Organizing my cooking life
I’d be curious to hear how others organize their food planning/shopping/cooking on a weekly basis. I feel like my approach is a bit chaotic; I’m always trying new recipes but it often feels disorganized, not to mention that I end up wasting food. I’ve never seemed to manage a consistent “rotation” of dishes, although I do manage to make one type of soup, as well as broth (either vegetable or chicken) and a big batch of either beans or brown rice on Sundays. Any tips to offer?
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I try to log in all my meals for the week on Sundays. I have all my usual meals saved on here, and so it's usually quick to add. They're mostly simple, inexpensive healthy meals. Then I go to "recent foods", and make my grocery list from there.3
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I run a pretty efficient kitchen, I think. Here are my strategies
1. Batch cook anything that freezes well. When I make any braised dishes such as bolognese sauce for spaghett, coq au vin, chicken cacciatore, curries, stews, potato gratin, split pea soup I will make enough for four meals for the household and freeze portions for quick weekday meals. Quadrupling the recipe is not 4 times the work, especially if you use the food processor for tasks such as chopping onions.
2. Make sauces in batches. I learned this from the Serious Eats cookbook. If I make salad dressings or stir fry sauces with non perishable ingredients make more than you need and keep in labelled squeeze bottles in the refrigerator. I typically have classic vinaigrette, ranch dressing, nuoc cham, as well as the prepped sauces for favourite stir fries.
3. When you have time on the weekend prep cooking ingredients that can be frozen for quick use. I occasionally make a huge batch of caramelized onions in the rice cooker (or slow cooker) of onions sliced in the food processor and cooked down with a little butter for several hours with an occasional stir. I freeze this in siicon muffin tins or ice cube trays to toss into recipes that call for fried onions. Once frozen, the cubes can be put into ziplock once there is no danger of them sticking together. Similarly I make confit garlic in large quantities for the fridge (google for recipes), As a large amount of my cooking is asian, I also grate ginger, lemongrass, and galangal that has first been finely sliced against the grain and freeze in silicone ice cube trays that later get transferred to ziplock bags.
4. Have a strategy for leftovers. For example if we roast a whole chicken in our household of 2, we might eat drumsticks, and wings on day 1 because breasts and thighs are easier to deal with as leftovers. Day 2 might be chicken caesar using store bought caesar dressing and croutons from stale bread. Day 3 might be avgolemono soup (google this). Similarly if we have leftover steak from day 1, we might do Tagliata di Manza on day 2, and Pho Bo on day 3.
Hope this helps. Here are the squeeze bottle sauces I usually have in the fridge.
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With respect to reducing food waste, there is a thread called "Reducing Food Waste Recipe Sharing/Tips & Kitchen Scrap Tips" in the recipe section on that with a lot of tips. For dealing with vegetable gluts there is a thread called "For the love of Produce" in the Food and Nutrition section where people ask for recipe ideas on how to use up vegetables. This week there were questions and suggestions on using up Jerusalem artichokes, daikon, celery, and bean sprouts.2
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Thanks, these are all very helpful ideas! (Esp those squeeze bottles..Dang!)3
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We have a whiteboard in our kitchen that we use to make a shopping list throughout the week. These are primarily pantry, fridge, and freezer staples that we discover we are either out of or running low on throughout the week. Our food staples typically cover the vast majority of any recipe we might do.
We do our grocery runs usually on Sunday, so we'll usually sit down either sometime on Saturday or on Sunday morning and put together a general plan for what we're going to eat for the following week. Not necessarily every single meal as often our weeknight meals are just a protein of some kind that is seasoned or marinated and grilled along with whatever vegetable. But we do go through and pull a couple of recipes for various soups or casseroles and whatnot to add more specific things to our shopping list that may not be a staple and only applicable to a particular recipe that we're looking at...like my wife is making a white bean and smoked andouille sausage soup this week and smoked andouille isn't something we usually have on hand as a staple food. Then I or my wife go shopping.
