January’s No Grocery Shopping Experiment Week Three

Week Three has had a few more challenges than the last two weeks. It is definitely a challenge to not grocery shop for ingredients, or what we have run out of not to mention using what’s on hand while coming up with yummy recipes using those ingredients in new and delicious ways.

I can see why in the “old days” breads accompanied most meals and how meal time could be a struggle. Bread is a great filler and definitely helps to stretch meals. Hungry bellies could fill up on tasty homemade bread and the main meal whether it was a soup or toss-everything-in-the-pot kind of meal would stretch to feed more family.

By January 20, we ran out of potatoes, fresh fruit and all but one onion. I use a lot of onion and nearly every meal I cook with uses onion because I simply enjoy the flavor onion imparts. I chopped up the last of the potatoes on Saturday and saved half for soup on Sunday. I simply do this by covering the potatoes with water and placing a lid on the bowl and setting it in the fridge until I am ready to use them. I then drain the potatoes, rinse and toss them in the soup. So easy! We ran out of most vegetables, and have just a few frozen peas left. We have nearly used up all of the meat from the freezer along with a few canned goods as well. This has been a great way to use up “old” food and it has been a good way to save money with not grocery shopping all of the time. This has really made me be more aware of our grocery budget. And I like how meal time has become more family time.

Generally we try to eat up leftovers within three days, otherwise I freeze the meal for another day, depending upon what it is.

The week for our meal plans are running from Monday to Sunday. Here is what we cooked this week.

Week Three – This week is January 15 to 21
January 15
Lunch — leftovers
Supper — Lentil Sloppy Joes on toasted buns and Fried Potatoes

January 16
Breakfast — Oatmeal
Lunch — Fried Ham with Cabbage and Onion, Rice, Pickles and leftover Creamy Garlic Pasta
Supper — Cast Iron Pizza with homemade dough and topped with pepperoni, green onion and cheese

January 17
Lunch — Veggie Minestrone Soup with Cast Iron Pizza Dough Herbed Focaccia
Supper — leftovers and Homemade Fried Dough

January 18
Lunch — Cheeseburger Lentil “Big Mac” Tortillas
Supper — leftovers

January 19
Lunch — Sandwiches
Supper — leftovers

January 20
Lunch — Cabbage Roll Soup with sandwiches
Supper — leftovers

January 21 – cold snowy day!
Lunch — Dill Pickle Soup with Drop Noodles (Spaetzle)
Supper — leftovers

And that is week three! It was a variety of meals and a lot of soups, but soups are an easy (and frugal) way to toss a few ingredients into a pot and end up with a full pot of yumminess. Our bellies were full and that’s what matters most. This week really made me think about struggles, as we began to run out of ingredients. It reminded me of the Great Depression and how important it is to grow what we can and preserve as much as we can so we have food in times like this. Like I said last week, food doesn’t have to be fancy, it just needs to be good.

We’ll be moving into week four. We are almost finished which is great, because we will most certainly need to shop for groceries and start over. I have enjoyed my daughters planning meals and cooking together. I like knowing what meals we will be having so I can properly prepare, ahead of time. This has helped me a great deal to see what ingredients are on hand, what we have used up and what we still need to use. Plus it ensures we eat leftovers so there’s no food waste which is so very important, especially with the high cost of food.

Have you tried a no-grocery shopping for a month challenge? What was your biggest challenge in week three?

enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours