Practical Matters - Last Week's Highlights and Shopping Experience

Remember, last week was the lead up to the experiment. Here are some highlights of the meals and preparations:

Monday - Play Practice and Family Night: A pioneer dinner. Hannah was in charge and wanted to have an authentic pioneer dinner by candle light.
What we ate: Baked fish (caught by Bren over the previous weekend) - very authentic; corn bread with butter and honey - pretty authentic pioneer fare; salad with ranch dressing -not so authentic.

Tuesday - Gear up for no more grocery shopping, everyone home for the evening: I did some shopping earlier today, my last big trip which ended with an exasperated customer service clerk who questioned every item I wanted on a rain check and gave me a friendly reminder of why I‘m avoiding the grocery store for a month. Sheesh, who knew baking goods could be so controversial. Here’s what I was hoping for but didn‘t get:
20 bags of 70 Cent Hershey’s baking chips - You can‘t really say your food storage is complete until you have the bargaining power of chocolate chips backing you up
20 packages of $1 Betty Crocker’s Warm Delights - Mmm goodness in a microwaveable dish. You have a decadent dessert ready in a minute and thirty seconds (including the time it takes to add water, stir and microwave) Again, in tough economic times, who doesn’t need easy baked goods. Never mind if the microwave doesn’t work. The little black bowl will go perfectly in my solar oven ; ).
3 whole chickens at $.59/lb - What is the deal with whole, raw chickens costing as much as the cooked rotisserie version from Costco. 99 cents a pound? Forget it. I’ll just make due with the two I have in the freezer.
Anyway, the customer service lady kept questioning my intentions and integrity and reminded me of yet another reason I hate the grocery store:

Customer Service is an oxymoron in too many institutions.

I also went to the orchards and bought a crazy bunch of potatoes along with apples, pears, and peaches. Last I stopped at the egg lady’s. she supplies us with awesome fresh eggs. We are conducting a side experiment with our neighbors on egg preservation. But, since my favorite tree hugger from up North sent me a detailed article about it, I’m quitting the eggsperiment and sticking with food storage. One thing at a time, please. Anyway, all the research has been done. I’ll include it as soon as I find the email.
What we ate: Breakfast - Scrambled hen fruit

Lunch - Sack lunches, who knows what the kids put in them, I'll have to pay more attention

Dinner- Chicken wraps, with tenders from the freezer, homemade tortillas, lettuce and cilantro from the fridge, tomatoes from the garden.

Wednesday, Oct. 1: Scouts and church meetings.
What we ate - Breakfast: Pumpkin cream of wheat. Hot porridge with a bit of canned milk, canned pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Some liked it more than others.
Lunch: Various sack lunches; sandwiches, chips and leftovers.
Dinner: Today, we roasted a giant potato. It had an animal shape like this one, but was more like a turtle than a dog. Bren spiced it up like we would a roast and we cooked it in the crock pot all afternoon. It fed all six of us and we had leftovers for breakfast. We also had salad and leftover cornbread.

Animalian Potatoes on Parade

Stay tuned for a detailed log of this weeks meals, all week, all meals, and see how long we are able to last without going back to the store. Also look for some helpful for implementing no more grocery shopping in your life.