Meal planning
12:49 PM Let me just check that we have all been there at least once...ending up with too much groceries bought, and letting some of it go bad simply because you bought that zucchini with just a glimmer of an idea of a recipe in your mind, which you obviously forgot about a few hours later, and remembered only when you found that half decomposed thing at the bottom of your vegetable tray in the fridge. Sound familiar to any of you? Yes?
I managed to find a constructive solution to that problem a while ago, but have fallen off the wagon often, only to get back on it at the first sign of rotten crap making a come back in my fridge. Here it is:
As I write my menu planning, I also complete my shopping list with the ingredients I will need to buy an don't have, because my other simplifying tip is to just buy grocery for the week in one trip...and that one I know is not really popular in India, but save an emergency such as running out of eggs, suddenly wanting to bake a cake and having no flour, I do not go buy food the rest of the week. For two reasons, very simple ones, the first one, being that the kirana store is not exactly nearby and even if I love walking, going the and back home will eat about 30 minutes or more out of my day, then because it is too easy to just go out buy something to avoid using what you have home. I ended up wasting money and food doing so that way. Most vegetables stay nice and fresh in the fridge a few days, and I make most of my super veggie loaded dishes at the start of the week! using the most delicate ones first, and the ones with a longer shelf life later. I also make a point to use one pantry or one freezer item at every meal I plan. And it never failed, all the weeks I went through this process, not only did we eat better, it saved me a lot of time, delivered me from the dreaded question of "What to cook today?" and ended up saving us money on our weekly grocery bill.
The one thing I miss with my new thrifty way is the cute factor, but I really don't like wasting ink on printing a page that will end up in the trash, the dream meal planner for me will look like this:
A while back, I saw this picture of a giant restaurant type chalk board in a newspaper supplement, I kept the clipping for inspiration and one day I will probably end up with something like it, I just haven't figured it all out yet, but the idea is still on my mind.
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