Friday, December 16, 2011

Prep, prep, prep

Today's success depends on yesterday's preparation.  It starts with a good shopping list, quality time in a good grocery store, and final preparation at home. 

Today's grocery shopping trip was not great.  I hadn't had time yesterday to prep a complete shopping list, so I had to do a lot of thinking and menu planning in the store which takes extra time and, with 3 raucous kids in the cart, is difficult to do.  I had not brought enough snacks, drinks, activities and drugs to keep them calm and quiet, so by the end of it my goal was to get out of the store without breaking anything expensive.  And without buying anything that would comfort me in this wearying situation.  Trying to make the best economical and health choices at this point is ambitious!

The veggie choices were not great today, the romaine lettuce was $2 for a scrawny black-edged head, and all the frugality in me rebels against extortion like that but I did buy one to tide me over until I get to a different store.  When shopping with an entourage, sometimes sacrifices like that just have to be made!

Now for some quality time to prep some of the stuff!  I like to have a container of ready-made basic salad in the fridge that can be added to for each meal, and a tray of ready-to-eat carrot & celery sticks, cauliflower, etc.  When I'm hungry, it's so easy to grab what is ready to eat, and if something good isn't there, it will be something bad :(

I'm going to make a big fruit salad too; I made one last week and it was so delicious!  I have individually frozen raspberries, cherries, mangoes, and saskatoon berries in my freezer, so I used some of them and added home-canned peaches, fresh apple, cantaloupe, and kiwi.  The banana doesn't keep well in the salad, so I added it with each bowl.  So good!  The kids loved it too!

Today was my work's Christmas Open House, and the desserts looked so good... I really should have put it down after the first bite because it looked way better than it tasted.  The thought didn't occur to me until later... here's me trying not to waste food again!

1 comment:

Roselyn said...

I know it can be frustrating when you look at the produce of some grocery stores. I am finding the romaine hearts that are in a pk of 3 to be pretty good. I love your idea for fruit salad. I think I will make some this week too!