Thursday, October 29, 2009

Eating What I have


As I alluded in my eating what we got post, I have not shop for any groceries for more than a month and half. More than saving money, I wanted to prevent myself from wasting groceries because I was barely preparing and eating any raw grocery and instead choosing ready-to-eat microwavable dinners.

During last 45 days, I was relatively successful at partially emptying my pantry and freezer. Well! I cheated a bit and bought milk, fruits, and beers once. So what did I eat during last month when I didn't shop for grocery? Here is a partial list of top 10 items;
  1. Frozen vegetables - big packs of frozen broccoli, green peas and mixed vegetables were resting in my freezer for more than 2 months. I either microwaved (optionally adding butter/cheese), used them in soups or stir fried them.
  2. Frozen chicken and meats - one of my favorite way to cook chicken breast was to cooking it over pan after breading it with Italian bread crumbs. Individually freezing breaded chicken in Ziploc bag makes it a great homemade frozen TV dinner later. You can eat homemade chicken dinner by itself, with marinara sauce and mozzarella (chicken parmesan) or with marsala sauce and mushroom (chicken marsala).
  3. Frozen berries and fruits - my favorite way to consume berries is to blend it with milk or a scoop of vanilla ice cream and scoop of granola cereal for awesome very berry smoothie.
  4. Dried and canned beans - we all know that canned beans are cheap, easy and fast. In comparison, dried beans (and lentils) are cheaper, healthier and most customizable albeit they need longer time to prepare. Primarily, you are looking for convenience versus customization. Canned beans may not be necessarily healthy; always check its sodium content. To prepare dried beans, rinse and discard any grits with cold water. Dried bean expand to 2-3 times its volume. Thus, soak them in water three times their volume overnight. Drain and cook with more water or chicken/vegetable stock. Alternatively, you can expedite soaking process by boiling them with three times their volume of water. After boiling for a few minutes, remove from heat, and let stand for an hour.
  5. Pasta - marinara sauce, pasta (penne) and ground turkey. (optionally sprinkle parmasean cheese)
  6. Rice - my favorite is plain basmati rice.
  7. Homemade breads and cookies - I baked series of my first breads and cookies from scratch from flours I bought a few months ago.
  8. Cereals and oatmeal - sometime I use yogurt with cereal and dash of cinnamon or berries with oatmeal.
  9. Eggs - poached, boiled, scrambled or as elaborate omelets.
  10. Potatoes - mashed, baked or stir fried. (microwave cut potatoes to expedite the cooking)  

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations! Going shopping once in 6 weeks is really, really good.

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  2. Thanks for compliment. My greatest achievement here, I believe, was to avoid wasting the food I already had.

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