We do very little in the way of weekly food prep...lunches are typically leftovers from the night before and we like freshly cooked meals for evening meals.3 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »We have a whiteboard in our kitchen that we use to make a shopping list throughout the week. These are primarily pantry, fridge, and freezer staples that we discover we are either out of or running low on throughout the week. Our food staples typically cover the vast majority of any recipe we might do.
We do our grocery runs usually on Sunday, so we'll usually sit down either sometime on Saturday or on Sunday morning and put together a general plan for what we're going to eat for the following week. Not necessarily every single meal as often our weeknight meals are just a protein of some kind that is seasoned or marinated and grilled along with whatever vegetable. But we do go through and pull a couple of recipes for various soups or casseroles and whatnot to add more specific things to our shopping list that may not be a staple and only applicable to a particular recipe that we're looking at...like my wife is making a white bean and smoked andouille sausage soup this week and smoked andouille isn't something we usually have on hand as a staple food. Then I or my wife go shopping.
We do very little in the way of weekly food prep...lunches are typically leftovers from the night before and we like freshly cooked meals for evening meals.
We probably organize shopping differently, living in central London. We pop into a small supermarket less than a block away almost daily to pick up produce. As my hubby will only eat free range meat and sustainably caught fish we order that online, and divide into household sized portions and freeze.
One thing we found helpful was having two shopping lists. The first is the typical one of immediate needs. The second is divided into different shops we visit infrequently for non urgent items. So stuff to pick up from the asian supermarket, the health food store, the posh bakery, for when we happen to be in the neighbourhood.1 -
We also have a whiteboard in our kitchen where we can write down the things that are running low.
Usually on Thursday/Fridays I start my list of meals I'd like to have for the next week, and then do my actual grocery shopping on Sunday. Generally I tend to give meal priority to any food cravings - for example this week I've been REALLY wanting bibimbap, so that's the first meal going on the list for next week. After I hash out any craving meals, the rest of the meals are usually chosen to use up leftover ingredients that I might not have used up for my craving meal. Anything else leftover usually gets eaten up on the weekends in an omlette or stir fry, or we try to freeze if able.
We don't particularly have a "rotation" just because we like to have variety and not feel like we're soloing on on specific foods all the time, tho we do have a handful of meals maybe twice a month? All of my recipes I really love I've saved in a word document too to make finding them later easier!1 -
I have an 8 week rotating menu complete with shopping list so that if I'm just really not feeling it one week I can just dial it in. That being said, I have about 400 recipes saved on the app I use, so even if I use a few meals off the rotating menu, I'll work new stuff in too.3
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#acpgee Your comment about shopping in London made me realize something similar. When I'm in Spain (we spend several months there every year), I do the same. That is, I buy small amounts of food almost daily at local shops. Here in the States, I do the "big shopping" with the car but only once a week I actually find it easier to cook and plan in Spain for that reason. Interesting insight.3
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How many people do you feed in your household? Do you work outside the home and this your main cooks are dinners? Do you think about what you want to cook in the days before you plan to shop again? Do you maintain a well stocked pantry of cooking ingredients or are your pantry items more along the lines of convenience food snd snacks? Do you change your mind about what you were going to cook because you no longer desire the originally planned meal? … I think questions like these could help you to work up a pan that is yours.
Our cooking needs and styles change to fit our life style and food preferences. I was throwing away a lot of food because I would bring home way more food than I could use up as fresh until I made it a commitment to plan and shop with a list.0 -
Nsk1951: All good questions! I do shop with a list but still end up throwing food away. i overplan, get ambitious, and then don't follow through on half the things I said I would cook! And I have no real excuse...just me and my husband, I'm retired. I need to develop a plan where I don't cook every night, because I'm really tired of that. (Feel bad even saying that, because I know have it really easy compared to people with families!) But I've gotten some good ideas here and will work on this. Thanks to all!1
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It sounds your problem has more to do with shopping than cooking. Like @rainingribbons I only plan 1 or 2 special meals a week that I am craving. The rest of the meals are focussed on using up leftover ingredients. Pasta+elaborate salad or pasta+secondo+verdura are good meals for using up leftover ingredients. The pasta dishes I use that only require pantry ingredients are puttanesca, carbonara, amatriciana, alla vodka, cacio e pepe, aglio olio. Make only what you need though the tomato based sauces puttanesca, amatriciana, alla vodka can be frozen as 1 tin of tomatoes makes 4 servings of sauce.
