Final Evaluation
Well. Where to start?
First, let me describe my first grocery shopping trip after the experiment was complete.
I felt lost. I felt like someone was taking my money. I didn't WANT to buy anything else except my usual four items of lettuce, milk, apples, and bananas!
I have proven to myself that I can pull many a meal out of a hat (aka as the pantry). I've gotten over my fear of defrosting the scary freezer offering and actually cooking them.
From what I've learned, I think that this is how I will approach things now:
- I WILL buy loss leaders.
- I will NOT buy too MUCH of the loss leaders. I have a price book and already know when something is a good deal. I do not, however, have to buy enough to feed the people in all 11 houses on my street. For a month.
- I will always shop in my pantry areas FIRST as I make my menu plans.
- I will not turn up my nose at the frozen items. They are my friends.
- I will make enough food during the week to provide two days of leftovers on the weekend.
- I will never by tomato puree again.
- Fresh vegetables are nice, but they can sometimes hide in the frig and die. I always feel bad when that happens. So, I will buy fresh veggies sparingly and stock up on frozen when on sale.
- I will make more homemade pasta.
- I will separate bacon into packages of six slices each and freeze them. If I fry a whole pound of bacon, I will taste half of the pound before it gets to the breakfast table.
- I will experiment with doubling the GOOD recipes and freezing them in meal-sized portions.
That is all. Unless I think of something else.
2 comments:
That sounds like a great idea! Hubbs and I are big fans of frozen veggies, especially since they are a.) cheaper than their fresh counterparts and b.) sometimes more nutritional than their counterparts thanks to flash freezing. Oh, and we don't have to eat them all in one day! ;0)
I think you have an excellent plan! All the cookbooks tout having a well-stocked pantry in case of emergency and there is some validity to that in one sense. But isn't it amazing how aware we become after a project like you've just finished how much we waste! And how much we buy unnecessarily (ie. tomato puree!!!!!) LOL
I applied your food lesson to the clutter in my house. It feels so good to have what we need, a little of what we want and out with the rest!!
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