I have been so inspired by Rain from
Rains Garden to organise my poor shopping habits that I took an inventory of all the food we have in the freezer and larder. It's not a great picture, but you get the idea. Lots of good things, but not complete meals in themselves. I need to get the other ingredients to turn this lot into yummy meals we'll all eat. So I made a weekly plan and then hope to expand it slowly to a fortnight plan and then eventually a monthly one.
The only issue at the moment will be buying fresh vegetables, which I have to have or I get crazy cravings like the time I ate a whole packet of cooked beetroot!!! We have a little local greengrocer nearby and when things start growing in the garden I'll have lots of salads and hopefully fruits (if I look after them better than last year!).
Why am I thinking about this, isn't it more hassle and just easier to grab things daily as we fancy them? Well, for one thing it's more expensive shopping daily as I always get seduced into buying that bargain item that sits in the fridge and slowly goes off as I don't have a use for it after all! The biggest reason though is that it wastes so much time and energy going to the supermarket that I end up feeling stressed and unable to cook anything at the end of the day.
Hopefully this will work and I find it's fun sitting and planning rather than running around and making throw together meals, or worse, we all cook seperate meals according to what we each fancy on the day. Both Moomin and her brother are pretty good at cooking so we've decided to each cook once a week for all of us, which means I get a couple of nights off :D
Meanwhile, the sock is growing, soon it will be time to turn the heel and I'll be sat watching youtube tutorials or rushing round to a friends house for her expert help.
I'm so glad you're trying it!!! :) When I first started this, my only thought was "there is NO WAY I can plan for that long..." but I took an afternoon with a little white wine spritzer :) and all of my cookbooks and just browsed through, thinking about what I could make. Then I looked at Pinterest for more ideas. When the flyers came out, I saw which meats and dairy stuff was on sale and planned from there. It actually made me much more creative in the kitchen and I've tried new dishes that I never thought of before because it was all planned! It takes some work, especially the BIG shopping day, then the aftermath of labeling, organizing and storing, but the rest of the cycle (you know mine is now up to 6 weeks!!) I don't have to even think about what's for dinner. It's all on the menu and everything is allocated.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the stress of grocery shopping. Even going every two weeks was a horrible experience for me. But now, it feels normal and I can't imagine taking the car out every 2 weeks anymore! Another great benefit is the gas savings and wear and tear on the car!!! Good luck, let me know how it goes for you! I'll be watching lol!!! :)
Oh, and great job on the inventory. I had stuff in the freezer that I'd completely forgot about. I still have a whole chicken from September in there, lol...that will be our Easter meal! :)
ReplyDeleteI've been really focussed on sticking to the meal plan and although I've run out of sugar and a few condiments, I've managed to stay away from the supermarket so far :D
ReplyDeleteThat's where the temptation lies...when you run out of something. The first time I did this, I had a bit of a learning curve. I ran out of milk, bread, water (eek) we can't drink the water here so we have to buy the big jugs, and actually I ran out of white wine. So I had to go back to a local store to stock up halfway through the month, and get some fresh stuff. The next time, I made sure to buy extras.
DeleteI just popped over from Rain's blog - isn't she an inspiration? I do LOVE the color of that sock yarn! I will now have to read back over your posts - I think your cooking arrangement sounds perfect. How nice not to have to cook every day!
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