If you have a freezer you shouldn't need to throw out protein. We buy meat and fish monthly, divide into single meal potions and freeze everything. Any meat or fish that has been in the fridge and gets near it's sell by date can still be frozen. We also freeze hard cheese, tempeh and tofu (which improves the texture IMO).
Buy only a couple of special vegetables for particular recipes. I like to keep a selection of vegetables that don't spoil quickly in the fridge such as carrots, courgette, daikon, cabbage. From the tinned and jarred section I have tomatoes, white beans such as cannelini, beets, sauerkraut. From the freezer I have peas, edamame and corn. Even if I run out of fresh veg and don't have time to shop, I can still put together a balanced meal. I normally always have onions, garlic and cherry tomatoes.
Hard herbs such as rosemary and thyme can be frozen in samll ziplock bags. Soft herbs such as coriander, mint and basil in danger of spoiling can be turned into herb oil. Pour over boiling water in a colander and squeeze out as much water as possible. Blitz with olive oil in the food processor and then strain and put into a plastic squeeze bottle. The leftover herbs can be used to make gremolata, which will need using up within 1 or 2 days. Add lemon at the last minute as it causes discoloration. I typical squirt herb oil around the perimeter of a bed of warmed up tinned beans, and serve pan fried (frozen) fish on top smeared with food waste gremolata. Pestos freeze well in silicon muffin tins or ice cube trays. Transfer to ziplock bags once frozen.
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We are a household of two as well. Unless we get to a market to buy exactly the quantity we need, supermarket packages tend to be too big. That is why we need to freeze things like meat, fish, cheese, tofu and have strategies for using fresh produce in a timely fashion.
Let us know what stuff you through out the last two weeks and maybe we can help with recipes/strategies to use stuff up or store long term.1 -
I try to keep all the basic staples on hand at all times. I always have a variety of dried beans, grains, veggies, proteins, seasonings, root veggies, etc. I generally keep a list of things that have run out so I can get them whenever I place an order.
I do not do a weekly menu, although I have in the past to save money. But I do generally plan the next nights meal the day before or usually at least the morning of. Otherwise it gets to be 5 pm and I have no idea what I want to cook.
I do my own version of batch cooking. For example, Saturday I cooked 3 large spaghetti squash. Last night I shredded them all and they are in my fridge. I'll eat them throughout the week. (Tomorrow I might just heat some with meatballs and pasta sauce.) I generally make more of the sides, than I need, so that I have extra in the fridge to add to meals. This also makes it easier for me to stick to healthier foods and I'm less likely to order out. It works for me.
I look at my leftovers daily to see what can be incorporated into any of the meals to minimize waste. I'm just a stickler for wasting food. It pisses me off when I have to throw out something we didn't eat.1 -
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OP here...thanks so much to all. I really have gotten some great ideas from all your responses. I think I will definitely scale back how many "new" meals I make a week and be more mindful of freezing/saving larger portions.1
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I feed four adults, all of whom have food intolerances/allergies/special diets required. Three of us are autistic and two of us also have ADHD and this means we want a combination of "I know what's coming" and "mix it up a bit I'm bored."
I run a five week menu, which means that we aren't always having the same thing on the first Monday of the month. I eat the same thing for breakfast or variants on it, and we eat the same seven lunches. Monday is always chicken quesadillas, Tuesday is always street tacos, etc. Dinner varies, but within a plan.
Monday is what I refer to as "slab of meat on a plate". So this week it was pork chops. Next week it may be chicken cutlets. Third week it may be steak. Tuesday is pasta, so this week it was baked ravioli; next week will be chicken and spinach farfalle in alfredo sauce; following week might be spaghetti with marinara and meatballs. And so on.
