Last week’s planned chaos at the grocery store worked out pretty well. This week’s unplanned, entirely without-a-list fiasco just stressed me out. (I know that’s a bit lame, but it did.) Lesson learned. I will take at least a rudimentary list along from now on.
This is not to say that I didn’t actually bring food home from the grocery store. That, I did manage. Here’s what I’m going to do with it:
Chicken salad sandwiches.
I’ve been using a Paula Dean recipe to make chicken salad for my lunches for the last several weeks. It isn’t a plate of carrots and broccoli by any means, but it definitely tastes good. And it’s less expensive than buying a bunch of frozen meals, which is what I’d been doing. Anyway, this week it’s making a dinnertime appearance.
Garlic beef stirfry
The sweet and sour pork we had last week was so good that I decided to make stirfry a regular menu item. Regular, that is, until that week when I forget to make it and then we don’t have it again for a year.
Turkey burgers with roasted sweet potatoes
Poppy chose all of our produce this week. It didn’t end as badly as I’d expected. She picked some sweet potatoes, an apple and a tiny butternut squash. That might make its way into the roasted sweet potato dish.
Chicken … something
Au gratin potatoes
I bought a big bag of potatoes last week, and it needs to become Something. I think i’ll be au gratin. We shall see.
What kind of things do you keep in your pantry all the time, such as chicken broth, rice, that sort of thing? I’m thinking of your ‘chicken…something’ How about roasted chicken (gotta lemon? slice it up and put it on top of the pieces) and risotto (rice, chicken broth, some herbs, a bit of butter or olive oil), and whatever vegetable you have on hand? That’s my “oh I don’t know what to fix for supper” supper. If making risotto isn’t your idea of fun, just cook some rice with the chicken broth and herbs like regular.
.-= rootietoot´s last blog ..Be careful what flag you wave! =-.
My grocery list is sub-divided by aisle, and it saves me crazy time. Going to the store without a list makes me all itchy in my brain.
@rootietoot: That sounds like a great meal! I generally do have things like rice and chicken broth on hand, but I’m phenomenally bad at thinking on the fly when it’s time to make dinner. I should make a list of backup dinners and post it on the fridge.
@Maggie: My list isn’t divided by aisle anymore (we moved and I never mapped out the new store; this was 3 cities ago), but it is divided into six main categories (produce, pantry, protein, household, frozen and dairy). I don’t know why I thought I could go from needing and even enjoying my subdivided list to using no list at all. “Itchy in my brain” is an excellent way to describe it.