One Hundred Pounds Of Summer

With my new need to budget my groceries more carefully, I'm giving a lot of thought to pantry cooking and meal planning, the only two ways I know of to cook more frugally.

My Crime:

I go to the grocery store several times a week. What happens is that I see a couple things in my fridge and I figure out what I can make for dinner from it. So far, there's been no crime against frugality. However, inevitably, I get it in my head that I want to make a particular dish that I don't have all the ingredients for. This requires a trip to the store. That is how I tend to spend way more money than I need to on groceries. How to solve this little problem is simple.

Thank god, since so little else in life is.

The Solution:

Plan all meals for the week ahead of time, plan one big grocery trip to procure the necessary ingredients for the whole week. Then make those meals as planned. The challenge with this solution is a fickle palate. I may decide on Sunday that a black bean soup would be the perfect lunch meal for a few days, but when it comes time to make it I often find I'm in no mood for it.

Oh yes, I know, "If you're poor enough you'll eat anything." or "Picky eaters are just spoiled rich people. Poor people are never picky" (I made that one up. It's the implied statement people are making when they criticize Max's picky eating. They always make the argument that if I just gave him the food I made for myself and didn't cater to him, he wouldn't choose starvation. You know, they may be right. But they don't know Max if they think he'll surrender to eating food he doesn't like within less than three days of no eating and a torturous emotional hell for that whole seventy two hours. I invite anyone who dares to come and navigate that situation to do it themselves. I'll take a vacation in the meantime, a nice quiet peaceful trip to the local Abby. If Max is cured of pickiness when I return I will embrace this starve your kid to cure him technique. Until then, everyone can back off.)

Oh, pardon me. I guess I might be just a little tired of that argument. I don't even understand how come people get so upset at Max's picky eating. Why does it make them turn into fascists? I think Max's personality in general has that effect on people. His strong sense of self and stubbornness triggers the fierce desire in others to squash it. To put it in it's place. It drives my family crazy sometimes and they are always giving me little mini lectures on how to discipline him, on how he doesn't get enough of it from us. They don't like to be challenged and it makes them itch to quell the fire in him, which they would all deny unequivocally. This is a bit of a hot button topic for me: discipline for children.

This was not meant to be a discussion on parenting strategies. So back to the topic...

What was I talking about? Oh yes, meal planning and how I let my mood dictate what I make and not my plan. This is certainly a question of self discipline. Forget moods, just cook what's scheduled. Right? Because I'm an adult and I don't go in for all that childish spoiled "mood" crap. I eat what's in front of me no matter what...

Oops, just did it again.

So if I don't want to make what I planned to make, there is only one other option available to me if I want to stick to a frugal cooking style: I can fix something up from my pantry. This requires that my pantry be stocked with all the necessary goods it takes to whip up complete meals. It also requires that I wrap my head around the possibilities my rows of canned and jarred goods provide. I don't often think this out ahead of time. So I'm going to do little experiments now. I'm going to plan my meals ahead of time, but anytime I don't feel like eating what I planned to eat, I will make something else without a trip to the store. I will force myself to make something based on what I actually have.

One thing I have a lot of? Dried beans. One hundred and twenty five pounds of various dried beans. So, obviously, beans should be on the meal plan every week. In abundance. I've got split peas, lentils, kidney beans, black beans, and navy beans. I'm all set. If I'm desperate I can just eat plain beans, huh? Doesn't that sound delectable? Well, they say I'll eat anything if I'm poor enough.

THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT NO ONE WOULD CHOOSE TO EAT PLAIN BEANS IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO, SO THERE'S NO SUPERIORITY IN EATING FOOD YOU WOULD ONLY EAT IF YOU WERE TOO POOR TO EAT BETTER-IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO. DO REALLY POOR PEOPLE ENJOY EATING PLAIN BEANS EVERY SINGLE DAY? DO REALLY POOR PEOPLE FEEL PROUD TO EAT PLAIN BEANS?

The truth is, I've been that poor, people. So I don't appreciate lectures like that. Not that anyone reading this has offered one up to me. There was a period in my life where I washed my clothes in my bathroom sink with bar soap because I couldn't afford the laundry mat. My room mate Carrie and I subsisted, largely, on grilled cheese sandwiches made with white bread and government cheese that Carrie's mom gave to her. I was lucky Carrie was so generous. We ate plenty of macaroni and cheese from boxes too. Do you know how awful it is to eat government cheese every single day? Of course you're grateful for the cheese if you can't buy something else. But I'll tell you something, just because you're grateful to have what little you have doesn't mean you're a better person for it or that you don't desperately wish for something better.

I hope never to be as poor as that again. I think being that poor is one of the reasons I don't grudge myself good quality groceries now. Once we started making a decent living I absolutely relished being able to buy gorgeous produce and to buy food on whims. I could try expensive cheeses, fine olives, good olive oil. These aren't the luxuries of royalty, just a good life. It's difficult to go back to having to buy only bargain food. I'm not saying you can't get good quality at bargain prices, only that you have to think more about it. You have to shop more consciously. You have to plan more wisely. You have to be much more clever.

I've decided to embrace this challenge. I want to help us save money by learning to cook really good food from the pantry, and by planning ahead and learning to stick with it. Part of my plan is to get a freezer, (finally), and to can and freeze as much as I am able to before the season is over.

This past winter, Lisa E. and I both found that one of the most indispensable things we canned last year were diced tomatoes. Both of us decided that this year we need to at least double the amount we put up. You can open a quart of tomatoes to add to winter soups, winter squash gratin, and tamale pie, just to name a few. Last year I resolved not to buy fresh tomatoes off season and I managed to stick with that resolve. What really helped was having those home canned tomatoes.

Yesterday we picked one hundred and seven pounds of tomatoes and canned about ninety of them. (Several pounds weren't ripe enough to make the grade).

If anyone has ideas they want to share on meal planning or pantry cooking, please do! This is a subject I would like to gather lots of material on to share with others.

I think I better go plan some meals now.