On Tuesdays I redo the household medication sorters and call in anything I need. We have a whiteboard in the kitchen and in the upstairs hall, and I tell people, "Don't tell me! Write it down! " The one upstairs tends to be for health and beauty stuff. Son needs me to pick him up another bottle of body wash. Boyfriend needs more razors. Girlfriend's out of moisturizer. And I use it because when I run out of something I never remember to go all the way downstairs and write it down. If I need to pick up meds for anyone, I write it on the whiteboard as well.
Wednesday I tidy up the fridge, removing the container of sour cream that has a half-teaspoon lurking if you scrape it and the curry left over from last week that no one has eaten, and generally rearranging everything so that when I have meat to put in there I can fit it in. It's not so much a cleaning, but if I notice a big spill I'll wipe it up, of course. Once a month I take everything out and actually clean it. But it's easier with the weekly tidy.
I also make up a list on Wednesday that is the "rough list"...that's everything I require to cook the meals for next week. I do not, of course, need everything on the list! But I print it out and "shop" my kitchen and freezer first. I may not remember whether or not I took the last bag of pork chops out and used it. Someone may have put the spare bottle of ketchup into service and not written it down. I take the marked up list and, after marking it up, write down on the corner of the paper everything on the whiteboards. From that, I generate a clean copy of the final list. I usually wait to print it till Thursday morning, because inevitably if I print it early someone will think of something. Murphy's law.
I also start a precooking list. If I am in fact out of pork chops, I will have put a pork tenderloin on the list, and one of the precooking list jobs will be "Cut pork chops and bag in 4 count bags." I need to make another batch of pico de gallo most weeks. (We like Mexican food.) That way I can figure out how to balance my time and my standing budget, for I have arthritis in my feet and I can't just do all the standing.
Then Thursday morning I go do the shopping. I also go by the pharmacy and pick up the meds. That's enough time for them to get the prescriptions filled and I don't have to wait. I go home, unpack, have lunch, and start doing the precooking. Friday and Saturday are precooking, usually, though it depends on my health and stamina how much I can get done.
But in our household, this is "my job", and I take it seriously. We are all working on getting healthier, and part of that is eating the right food for our bodies and their issues.
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I'm confused about your wasting food? How does that happen? Are the new recipes unsuccessful or do you have no means by which to store the excess?
I mostly live rural, can, dry or freeze my garden's bounty and keep a very well-stocked cold cellar and larder. There are ALWAYS onions, celery, garlic, carrots and cabbage in my cold cellar.
When the 2020 Covid lock-downs happened, except for fresh milk and eggs, I barely noticed any inconvenience. I make my own yogurt every 3-4 days and a grocery run is something that only happens maybe twice a month.
As for meal planning, There is zero waste here. Even stale bread becomes bread pudding or seasoned bread crumbs. I cycle through what I have while taking advantage of good sales as they occur. I rely heavily on my freezer with no real planning beyond a 24-48 hour thaw time.
I batch cook and freeze soups, stews, lasagne, meatloaf, quick breads and sauces. Also in the freezer: batch cooked and portioned time-savers like peeled, cubed and blanched potatoes, marinaded meat for stir-fry, caramelized diced onions, grated zucchini, frozen bananas, ginger root, blueberries, peppers, raspberries and strawberries.
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@gretavo
Knowing that you have a few pantry/freezer meals up your sleeve might reduce the incentive to over shop. Here are some of mine:
Risotto with peas and bacon
Risotto with dried porcini + salad or other veg side
Pasta aglio olio, puttanesca, cacio pepe or alla vodka + salad or other veg side
Pan fried frozen fish on a bed of tinned beans warmed up with a packet of instant soup + salad
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I don't have much food storage space and don't particularly enjoy cooking for one, so my routine is pretty bare bones, but it keeps me fed! I typically make one "dish" a week. Might be soup, might be a casserole, might be meat and veg. That gets eaten for either breakfast or dinner until it's gone. In between or after that, I have a lot of quick prep food in my cabinet and apartment-size freezer. There are usually a few bags of soup (my sister and I do a soup exchange a few times a year); frozen leftovers like tamales and stuff; pre-grilled chicken; pre-cooked hamburger, Italian sausage and scrambled eggs; frozen vegetables; frozen pasta or rice. The last three can be tossed in a bowl with some kind of sauce and heated up in about 10 minutes from opening the freezer to sitting down to eat. I keep boxed soups and noodle mixes to eat with the pre-cooked meat and/or pasta. I also keep ham in the fridge because at a bare minimum I will eat a sandwich for dinner so I can take my bedtime pills, even if I can't deal with the thought of cooking.
