Chief Cook and Procurement Officer
For the past seven months, with JRo working full time and my time free, I have become the Procurement Officer and Chief Cook at our house.
At first I shopped and cooked much as we've always done, but that resulted in a lot of pre-packaged foods of dubious health value and quality, too much bread and pasta and chips and snacks, expensive take-out and hamburger places, not enough grains and vegetables. And we got bored with our food.
Considering both of us are overweight with underlying health conditions, we discussed things and changed our path. It helped to take this turning at the beginning of summer with the plethora of produce coming into markets, plus Sis gets regular over-deliveries at the school for low-income families she runs from the local farmers and food bank. It's a lot of fun to see what comes in the food bank boxes, look up recipes and plan meals with the foods we like. And it's allowed me to mix in a lot more international cuisine styles with our favorite 'American' meals to keep things interesting.
For breakfasts now, JRo still prefers frozen meat-egg breakfast bowls because she's hungry on waking but not able to make decisions before the coffee kicks in. I've also brought in cereals we like, yogurts and fresh fruit that I change around weekly. And several times when we've had tacos or Mexican salads, I've been able to use the leftover meat, beans and cheese, cook up some scrambled eggs, make and freeze breakfast burritos.
For lunches, now that we don't bring most bread into the house, we'll roll sandwiches into flatbreads or tortillas, or I'll make chicken or tuna salad or egg salad that can go onto lettuce or cabbage. And one of my favorite lunches is to slice apples and use them as 'crackers' for local cheeses and nibble them, sometimes with charcuterie.
I used the grill a LOT over the summer and we both loved grilled meats, mixing it up with sausages, different cuts and styles of chicken, steaks, hamburgers with salads on the side, including a lot of tomatoes and herbs from our own garden, or grilled fish and shrimp with cold rice salads, rice noodles, cabbage salads.
Now that we are cooling down for the fall, I can get deeper into stovetop and oven foods --soups and stews and roasted veggies and the like.
And I'm writing out menus at the top of each week, refining them with JRo and dependent on what we're craving that week and what's in the produce box and the markets. Then I do the marketing with a much more targeted list, keeping our food budget lean and mean.
We still allow ourselves some sweets; I bought a gigantic package of brownie mix a few months ago and will make a tray, cut them small and they'll last us for a week. JRo is about to put together some cookie dough balls this weekend and freeze them in batches of six so that we bake off a few cookies when we want them. She's made cherry turnovers (one of our favorites) and for a recent brunch with friends that we hosted, homemade cinnamon rolls that we ate sparingly for about two weeks. And I've managed to master churros and am making a new small batch today to enjoy with leftover soups/stews and debate-night adult beverages.
Here is this week's menu:
Since we have leftover lentil stew and the chicken and dumplings, we'll push steak to tomorrow night and some of the other dishes into next week's menu. One thing that made financial sense was not to throw out all pasta and potatoes but to use them up in a way that balances out with the fresh produce and proteins in our week. We still have a few large bags of ravioli in the freezer and boxes of pasta in the cupboard, but mostly we've switched over to meals with little to no carb component, or I'm using rice, rice noodles and lentils a lot more often.
Whole chickens were on sale on my last market run for under $5 each so I've made a big batch of stock for less money than buying it pre-made.
And I got a full batch of chicken and dumplings done with most of one of the chickens, plus the same batch of carrots, onions, celery.
That's a lot of meals and future meals for less than $15 of ingredients.
I know that once I go back to work full time, we might backslide a bit with takeout or frozen foods, but I'm hoping to keep up with cooking on the weekends, the foods we've pickled or made and frozen, etc. It's been good for my sanity and certainly better for our health and happiness!
At first I shopped and cooked much as we've always done, but that resulted in a lot of pre-packaged foods of dubious health value and quality, too much bread and pasta and chips and snacks, expensive take-out and hamburger places, not enough grains and vegetables. And we got bored with our food.
Considering both of us are overweight with underlying health conditions, we discussed things and changed our path. It helped to take this turning at the beginning of summer with the plethora of produce coming into markets, plus Sis gets regular over-deliveries at the school for low-income families she runs from the local farmers and food bank. It's a lot of fun to see what comes in the food bank boxes, look up recipes and plan meals with the foods we like. And it's allowed me to mix in a lot more international cuisine styles with our favorite 'American' meals to keep things interesting.
For breakfasts now, JRo still prefers frozen meat-egg breakfast bowls because she's hungry on waking but not able to make decisions before the coffee kicks in. I've also brought in cereals we like, yogurts and fresh fruit that I change around weekly. And several times when we've had tacos or Mexican salads, I've been able to use the leftover meat, beans and cheese, cook up some scrambled eggs, make and freeze breakfast burritos.
For lunches, now that we don't bring most bread into the house, we'll roll sandwiches into flatbreads or tortillas, or I'll make chicken or tuna salad or egg salad that can go onto lettuce or cabbage. And one of my favorite lunches is to slice apples and use them as 'crackers' for local cheeses and nibble them, sometimes with charcuterie.
I used the grill a LOT over the summer and we both loved grilled meats, mixing it up with sausages, different cuts and styles of chicken, steaks, hamburgers with salads on the side, including a lot of tomatoes and herbs from our own garden, or grilled fish and shrimp with cold rice salads, rice noodles, cabbage salads.
Now that we are cooling down for the fall, I can get deeper into stovetop and oven foods --soups and stews and roasted veggies and the like.
And I'm writing out menus at the top of each week, refining them with JRo and dependent on what we're craving that week and what's in the produce box and the markets. Then I do the marketing with a much more targeted list, keeping our food budget lean and mean.
We still allow ourselves some sweets; I bought a gigantic package of brownie mix a few months ago and will make a tray, cut them small and they'll last us for a week. JRo is about to put together some cookie dough balls this weekend and freeze them in batches of six so that we bake off a few cookies when we want them. She's made cherry turnovers (one of our favorites) and for a recent brunch with friends that we hosted, homemade cinnamon rolls that we ate sparingly for about two weeks. And I've managed to master churros and am making a new small batch today to enjoy with leftover soups/stews and debate-night adult beverages.
Here is this week's menu:
Since we have leftover lentil stew and the chicken and dumplings, we'll push steak to tomorrow night and some of the other dishes into next week's menu. One thing that made financial sense was not to throw out all pasta and potatoes but to use them up in a way that balances out with the fresh produce and proteins in our week. We still have a few large bags of ravioli in the freezer and boxes of pasta in the cupboard, but mostly we've switched over to meals with little to no carb component, or I'm using rice, rice noodles and lentils a lot more often.
Whole chickens were on sale on my last market run for under $5 each so I've made a big batch of stock for less money than buying it pre-made.
And I got a full batch of chicken and dumplings done with most of one of the chickens, plus the same batch of carrots, onions, celery.
That's a lot of meals and future meals for less than $15 of ingredients.
I know that once I go back to work full time, we might backslide a bit with takeout or frozen foods, but I'm hoping to keep up with cooking on the weekends, the foods we've pickled or made and frozen, etc. It's been good for my sanity and certainly better for our health and happiness!