organizing food

[buggie]

Does anyone else have trouble grocery shopping, making sure there's food in the house, planning meals, etc.? It's this part of life that I can't seem to get right. I never grocery shop, because I don't like spending money on food, and I really don't know what I'm buying- how am I supposed to know what I'll want to eat three days for now? I wake up in the morning and realize I don't have milk or cereal or I don't have bread or peanut butter. Dinner time rolls around, and I know I've got some meat or fish in the freezer, but of course I've forgotten to defrost it. I might have sweet potato or something, but it's so much work to cut it up and roast it and then clean pan after...I dunno, I don't like preparing food and stuff because my kitchen is the back of the house and I can't watch TV or anything while I do it, so I'm just like in this room in silence and I don't like it. I'm really having trouble eating lately, and sometimes I try really hard to keep myself supplied with healthy food, but I just get sick of doing it every day. I used to live more by the European method and just buy something each night on my way home, so I didn't have to spend a lot of money at once and I didn't have to think too far ahead, but there isn't a grocery store in my neighborhood and I usually have to take the car to the next neighborhood for shopping, so I've gone to the more suburban method. I honestly wouldn't have a problem just not eating, but I know that's not exactly healthy, and I work out and run a lot so it's not really practical either.

Is there a way around any of this? Sometimes I wish I were married just so I could assign the food responsibilities to someone else.

[fracturedstory]

As soon as you run out of food write it down and make a list, which you eventually take to the grocery store with you. At some random part of the day when you can't figure out what to do go through your cupboard and fridge and note what you have and don't have.

I don't do the buying but I do the deciding. Sometimes I leave things out and I'm glad my mum buys a bit extra. There's also no harm in buying duplicates of what you have, as long as it doesn't go off too fast like milk or meat.

The reason I don't buy my own groceries is because it's sensory overwhelming for me and I don't know how to drive.

[dopestep]

maybe try buying premade meals? i know they have alot of healthy premade meals that you can get that you keep in the freezer and then u take em out and theres only one or two steps to cook them. might be more expensive than just buying ingredients and cooking them urself tho.

[insight needed]

Is it possible that you could develop a list of, say, 10-12 items that you always want to keep on hand? I'm thinking of staples and/or easy-to-grab healthy food. For example: milk, cereal, bread, peanut butter, jelly, eggs, cheese, canned tuna, granola or power bars, frozen veggie pizza. Whatever the items, print them off from your computer and make multiple copies. When you go to the store, do a quick inventory and see if you have enough for the next three days (or however long you go between shopping trips). Put a check mark next to the items you need to buy. At the bottom of the list, write in a few specific items that you'd like to eat in the next couple of days.

One of the items I stock all the time is frozen chicken tenders. I buy the kind that are individually frozen and bagged, such as is sold at Trader Joe's or BJ's warehouse. The bag is large but the tenders do not stick together, so you can pull out however many you need. They thaw very quickly in the microwave, or, if you don't have a microwave, you can thaw them under hot water.

Yes, it might cost a bit more than you'd like to spend the first time you stock up on the big 10, but it won't be that way every trip. Besides, I'll venture to say that if you don't keep food in the house, you spend more money order food in, or eating out.

When you buy fresh veggies concentrate on the items that last fairly well, such as carrots, winter squash, cabbage, and potatoes. Lettuce, tomatos, cucumbers, mushrooms, summer squash, and asparagus don't last very long in the fridge and are more likely to be thrown out if you don't get around to eating them.

Re the cooking mess, aluminum foil and "PAM" are your new best friends. You can line just about any baking pan with foil, give it a spritz with PAM, and dispose of it after you have finished baking the potato, squash, fish or whatever.

You can heat sauce for pasta in a glass bowl in the microwave (cover it with plastic wrap or invert a plate over the top so that it doesn't spatter. You still have to wash the bowl, but it may be easier to wash than a pot (particularly if you let something burn on the bottom of the pot.

Re the "loneliness" of cooking in the back of the house, can you wear an i-pod or bring a radio to the kitchen?

[425runner]

I despise grocery shopping as well, but like others have mentioned - create a list of foods you like (relatively healthy) and then stock up. Frozen dinners are your best friend, as is peanut butter, bread, eggs, milk, some veggies.

[buggie]

Originally Posted by dopestep

maybe try buying premade meals? i know they have alot of healthy premade meals that you can get that you keep in the freezer and then u take em out and theres only one or two steps to cook them. might be more expensive than just buying ingredients and cooking them urself tho.

like frozen food? It's usually really expensive, and I never like how they are not much food. Like some of those are like 200 calories, which isn't enough for a major meal. You always have to get something to go with them. I also have PCOS and can't eat a lot of simple carbs.