Food waste is one I can't help with, but would gladly take suggestions. I had COVID in October and my sense of smell is returning veerrryyyy slowly. Since I no longer have the "sniff test" for a lot of things and have made myself a bit unwell a couple of times already, I toss anything that looks the slightest bit suspicious or is at the sell-by date. It sucks because I know most things are fine a few days past that date, but I just can't tell right now, so out it goes. I've been eating more pantry meals so I don't have to worry about perishables. I'll just be awfully glad when/if my smell comes back to normal.5 -
In our house, you can count on dinners throughout the week as follows: an egg meal, a pasta meal, a legume meal, a chicken meal, and a tofu/soy curls/fake meat meal. So I'm rotating proteins and within that, I add variety. Eggs might be scrambled, baked frittata, egg salad, etc. Legumes might be pea soup, lentil curry, chili. As long as I know what protein I'm working around, I fill in with pantry/freezer stuff and whatever fresh produce is on sale.
I keep a list of meals on the fridge. No particular order or dates are added, so whatever works as far as available prep time and what we'd like to eat is what gets made. Sometimes I prep ingredients beforehand, like chopping veg or roasting potatoes. I also keep at least 2 "throw in the oven" meals on hand (pizza, lasagne, pot pies) for days when I really am not feeling it. I, too, clean the fridge weekly and plan to use any straggler ingredients that weekend.
Breakfasts and lunches have routine foods. Not a lot of variation there, except the dinner leftovers.
Not terribly exciting, I know.3 -
I love recipe books (good ones anyway). Once a fortnight I will pick out enough recipes to last us for the next couple of weeks or so and write a shopping list based on what I don't already have in the cupboard. I don't think about it too heavily but there needs to be a balance between fresh foods and storable staples so I don't end up with food waste, and I endeavour to make 30-60% of the meals veggie or vegan. It usually works out very well. We usually have a choice of leftovers for lunch (I tend to cook things that lend themselves to feeding the two of us at least two meals) or I will make bread occasionally for my other half to have sandwiches. Breakfasts are usually just cereal and fruit but occasionally I'll cook some bacon and eggs.0
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There has been several good suggestions mentioned. I would like to add meal prep boxes to the list. Fix a large amount once, eat what you can and make meals with the rest to freeze. These can be eaten another week with less cooking time. Once example is pancakes. Making them is easy, but who wants to do it frequently. I may make 50 pancakes one weekend morning. Freeze the others is meal size portions. They are ready to eat any time now. The meal prep also save me money. I do not have to buy frozen foods that have additives and preservatives.0
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You're all so organised 😁
I have a simple strategy of just not buying too many perishable items.
And I eat variations of the same things over 2/3 days.
I'm also awful for not wanting to eat what I planned - so I don't meal prep things I can't freeze.
I don't mind food shopping so I tend to go every 2/3 days for fresh produce.
It saves it going in the bin.
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I try to keep a list of the meals my family enjoys and each weekend I choose three meals to make throughout the week. I plan on each meal feeding us two nights to make it easier and reduce food waste. I also keep shelf stable and freezer stuff on hand so I can always throw a meal together without having something planned. I only try out new recipes every once and a while. It's a lot easier to come home from work and throw a meal together that I don't need a recipe for vs. following a recipe and instructions. Also, before you plan your meals for the week, go through your fridge and freezer and plan meals around what you already have. I typically pick out which proteins I have in the freezer and plan my meals around those. Like if I have a chuck roast I want to use up, I have basically two or three meals to choose from that I like to make from that.0
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OP here...thanks so much to all. I really have gotten some great ideas from all your responses. I think I will definitely scale back how many "new" meals I make a week and be more mindful of freezing/saving larger portions.
