What we are eating, part 2

When last we checked, we'd enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner on Wednesday evening. Later that evening, I roasted up some cauliflower with garlic and onion to use for soup the next day. Here's how we used all those groceries during the remainder of the week.

Thursday
B: homemade muesli with yogurt, (milk for Dan), coffee,
L: sliced meatball sandwiches, oranges
D: roasted cauliflower soup with root vegetables

Friday
B: Henbogle eggs and toast, coffee
L: Ali, lunch meeting on campus, Dan soup, oranges
D: Pasta with meatballs and red sauce redux (and boy was I sad to see the last of the meatballs and sauce!)

Saturday
B: yogurt, toast, coffee
L: leftover cauliflower soup, white bean salad with green beans and tuna
D: freezer meal of pork chops with whiskey cranberry sauce, pan blackened Brussels sprouts, bread

One of the things I noticed about the Hungry Planet photo series was how ubiquitous soft drinks have become. Dan and I rarely buy soft drinks, treating soft drinks as party fare. We are very fortunate to live in a town with great-tasting, non-chlorinated, non-fluoridated tap water --our town won the statewide drinking water taste test this year -- we drink water with every meal, and we even bring it with us to work and on our travels. I'm sure that cuts down considerably on our grocery expenditures.

As you can see, I plan on using leftovers for lunches whenever possible, and we will often see a meal re-created into something else later on in the week. We used only a small portion of many of our grocery purchases for last week -- we will need to purchase a few items such as coffee, coffee filters, milk, canned beans, and some fruit but that's about all. There are meatballs in the freezer, I'll cook a pork roast tomorrow for sandwiches and other meals this week, and we'll no doubt have a meal of soup one night, too.

It is work to prepare meals from whole ingredients, but with practice, it gets easier and it is work that feels right. Preparing delicious meals is well worth the time invested. Dan plays an important role in the process, too. I cook, he cleans. When I arrive home from work (usually after Dan) any breakfast mess is cleaned up and the kitchen is ready for me to cook, and after dinner, he loads the dishwasher and does the rest of the cleanup detail. It's a great system!