Grocery shopping

This doesn't have much to do with American food per se but I thought maybe you guys could help me.  As a single girl, making good money and not having any bills to pay, I didn't exactly cook everyday.  I'd buy frozen meals or just eat out most of the time so grocery shopping didn't mean much to me.  Now that I am married and I am not making any money (wedding photography is hard business to get into!) so we are leaving on my husbands income, I just can't keep the same eating habits.  Not to mention my husband is not keen on ready meals.  Anyhow, I just don't know how to shop properly shop for groceries!  I know it sounds dumb but it's the truth.  When we walk into the supermarket I immediately gravitate towards the ready meals area.  Eating that way is expensive so I really need to actually cook stuff.  My question is, do you plan your meals for the week/month/whatever before you go shopping?  Do you just make it up as you go?  How do you do it?  I'm so clueless and embarrassed because I am supposed to know these things LOL  I know how my mom does here grocery shopping but that was for Cuban meals so it's different.  Help me get a clue!!!

June


PS. Sorry if this post doesn't make any sense   

I make it up as I go along from a store cupboard staples like pasta, couscous, brown and basmati rice, bulgar wheat, quinoa, etc.

We always have a supply of fresh veg to hand but also keep at least one bag of frozen carrots and swedes, peppers and peas for a really quick whip up.

I also make pulses often.  I buy them dry w/the exception of green lentils.

We buy all our meat from the farmer's market and a butcher, but I always get two chickens/fortnight and roast one on Sunday.  It provides at least 1 more meal and often 2.

I also make a lot of soups and slow cooker meals. 

I always get two chickens/fortnight and roast one on Sunday.  It provides at least 1 more meal and often 2.

My bf is only around some of the time, but I tend to make more "real" meals when he's here than when I'm on my own. We do the same thing expat does -- roast chicken dinner on Sunday night, then cold chicken with veg and mash on Monday night. That takes care of two nights! If we're out doing things all day on a Saturday and aren't home until late (which often happens), we might have ready meals or something easy like that that night -- or might pop to the pub for fish & chips. And that only leaves 4 nights to think about. I'm a planner, but only because I sort of enjoy doing it that way. I wish I could be more spontaneous and whip stuff up from what's in my kitchen cupboards!

LOL - don't worry, you made perfect sense!

I'm a pretty keen cook, but I get home quite late from work and dh works nights, so he cooks on weeknights. We don't plan any meals other than the Sunday roast BUT we have a handful of staples that we make pretty much once a week.

I shop like this: I have a list of staples in my head that we pretty much always need - pesto, pasta, chicken breasts, coffee, oven chips, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, eggs, and stuff like that. Then we keep an ongoing list in the kitchen where we make note of stuff that we run out of like oil, butter, etc. I try to try one new recipe a week just for variety so I also note on the list what I need for that. I buy things like milk and bread every few days on my way home from work.

We're thinking about cutting our shopping down to once a fortnight and then having a veg delivery once a week since it's easier to stick meat and that sort of thing in the freezer but we're always running out of veg.

I would suggest getting some basic recipes in your repertoire. Some of our old standbys are sausages and mash, salmon and mashed sweet potato, turkey burgers, pesto pasta with chicken, spaghetti bolognaise, turkey steaks, prawn curries, omelets/fritattas and fish cakes. Then you can just always make sure you have what you need for those on hand....

Oh, I forgot to mention that I actually Do enjoy cooking, it's just that I don't know many recipes from memory.  I kinda collect cookbooks and sometimes I even use them! LOL  However, I don't think I'm up for cooking fancy meals every day, I am no Martha Stewart.

June

If you dare go to Flylady.net  you can get good ideas about all kinds of stuff ..
one of her things is  planning your meals ahead of time  so  you don't end up  buying  'extra' food and  having to throw stuff away.. she also has easy recipes..
obviously some weeks are slower than  others  and you can plan ahead  but other  times  you have to rely on staples..(stuff you always have and  eat on a weekly basis)   that can vary from household to household  as  you can tell..

side note-- also you can make  tomato sauce  ahead of time and  just refrigerate it..  peel  garlic and green  onions and keep those handy in the fridge  so you aren't wasting time peeling  and preparing..   tuna salad and egg salad for  lunches  also done ahead of tme....