[Impetus]

I have to plan what I am going to eat on advance.

Hubby and I have a notebook that we plans our meals in.

The first step of adopting this habit was for us to sit down and list some meals that we both like. We also picked one night that is always hectic to be "crock pot night." So we started with a few easy crock pot recipes for that night as well. (Monday is usually crock pot night.) Complicated dishes are usually saved for a weekend, we both work full time far from home. And Friday's are generally carry out.

After we picked the meals, then we chose which meal we wanted on which night. (We literally started with maybe 10 meals. It has grown over time...) We arranged the meals based upon the rules above.

Example:
Mon-Pot Roast with veggies
Tues-Spaghetti with meat sauce
Wed-Taco Night
Thurs-Chili night
Fri-Pizza
Sat-Lasagna
Sun-Cheeseburgers w/mac and cheese

Then based on the list, I buy the stuff we need to make those items.
(it's just the two of us, so this might look small)
3lb ground beef (split up between the Spag, Tacos, Chili, and lasag)
Can of Black Beans (I'm weird, I like black beans in my chili)
Oyster Crackers (for the chili)
Sour Cream (for the potatos w/the roast and the chili)
Spaghetti Sauce x2
Frozen burgers
Frozen mac and cheese
taco seasoning
2lb pot roast
carrots and potatoes
can of beef broth
lasagna noodles
mozzarella cheese
parm cheese
riccota cheese
eggs
hamburger buns
spaghetti noodles
***you may have some of the ingredients already in your house...

I go to the store, first thing in the AM on Sat. (hate the store. seriously, I would rather express my dog's anal glands than go to the store!)

Drag all the stuff home. Then I do "prep work." (truth be told, there is usually a nap in that time frame.)

I will cook all the ground beef, some will be divided into baggies and frozen. Some will be mixed into the Spaghetti Sauce. One container of mix spaghetti sauce goes into the freezer. The other will be used to make the lasagna. I will cook the lasagna noodles, assemble the pan of lasagna, and put it in the freezer. (stouffer's does it, why can't I??)

See how I am working ahead?? I will also put together the pot roast on Sunday evening, and put the crock in the fridge.

Part of my going to work routine is to pull items out of the freezer or put the crock pot in the warmer and turn on.

This is pretty much how it looked when I started. Now hubs is on board, and it has quickly evolved.

For me, the key is to change how I was thinking about it. Asking myself where I can work ahead seems to help me a lot in this area.

***also, something else that has helped a lot in a 5 ingredient crock pot cook book from Better Homes and Gardens.

sorry for the wall-o-text, but I know it helps me if someone gives me very concrete answers. I hope it was helpful to you!

[Impetus]

Originally Posted by buggie

like frozen food? It's usually really expensive, and I never like how they are not much food. Like some of those are like 200 calories, which isn't enough for a major meal. You always have to get something to go with them. I also have PCOS and can't eat a lot of simple carbs.

the friend I picked up my crock pot fetish from also has PCOS. She uses her crock pot quite a bit, which leads me to believe they may have helpful recipes to go with it.

[buggie]

ok, so helpful tips from everyone, I just don't think any of them will work for me. I have to have a lot of protein and fat because of PCOS. I have to eat stuff like fish and some red meat (I only eat buffalo at home, I don't like the hormones in beef and it's too fatty). Really I'm supposed to have meat and a vegetable for dinner, and I can't have those vegetables mentioned that keep well (except for sweet potatoes, but I don't like to have them too much because I think they do contain phytoestrogens).

I love music and stuff, but just listening to music in the kitchen doesn't help, I just don't like hanging out in there.

I just hate eating and cooking and grocery shopping and I really just never want to do it again .

[425runner]

Lot of protein - buy 10 lb of whey concentrate protein powder, or tuna in a can (lots of it). Need fat & protein? Get many jars of peanut butter or almond butter. You can mix the protein with peanut butter and a bit of milk - it's quite delicious.

Originally Posted by buggie

ok, so helpful tips from everyone, I just don't think any of them will work for me. I have to have a lot of protein and fat because of PCOS. I have to eat stuff like fish and some red meat (I only eat buffalo at home, I don't like the hormones in beef and it's too fatty). Really I'm supposed to have meat and a vegetable for dinner, and I can't have those vegetables mentioned that keep well (except for sweet potatoes, but I don't like to have them too much because I think they do contain phytoestrogens).

