5.45am on a Saturday morning. What would you be doing? Once a upon a time I would be coming home from the night before. Now the early morning is usually spent tucked in catching up on sleep from the working week.

Last weekend, at 5.45am, we were warming up the car on a frosty Autumn morning, getting ready to head out to Flemington to explore Paddy's Fresh Food Markets.

Now first thing I have to recommend is turn up ready for action. We arrived at about 6.30am, half hour after opening and the place was pumping. People, vans, trolley's and fork lifts travelling every which way. We grabbed a devinely strong coffee from the market cafe to sip whilst strolling the stalls, but to be honest there was no strolling be done, we were straight in for the bargains.

First stop was the flower markets. Such a beautiful selection, all very hard to resist

And so fresh. The bunch of ten long stem roses I bought are now, one week later, just starting to open and in no way discoloured

Now it is worth mentioning that our early morning expedition is part of my quest to eat healthy without the hefty price tag. I'd found recently that in order to keep within budget, the weekly supermarket shop was beginning to feature less and less fresh produce and what was bought was usually tasteless or soon to expire.

Well now that problem has been solved - the market is the answer, of course!

Bargain of the day was the seafood - salmon fillet for $3 and a whole bream for $3.50.  In our bounty we also bought a ciabatta, chick peas, dahl lentils, mint, english spinach, pears, mandarins, egg plant, zuchinni, sweet potato, grapes and shallots. All for $45. It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning and definately a great solution to our budget woes

Paddys Markets
Homebush West Sydney
www.paddysmarkets.com.au