You might want to start by looking up some recipes in advance of shopping.  Then you make your grocery list according to the recipes, and when you go to the store you buy exactly what is needed to complete the recipe.  This way you won't 1) forget one thing that forces you to ditch the recipe, or 2) buy unnecessary stuff that goes to waste.  I have become relatively good now but I used to do this all the time because of those very issues.  It gets really frustrating too if you forget things and then you just start to not even like cooking because it never turns out right!

Once you are more used to cooking from scratch rather than ready meals, you will get a sense of what you need to have on hand all the time vs. what you only need for a special dish/recipe. 

invest in a slow cooker!  you can let it cook all day and do so many meals it's untrue!  

I use ours once a fortnight.

I keep loads of frozen fish and meat in the freezer. If a cut i like is on sale, i buy it and chuck in our freezer. I can't tell you how many times i've bought ground turkey breast mince on sale, when it's 3 quid off each or something, and thrown 4 in the freezer!

I usually keep my mid week cooking to easy things.  Stirfrys.  Pastas. Fish with Veg.  Steak with Veg.  I will usually do a 'cookbook' meal once a week day, and once on the weekend.

Also, make EXTRA.  This is easier said than done as i usually do this for lunch the next day and my garbage disposal (ahem husband) eats them.

  My question is, do you plan your meals for the week/month/whatever before you go shopping?  Do you just make it up as you go?  How do you do it? 

Im not home from work at tea time, so i make meals ahead of time for my DH.  I plan a menu for the week.... and i do my shopping based on the list.  I make the list out while standing in the kitchen looking in the cupboards, fridge and freezer, so that i know EXACTLY what we've already got, and what we need to buy.

For example, this week:  
Sunday:  tonight i made a large batch of pasta with italian sausage, olives, tomatoes, onion, & garlic... we had it tonight and will have it again tomorrow.
Tuesday:  i will put sausages & barbecue sauce in the slow cooker, and make mashed potato before i go to work.  He will heat up the mash, and pour the hot sausages & sauce from the slow cooker over it.
Wednesday:  I will put chicken breasts & a can of cream of chicken soup in the slow cooker... he will have that over rice.
Thursday:   Before i leave for work, i will take the leftover chicken & soup from last night, add onions and madras curry paste and he will have a sort of makeshift (ie not authentic in any way!) chicken curry
Friday:  before i leave for work, i will fry up a pan full of beef mince, onions, garlic, taco seasoning and a can of black beans... he will stir this into rice (i buy the microwave packets of rice for him, cos he is helpless).

And then on Saturdays & Sundays i cook for us both!

You might want to check out a book called Cupboard Love-- the boy tells you how to build up a good larder, and how to make some fantastic meals out of store-cupboard staples.
I love this book!

I can only hope your husband isnt like my fiance...but wait, I think thats impossible, my fiance may just be the pickiest eater ever Although he says Im worse

But I do what a lot of others have mentioned, there are things we need every week w/o fail, and I start my list there. Sometimes it varies in quantity depending on what happened during the week, and I add/subtract items as needed. From there we go with what wed like to have that week...I try to plan out meals in advance, and keep to the list.

We tend to have fish once each week, we have quiche and pizza every other week, not together hehe I make some sort of pasta each week, we do have frozen food we have, because its vegetarian and its hard to get df to eat anything with veggies he doesnt approve of..ie most of them! (yeah I know..)

We have mixed veg or baked beans with most of the meals, protein and vitamins and all that

I used to be a huge home-made meals person, but with df being veg and so picky its hard to find new things he will eat So I stick to trying to get my own variety either by making other stuff for lunch, or dinners that are different for the two of us when its easy to do so.

