home and here is all this wonderful fresh stuff.  If you're looking for a good value Co-op I definitely suggest checking these guys out.

This is what my order consisted of.  These are the BIG boxes - the long ones.  At least twice the length of a standard tomato box.  One box is a friend's (she ordered with me and we shared the courier cost) but the rest are ours. 

 Oh and not in the picture are these, below.  The apples and the yoghurt.  I've not tried this yoghurt before, usually buying the Barambah blueberry organic yoghurt - which is a real taste - a different taste to 'usual' yoghurt but a taste I now prefer... so I will be keen to see if this one takes to my tastebuds just as well.

8kg apples waiting...

Needless to say, I have been, and will be, busy - bulk making, baking, organising and meal planning to make the most of the fresh ingredients.

There is a 'pantry staples' order run, as well as the f&v.  The f&v includes dairy products and milk, as well as fruit and veg (your choice of organic or not) and in my lot this time I got 4kg of strawberries.  yum.  The pantry staples order I've yet to do, but they do also offer things like eco dishwasher powder, biodegradable cling wrap etc.

So between Real Foods, Springer Foods (for my 24kg organic flour, 20kg golden syrup etc) and a Woolworths order, and perhaps the occasional trip to Mr Fresh for the Barambah yoghurt, and the Sunnydale and Bannister Downs milk in glass, I think I could be quite set for efficient, aware and more enjoyable grocery purchases.

Thanks again to BM for putting me on to the Real Food Co-op.  Up next, the results of the 'jam making session'..!

Localising Breakfast

Special breakfast one morning, after a sleepover movie night.  In attempts to localise our food a little bit more, this is what we ended up with for breakfast.

local milk - Bannister Downs and Sunnydale in glass
local honey - Swan Valley
local flour - WA owned (and made, I think, from the description on the pack - need to check further)
(very) local lemons
local eggs + one of ours -

Still working on the butter and the other stuff, never perfect!  I also want to increase my confidence in the products - so they might be local but I also want to know their ethics and their ingredients, eco responsibility etc.  Slowly slowly.  Some I already know and some I'm slowly finding info on.  Also trying to strike the balance between budget, ethics, and quantities.  ie we like to buy flour in 22kg bags so I can get organic in that quantity but not sure if I can get local at that amount, that kind of thing.

And don't worry, no one had Vege-Spread on their pancakes! lol but it was on the table for some reason.  Vege spread is our alternative to Vegemite which has ingredients that I've been told aren't permitted in some European countries, has numbers in it that I don't want my guys to eat and is made by Kraft.  So the next step is to try and find local butter and local yoghurt.  I have seen them but I just haven't tried them yet.  The other thing is we go through a LOT of butter with baking... so I need to do the 'balance' - cost, quality and ethics/local.  How do you make those choices?

oh and the 'Barn Brack/Barm Brack/Bairgin Brack' will be up tomorrow (from the Celtic Soda Bread/Currant Cake/Gingerbread post).