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Mission Accomplished!
Posted on January 22nd, 2010 5 commentsPersonal Chef Cook Whatcha Got Challenge
I am bowing gracefully out of the Challenge that many of my personal chef friends and I have been doing this last week. I used up a good percentage in items in my freezer. Unfortunately, I also needed to dump too many things. My pantry shelves are cleaned out with a bag for the food pantry and unfortunately a very full bag for the trash.
I appreciate how this made me conscious about my shopping and purchasing of unnecessary items. I need to be more careful about repackaging things, such as putting my grains in glass jars, vacuum sealing what goes in the freezer. I also need to check to see what I have more often. I am not the kind of person who could manage a running list. If I go through the cupboard and freezer occasionally, especially before I go shopping, I might not end up having 3 plastic bags with bits of polenta in them. Time will tell but at least now I have some awareness.
I went shopping yesterday for some produce, eggs, cat food, mineral water, and some chicken… nothing extra. Farmers’ market tomorrow. I still have a jar of the soup I made earlier this week and plans to use the lentils and bacon from the freezer in a meal next week, as well as trying to fit those darn peas in somewhere!
I challenge you to take a look or even a photo of your freezer and do your shopping from your own house for a week. I would love to hear from you about it.
5 responses to “Mission Accomplished!”
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Great job Charity. I’m also guilty of not looking to see what I have before I shop. I am continuing the challenge for at least another two weeks. My goals are to think before I shop and to use open items before opening something new.
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I did about half of this exercise (fridge/freezer reorganization) last year and am doing the other half (eat down the freezer/pantry) now. What I found after the reorg was it was actually much easier to keep things organized as I go, so having it cleaned up makes a huge difference.
The biggest habit I needed to make was to learn to write down things on the shopping list as I used the last of the old thing (or second to last on things I really want to keep on hand). And then trust the list; if it’s not on the list, I don’t need it. I also always keep everything in the same place and have even sorted the freezer (the hardest to keep sorted because you want to get in and out so quickly) by meats, veggies, fruit, etc. I got some fridge bins and labeled them, which helps.
I didn’t think to take before pictures, but I got after pictures of the fridge/freezer and before and after of the pantry, up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/flit/sets/72157605061025973/
I should take before pictures now since I’m starting out on ‘eat the freezer’. I’m disabled AND a packrat, a bad combination because I will buy yummy things and then not have the energy to cook them fast enough, so I’m trying to fix my habits. However, the reorg and shopping list changes have survived a bad three month crash period pretty intact, so I think they’re pretty sound. What didn’t survive: my running list of what’s in the freezer. Totally out of date! Great when it’s up to date but it’s the first thing I drop when I have a flareup. We did at least eat all of the stews and soups I’d frozen when I was well enough to cook more.
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Patti Anastasia January 22nd, 2010 at 20:11