I love music and stuff, but just listening to music in the kitchen doesn't help, I just don't like hanging out in there.

I just hate eating and cooking and grocery shopping and I really just never want to do it again .

[water]

There are two strategies that worked well for me that I'll list below. Note that I was eating meat at the time of the first strategy but have gone vegetarian since, and this decision had nothing to do with either strategy at all. I mention this only because you mentioned that you want to make sure to build your meals around meat and you could do that whether you're cooking in batches or using a meal service.

The first was cooking once a week. I had two cookbooks with recipes that served four. Every Saturday I picked out five meals consisting of one meat recipe and one vegetable side dish, made a list, crossed out everything I already had, and went to the grocery store to get what I didn't have. On Sunday, I cooked. At the end of the cooking session I'd have a bunch of containers in the refrigerator, each with one complete meal inside. My then-partner and I would each take one as needed.

This worked well because:

• I had a grocery store that I loved to visit, so grocery shopping wasn't a burden.
• I knew exactly what I needed when I went shopping. There was no frustration because I didn't have to make decisions while I was there.
• I organized the grocery list by aisle so that I wouldn't have to wander around looking for everything and getting frustrated. If there were a few things I had to search for it was no big deal.
• I enjoyed cooking. Spending a couple hours on Sunday whipping out recipes was fun.
• I made making lots of things at once easier by using cookbooks that had estimated cooking and prep times and buying temperature probes for meat. This way, I could create a list of the order in which I needed to prep or cook groups of food. The temperature probe let me cook different meats to safe temperatures with less risk of burning. The planning wasn't difficult and didn't need to be exact; I did enough that I wouldn't find myself in the middle of stirring something and suddenly need to chop a bunch of onions to add.
• I enjoyed cooking, but did not enjoy having to plan meals after getting home from work and cooking them. With this system, all I had to do was take something out of the fridge and heat it up.
• Since everything was done, I didn't have to deal with my then-partner's tendency to want me to make a decision about everything, then get sulky if I didn't (ah, the classic "what do you want for dinner?/I don't know" argument).

In a way, I was delegating cooking meals each day even though I was delegating it to myself. I stopped doing this due to the external factors of my relationship falling apart and the resulting depression.

The other strategy that works for me was to just give up and outsource cooking. Right now I live alone and have a long commute. I also find it much more difficult to plan meals for one instead of two. I tried the once-week cooking routine but wound up with too little variety and too much wasted food. I tried frozen dinners, but they're not always tasty, are pricey for what you get, and lack variety especially for vegetarians like me. I did takeout for a while, but was tired of the expense and the driving and the unhealthy meals that I gravitated to (I tend to be one of those bread-and-cheese vegetarians, sadly). I found a local vegetarian meal service and signed up a few weeks ago. I couldn't be happier!

The meal service works for me because:

• It's just like the once-a-week cooking except that I don't need to do any of the planning, purchasing, cooking, or cleanup. Once a week I stop by their storefront over my lunch hour, and then I have neatly-packaged and labeled meals for the rest of the week. If I were getting food delivered, I wouldn't even have to do that (I pick up only because receiving deliveries is logistically difficult in my apartment complex).
• The price is very reasonable, and when I take other factors into account I think it's actually inexpensive. It's higher than I would spend buying ingredients myself, but totally fair for ingredients+labor. It's also cheaper than getting takeout. And it's also cheaper than the monetary, mental, and physical costs incurred by the long-term health problems incurred by a poor diet or takeout, or the frustration of constantly setting out to cook and then failing.
• I'm eating a variety of food without having to seek it out and try it out. I can't say I love every meal I get, but my satisfaction rate is probably higher than with my own experimental cooking.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to use a meal service and to be in a financial situation to take advantage of it. If you can do something similar, I strongly recommend it. It's made such a positive change in my life already.

[water]

Oh, more suggestions occurred to me after I posted. If you like the idea of "outsourcing" meal prep you may be able to find a way to do it without using a formal service.