When I was making foods with meat, Id stock up on a few lbs at a time and freeze portions I would need and get them out whenever. Its much easier to make things on the fly that way. Id have taco seasonings, veggies, sour cream etc on hand and use them for tacos and other things that week...if that makes sense.

I dont know if you like meatballs...but those are great for freezing, and can have different uses. I used mine in pasta sauce, or in hungarian meatballs...

Pasta sauce is also sooo easy to make and freezes great to make ahead of time, cuts time vs. cooking it over and over, just freeze portions and put them in a pan on low heat whenever youre ready for them. You can make a base and add all sorts of things when you are preparing the other stuff that nite, ie italian sausage one time, different veggies another. And to me pasta tastes even better the second day

With things like that you have the convenience of ready meals but with the added benefit of being homemade.

I love to cook, and its sort of too bad I dont get a chance to flex my cooking muscles much anymore, at one point I wanted to become a caterer...but decided in the end I wouldnt

Other things you can do, is use leftover ingredients to make a totally different meal the next nite as others have mentioned....roasted a chicken sunday? Use the extra the next day or even a few days later to make chicken fajitas, or any other number of chicken meals...or use it in your lunch, chicken with a bit of mayo and cheddar in a tortilla is very yummy!

Im rambling, but hopefully I have helped a bit

I agree with Geetak.  Find some recipes that you like and shop according to that.  When I really started cooking, I had a plan for the week, like:  Monday pork chops, Tuesday chicken, wed fish, thurs pasta, friday fun night and so on.. I also used to have a soup night.

I then looked for recipes for each of these nights, varying as much as possible. We were on a really tight budget so my meat choices went with what I could afford and I bought in bulk and froze them in smaller quantities.  I also planned meals according to the food pyramid and  I built up my larder and grocery shopped according to the recipes.  I also froze a lot - pasta sauce and soups mostly.  I did have a slow cooker, used it mostly for soup.  I haven't replaced it in the UK yet. 

Now, I just shop so I can make a number of things with what I have on hand, although our meals tend to lean toward the simple tried and true over interesting and new, now that I'm working full time and the kids are busy.   

If I were you, I would keep it simple.  You are used to ready meals, so plan on three of those a week.  Relief- that way you know for sure you don't have to stress about fixing something.

For the other four meals, divide it into two categories (ie beef and chicken) .  Dinners #1 chili and dinner#3 meatloaf, Dinners#2 and #4 barbecue chicken and cream of chicken soup.

stock up on the essential condiments etc

If you can handle planning a weekly menu (and I know that some people hate it) I'd go that way.  Check what is in your cupboards and make your list from there.  While you are getting used to shopping you might want to group your items in your list - sublist for veggies, dairy, canned goods, etc.  That will make shopping easier. 

I find that picking up a cooking magazine, like Good Food, helps with the inspiration.  Or find a cooking bulletin board.  I like the community on Cookinglight.com.

Also, to keep things simple you might just want to either a casserole or main dish and then worry about sides the night of the meal.  For example, you could plan grilled chicken and as long as you have a reasonably stocked cupboard and freezer, decide to pair it with rice pilaf and frozen peas. 

I found that after a month or two of shopping and cooking just became second nature. 

Incidentally... everything that is on my menu for this week, is stuff we already have in the house... i dont have to do any shopping this week at all...

pasta, italian sausage, olives, tomatoes, onion, & garlic, cumberland sausages, barbecue sauce,  potatoes, chicken breasts & a can of cream of chicken soup, madras curry paste , beef mince, taco seasoning,  a can of black beans, microwave packets of rice.

When i do my weekly shop, i always try to pick up a few extra bits to throw in the freezer, or a couple of extra tins, jars or packets of things i use regularly.  This way, about every 4-6 weeks i end up with a week that i have loads of extra bits in the house and dont have to shop at all.

All i've got to buy this week is milk and toilet roll!