I hate grocery shopping! It is inefficient!

I hate grocery shopping!  I do business process documentation for a living and grocery shopping is so inefficient!  You take the food off the shelf you put it in the cart; you take it out off the cart you put it on the belt;  you take the bags out of the cart and put them in the car; you take the bags out of the car and carry them into the house; then you take the items out of the bag and put them away. That is a total of five times that you touch the food by the time you get it put away.  Let's not mention the times you will handle it to prepare it, cook it, and store the leftovers afterward.

Now this obsession with the inefficiencies of the process of food preparation is why I used to solely use Let's Dish for my meal preparation. I would be able to go into Let's Dish and the food would be all selected and chopped. All I would have to do is measure it out into proper portions, take it home, freeze, then cook, and eat and there were very few leftovers.

Now that I am on the Domestic Goddess journey I am sucking it up and going grocery shopping etc. I write my list as I decide which recipes to eat that week.  I take your list and the items are all over the place.  I shop at Wegman's because they have everything I could need and if you compare prices they have the best prices on staples (milk bread frozen veg). But that store is huge!  It has been designed to make sure you have to walk down every aisle.  They sections for meat, dairy, bread, and produce are at the four corners with groceries, retail, bulk food, organic, bakery, specialty cheese, organic, toiletries, all mixed in throughout the center. I went from my half hour at the bloom to pick up toiletries and produce to well over an hour and a half at Wegman's.   I am always back tracking to get items in a different department that I have already been through.

Domestic Goddess Solution: This week based on an insert from Rachel Ray Every Day magazine I am putting my grocery list in order according to department in the grocery store.  If I have to go to the store I am not going to waste time wandering around.  In order to make sure your list doesn't get mixed up with last minute items leave a couple of spaces between departments when you write your list.

TIP: Rewrite your list if you get it too jumbled with last minute items. Two minutes at home can equal 30 in the store.
Or try an iPhone app for list making http://www.macworld.com/appguide/article.html?article=136247

What's Brown and Sticky ?...a Stick

This article is about being a super mom AKA the big mean mommy down the block.  I am very concerned about outdoor safety.  No I am not going to debate the big issues of people on watch lists, or Lyme diseased ticks, or the UV containing sunlight.  My concern is sticks!  Well actually 4 year old boys with sticks whether used as guns or to whip his friends. These stick wielding boys make me cringe.  (And when my dear, sweet, angel starts to emulate this whipping behavior on her best friend (me) I am not amused.)  These sticks are not normal sticks either they are branches.  The multitude of blizzards this winter season has left our common area covered small to medium sized branches.

Domestic Goddess Solution:
This weekend when our little family went out to play (and no one else was on the playground) I made game out of picking up the sticks and putting them in a big pile. This was fun for Sary because she got to play with a bunch of sticks while we cleaned up.  Then my hubby Jake carried the debris to the curb while I pushed Sary on the swing.   I feel a little guilty for ruining their fun but that is why I left all the kid appropriate sticks laying around, worm-digging sized not whipping sized.

TIP:
If you choose to clean up branches don't forget the gloves. (or you will end up with a a splinter, like the huge one I had in the palm of my hand)

A Weekly Menu How Quaint

This seems obvious to me now...meal planning is where it is at.  I decided in January that as part of my domestic goddess journey I would begin cooking home-cooked meals not just Lets Dish. (Not to knock Lets Dish, cause I love it)  We had started eating out all the time and hadn't been very good at even thawing out our Let's Dish meals.  I went grocery shopping every two weeks or so and bought just lunch and snacks. (We don't do breakfast and Let's Dish covered dinner.)   Even though we had Let's Dish meals in the freezer we hadn't planned when we were going to eat them.

Domestic Goddess Solution:

STEP ONE
Sometime in the second weekend in January I sat down with my husband Jake and had him look through my Rachel Ray cookbook I got for Christmas.  Jake picked out a dinner for the three days that we needed dinner that week. I wrote on my little "Mom's Weekly Planner" the menu for the week Monday "Lets Dish" Tuesday "Carbonara"  Wednesday "Outside in Burgers" and Thursday "Hobby Night" Friday "Lemon Veal".  (The links are to someone's blog that did 365 of Rachel Ray)

STEP TWO
I created a shopping list from the cook book ingredients lists. Then I added a few items for lunch and snacks. I went to Wegman's to ensure I could find everything.  Now this first week I spent a little extra on EVOO and other Ra Ray staples. But by doing meal planning I wasn't buying a bunch of stuff that was going to rot in the produce drawer.  I was only buying what we were planning to eat.


STEP THREE
Then I had to COOK.  It wasn't really as hard as it sounds.  The meals came out pretty well learning to use and cut fresh ingredients was the biggest challenge.  30 minute Rachel Ray meals aren't much harder than preparing a "Let's Dish" meal and it is much cheaper.  I surprised myself with how good the Carbonara was using egg and wine to make a sauce was an intermediate level cooking challenge.

The best part was fighting over leftovers with Jake and sometimes even having some to freeze.

We have been planning meals every Sunday for the last two months and I can't imagine how we ever lived before.  I love knowing what we are eating every day of the week and not throwing food away.  And true to Rachel Ray's philosophy it makes every day special.

TIP:
Involve you family in meal planning and they will never complain about what you feed them.