A week ago Friday, I brought home some groceries, and suddenly our fridge, freezer, and chest freezer were full†. Like, very full. So full that it felt like I couldn't fit anything more in them. So full that I regretted buying some of the bulk items that I bought. Which is good, right? That means that we have plenty to eat*. Here's the thing, though. I like to have space. Breathing room. Margin. And the fullness of our food storage appliances made me a little anxious. I know. I'm so weird.
So I decided to brainstorm some meal ideas that I could make without going shopping first. I've talked about shelf cooking before, but I've always spoken about shelf cooking from the standpoint of using up random bits and bobs of things, and never from the standpoint of avoiding the grocery store.
Friends, I came up with three weeks' worth of meals that I could make without going to the grocery store. Three weeks! Last week, I added to my Bullseye pick-up the few items that people around here get real cranky about not having around**, but aside from that, we didn't buy any groceries. I felt pretty good about that, and the fridge and chest freezers are feeling much more spacious today.
Now we're on to week two, and here's what's on the menu:
- Fend for yourself or spaghetti and green beans
- Tacos with all the fixings, tortillas
- Chicken sandwiches, fresh veggies, including sugar snap peas from the garden, and fresh fruit, including black raspberries from our yard
- Creamy crock pot chicken and rice, broccoli
- Pizza, salad
- Hot dogs or brats, buns, jello, carrots
- Grilled pork chops, corn?, mashed potatoes?***
- Mexican quinoa with grilled chicken
- Italian cauliflower salad
- Snickerdoodles
- Bread
- Yogurt, if we have enough milk left at the end of the week
† The fullness was caused by a confluence of events. Hubby and Bubby came home from Scout camp with extra food, plus because they had been at Scout camp, MC and I had lots of leftovers in the fridge, and AKD visited that weekend, so I felt like I needed to stock up for that. Plus I made soup, which I freeze in meal size portions.
* A big portion, probably a third, of what was in the freezers was bread: hamburger and hot dog buns, muffins, mini waffles, pizza dough, loaves of bread. I like to make most of these things from scratch because they taste better and are cheaper than store-bought, but I make them in bulk because one mess is better than three, and bread sure does take up a lot of room.
** For Hubby: milk and OJ; for me: eggs
*** We have exactly one potato, so not sure how that's going to work. We're also pretty low on veggies, so that's a bummer.
No comments:
Post a Comment