Reformed Grocery Mama

Well, it's only taken 18 months but I'm finally and fully back into one of the things I love doing--cooking!!

Working full time and having a baby (plus all of life's other craziness!) wears a poor soul out.  Cooking was one of those things that got put on the wayside, unfortunately.  Lots of eating unhealthy fast food, and boring, repetitious food at home.  Bad on the pocket book, and horrible for the waistline.  But the past couple months I've started out small and have worked my way back to planning meals and cooking delicious stuff again.  Now that Mav is big enough to "help" me or just plain wander around and fend for himself (not that he actually fends for himself, ha!) it gives me time to make meals from scratch. Yummmm!

Not that he meant it harshly, but a while ago Robbie mentioned that he missed all the food I used to cook when we first got married.  I would spend so much time finding new recipes, and go shopping for new types of ingredients.  It was so fun, and I miss it too!



(Isn't his hair crazy?!  I'm trying out the long hair look...we'll see how it lasts, ha!)



Now that I have a toddler, I've had to find a new strategy. (I guess I have all this fresh on my brain since I went grocery shopping this morning, ha!) Anyways, here is my new way of planning our meals:

--We've set a budget amount for groceries, split into a major trip every 2 weeks. (Airing some dirty laundry here, we've never really been good about budgeting groceries--which sounds more awful than what I'm trying to say.  It's not that we were over-spending, we just really want to be better about not wasting food and money.)

--I'm not a crazy couponer.  I don't buy 15 tubes of toothpaste to save $2.00.  But who doesn't like to get a good deal?  So its fun to go through the newspaper ads and plan meals from what's on sale.

--I plan a menu for 2 weeks worth of meals, and post it on the kitchen dry erase board.  Scratching off a meal when cooked, it's nice to quickly see what's available.  Doing this has almost eliminated food waste since I'm not cooking aimlessly, it's fabulous!

--When I plan the menu, I write down the groceries I'll need from the store.

--Here's where it gets a little crazy, but awesome that it works so good for me.  I'm sure there are tons of other people who do this because they have squirmy toddlers like mine...but maybe not...ha!  I always go to the same grocery store, so I have the layout memorized.  I want to make the trip as quick and painless as possible, so I write my grocery list in the order of appearance.  No back tracking.  No aimless wandering.  Business only, people! :)  (and this way I'm less tempted to buy something not on the list)

(It's pretty pathetic how much I've memorized the store.  Last time I went shopping, I helped 3 people find something they were looking for...I guess I looked serious with my list, ha ha!)

 

One thing that I loved so much growing up was eating dinner on a table, with my family, no tv--just conversation.

As Mav gets older I really look forward to sharing the same experience with him.  It will also be really fun encouraging him to pick the meals (that way he will hopefully want to try new things), and using his help to cook.  

And one of the best things of all, eating more healthy food!  It's nice to know exactly every ingredient put into our meal.  (Not saying that we don't have nights planned to dine on a delicious frozen pizza or Hamburger Helper!)  But for the most part, it's all homemade.  :)

I've also noticed that with everything planned out, it doesn't take as much time to cook anymore either.  So more time to play!