• A group of friends of mine had a dinner club when they were single. Every day, one of them would host the rest of the group for dinner. It worked for them because they had a sizable group that got along well enough to spend dinner together every day and each person only had to cook dinner once a week. As I alluded to in my previous post, it's somewhat easier to cook for a smaller group than one person.
• A friend of a friend hired someone to come to her house and cook her a batch of meals once a week. I don't know the details, but I think the rationale is that she gets the benefit of someone cooking for her, and the cook doesn't have to maintain their own facilities.
• Barter might work well. Maybe you know someone that would be willing to include you in their cooking so that you could essentially get takeout from them? The trick would be making sure that your dietary needs would be met.
• Another strategy is to use the freezer. I used to buy meat frozen in individual servings and use safe quick-thawing methods such as the second or third listed here. There's no need to have to remember to put meat in the fridge to thaw and can easily and safely thaw a single-serving size in 30 minutes in a cold water bath or a few minutes in the microwave. I bought bags of salmon frozen this way, and also bought some other meats such as chicken breasts in packs and then froze them in individual baggies. If you also keep around some premade sauces (use quickly or freeze in small portions) and have a few that you can whip up from simple ingredients then dinner becomes very simple. You can buy veggies every day or two, or keep frozen ones that you can microwave.
• Take advantage of pre-chopped vegetables in small quantities if you can find them in good quality.
• Buy or make soups ad freeze them in individual baggies.

An example of the last three: I'd take a frozen piece of salmon from the fridge, thaw it, then toss it in a ziplock baggie with some soy sauce, dijon mustard, minced garlic from a jar, and minced ginger from a jar. That goes into the fridge for 15 minutes or so. Meanwhile, I can throw together a salad from mostly pre-chopped bags, chop veggies and stir-fry them, or pull some vegetable dish from the freezer and thaw it. Then heat up a pan, pull out the salmon, sear it on high heat on both sides, then lower the heat and cook it through. As long as the stuff is on hand and you can force yourself to choose something even if you're just closing your eyes and grabbing at random, you can throw together a meat and vegetable meal in about an hour, most of which is waiting.

[Rebelyell]

Wow Impetus Im impressed you got your stuff together w this stuff,talk about organized,dont sell yourself short and give yourself more credit on things.I go out alot and its not healthy nor is it cheap.I dont know I just dont like cooking for myself its like why bother.I have to do something soon I'm sick and tired of eating cancer causing and carbon plugging Burger king and fast food.

[Impetus]

Originally Posted by Rebelyell

Wow Impetus Im impressed you got your stuff together w this stuff,talk about organized,dont sell yourself short and give yourself more credit on things.I go out alot and its not healthy nor is it cheap.I dont know I just dont like cooking for myself its like why bother.I have to do something soon I'm sick and tired of eating cancer causing and carbon plugging Burger king and fast food.

this was one of the very first things I worked on with a personal organizer. I told her the areas where I was struggling; she called it "time management." He he he, didn't even think that was part of my problem... anyway, she thought starting with the dinner thing would give me a lot more peace and stability. She was right!

we did this in an hour, and it didn't cost as much as you might think.

[buggie]

Originally Posted by 425runner

Lot of protein - buy 10 lb of whey concentrate protein powder, or tuna in a can (lots of it). Need fat & protein? Get many jars of peanut butter or almond butter. You can mix the protein with peanut butter and a bit of milk - it's quite delicious.

I used to eat a lot of whey protein shakes a few years ago, but I got really tired of it, like I needed some real food (I also gained weight, because I think it's just like a lot of calories). It's also important that I actually get real animal protein and fat. I know it sounds weird, but that's the way it works with PCOS- I was a vegetarian for a year and though I was a very healthy vegetarian, it had a bad impact on my health which improved as soon as I started eating animals again. And to be honest, I eat it sometimes when I need the nutrition and calories, but I really don't like peanut (or almond) butter. Like I really just hate eating it, it's like a chore. It's one thing I actually usually have in the house. As for canned tuna, I just don't like it when I make it myself. I don't buy mayonaise, so I can't make tuna salad, and I don't like canned tuna prepared other ways. And it's not really healthy for women to eat too much tuna. I don't plan on having kids, but if I ever did I don't want them to have mercury poisoning.

I know it sounds nit-picky, but I do have some real health restrictions with respect to food. It's also difficult for me to eat a lot of things prior to working out.

I know what I need to buy at the store: all I really need is some bananas, bread, a little American cheese, cereal, skim milk, ground buffalo, fish, whole grain pasta, some type of fruit, two types of green vegetables, 2 sweet potatoes, maybe some eggs, and I just need some olive oil, lime juice, and basil for cooking. That's pretty much all I ever buy. But I just can't go to the store every week, I can't remember to eat stuff before it goes bad, I can't remember to defrost stuff, and I just HATE cooking. I'm just at the end of my rope, I don't want to eat anymore.