I havent grocery shopped since 2007!
Not only am I proud of myself and my family for putting up with my antics, but I have become more of a creative cook and I see the freezer as half full all the time.
Some of the things that I learned along the way:
- We produced almost zero trash. To that guy who kept all his trash for one year. I bet we could do that if we only ate what we had for months and months at a time. Since we don't consume (A Slow Year) we dont have any packaging and of the cardboard we do have we use it to start the days fire in the woodstove
- this is the perfect thing to do during the winter when rich, hearty soups and stews are in order and you arent missing out on fresh produce at the farmers market
- My compost is not full at all. It keeps shrinking, plus we got some worms and they ate 1/3 of the barrel while we were away for a week.
- I grew vegetables (carrots, spinach, turnips, radishes and arugula) to keep us with fresh alternatives. Cilantro is up now and ready to use. I am not a green thumb, but learning. Most of these were done in pots on the balcony. Apartment dwellers could definitely do this. Even if you didnt grow one thing, a CSA basket would help with more than enough veggies for each week. I had a ton of fava beans, white beans, potatoes, spinach and zillion fruits frozen so we are still eating them.
- I was less stressed. The burden of grocery shopping was lifted. No trips to the store for the one item, less gas used, less fret, just improvised a lot of the times.
- there are a lot of substitutions for butter, flour and eggs
- each day was a fun challenge of what to make. I wanted to get a chalk board for the daily specials like a French cafe, but just did a ratty list to help me remember what I had in mind to make for that week or longer
- we ate a lot of vegetables and not a lot of meat and didnt suffer. I used the meat in four dishes rather than one.
- I became a saver: any edible vegetable parts went into a bowl in the fridge to be use that week and if they didnt get used they went into a huge ziplock in the freezer that will become a vegetable soup.
- leftovers were recreated like old risotto made into deep fried risotto balls, each soup was remade into a new and even more flavorful one
- 6 kilos of fava beans is a lot even when your baby eats them up like candy.
4 comments:
You go, girl. I think we should start a No Shopping Challenge.
I am just so impressed and inspired by your slow months. I have not committed to do it completely, but have been taking a lot of leaves from your book. Already, when I normally would have ran down to our little store in town for one ingredient, I am trying to do without or improvise something else. Even though it has been a little challenging, I feel so much freedom from the never complete shopping trip. When I shop, it seems like I always forget something on the list or I get home and 2 days later run out of something and my list is started again.
Anyway, thank you for opening my eyes up to a new way of shopping/cooking. I have 3 children and a husband who are trying to support me, but I am still learning as I go a long. I love your half full freezer attitude. Thanks again!
I'm slowly working on decreasing my pantry. Unfortunately, with the bad growing season last summer my vegetable freezer never did get full!
You're having warm weather? We're back to winter here. I think I'm cursed - it was below 0F when I was in MN and beautiful here...Now we're back to winter!
Good job (as they say everywhere in the US) on the slow year!
yeh, katie, we had no tomatoes this last summer, but i still had some frozen ones left from 2006 and still do amazingly enough.
we HAD spring, tulips and irises and 22 degrees (C) but spoke too soon and some polar winds came and now its 2 and we are buring the woodstove and making soup reductions and stocks.
Post a Comment