I think it's definitely beneficial to keep things pretty simple and familiar during the week. I generally reserve new recipes and/or more complex recipes for Fridays and weekends. During the week I like to keep total time (prep and cook) to no more than 30 minutes...if I'm doing something completely new, even if it's relatively straight forward, it's usually going to take me longer because I have to keep checking the recipe and thinking instead of just prepping and cooking something familiar.
We strategize our evening meals for the week, usually on Saturday. We try to make it so that at least two of those meals will provide leftovers for lunches...some things just aren't good for that, and others are better. We do an evening meal plan for Monday - Friday and pretty much stick to that, though we may re-arrange days. We also plan it so that perishable ingredients, particularly produce can be used in or as a side or whatever for at least 2 meals to reduce and in many cases for us, eliminate waste.
This gives us not only a plan for the week, but also the blueprint for our shopping...particularly for those items involved in a recipe that may not be a pantry or refrigerator staple. Having that blueprint helps to eliminate over-shopping and/or buying unnecessary things (particularly perishables) and just streamlines everything, including the food budget.0 -
I have a weekly meal planner that I got from a dietician years ago. I keep it on my fridge. It starts on Thursday, because that's when the flyers come out every week.
I start by planning my suppers. Each supper is doubled and the leftovers are used for lunch. Breakfasts are pretty much the same. Shredded wheat or Shreddies. Lunches can vary a bit. For instance, if what I had for supper isn't doubled, like a stir fry, then I have sandwich and homemade soup for lunch.
I do do some batch cooking so I can pull out something if the meal planner doesn't work that day.(maybe my mood changed that day, or I've been invited out for lunch).
I plan my meals around the sales, and how much I may need for a recipe. And since I live alone, I will pull apart the bunches of fruit or veggies to get only what I need. For instance, I don't need 1 lb of asparagus, so I take apart the bundle and grab maybe 10 spears.(2 meals). Three bananas. Of course that's if I can't get them in bulk, like two potatoes or apples.
Does this help?
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The main way I organize my meals for the week for a family of 5 is with my recipe card box and an excel spreadsheet. I write all of my recipes on an index card that goes in alphabetical order in a small box so they are easy to find and pull out. Then I have an excel file on my computer that has all my recipes with sortable columns: recipe name, food type(chicken, beef, pork), cooking method(stove top, crock pot, grill, over), and a rating 1-10 on how my family liked it. This way when I sit down on Friday night to plan meals I can sort what recipes would work for the upcoming week and shop Saturday morning.
The excel sheet just makes it so easy to plan quickly. I can just easily go "gosh this is a really crazy week I'll have no time to cook after work", sort for crockpot meals. Or "I stocked up on the chicken that was on sale and have so much in the freezer", sort for chicken. Or my favorite "It's someone's birthday I want to make a special meal", sort by top rated. And then once an index card recipe is used I keep it out when I plan for the next week so I don't use it 2 weeks in a row and get bored of that meal.
I'll plan to cook big batches of a meal on the weekend. And all new recipes are tried on Saturday, just in case they are a flop. That way I have time to plan another meal without those leftovers. We have 2 leftover nights during the week. And if someone doesn't like what's left over or we run out, I always keep on hand some simple pasta with sauce to whip up real quick or have sandwiches.1 -
I honestly just buy whatever's on sale, and shop the perimeter. You can also pick up new spices since they help with cooking1
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Normally what I do is ‘meal plan’ for the week, but right now that’s all trashed because we (husband and I) are kind of trying to eat differently and we are both back to counting calories.
I would generally plan what I was going to cook what nights and what nights were ‘fend for yourself’, and then use that to make my grocery list along with any staples we need for lunch, etc. After this weekend I’d like to overhaul the pantry and fridge and get back to that. Christmas, New Year, visiting friends and family, a week out of state for my husband… The first 2 months of ‘22 have not been kind to my organization lol0
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