The Pig and I

I know that a small amount of accountability to make me get through all my food storage is a good thing. So Sundays are the day where I tell you what I've used up from the food storage. Also, I want to take this opportunity to let you guys know that if you have specific stuff you want to see me make, post it on the Sunday posts and I'll start doing requests for either Mondays or Tuesdays. I will not include standard canned goods in my list of "used up," since I have them in normal-person quantities rather than hoarder quantities. I'm also not going to include stuff from the fridge (unless it's staples I'm storing in there), spices, or anything that falls under normal-person quantities of stuff. But everything I consider to be part of my food storage will be listed as it gets used. I will not torment you guys with a list of precisely what is IN the food storage, since I think it's simpler to just put what I used and let you guys work out how much food i...

Like I mentioned yesterday, holidays make life a little easier for me. Most years I go somewhere for Thanksgiving, and this one was no exception. So I didn't have a lot of food shopping to do for the week, since I spent most of it out of town. I'll need a little produce and perhaps a day's worth of meat since I'm back home now, but that's not too bad. I wanted to mention also that I needed to add one more rule to the ones I posted last week, which is that I can't be buying rice either. I still have a massive amount of white, brown, red, jasmine and medium rices left. And, I wanted to admit I already broke one of my rules by buying a package of spinach noodles. I just couldn't help myself. So, on to the shopping. Normally I don't count the food that I buy while I'm in transit between one city and another, and I'm not going to count it now but I am going to mention it. Gas station : $3.29 for three bags of chips $1.50 for a Diet Coke To...

With it being Thanksgiving week, this was a pretty easy week for me. I mean, I was only in town from Friday until Tuesday. I'm still actually not back home, and I won't be until tomorrow. However, I was careful to eat up leftovers and perishables so I wouldn't come home to any waste, except one tiny thing. I just couldn't get that last one down, and it was too old for me to give it to someone else and feel good about it. So, for this week, I wasted: One maple bar. I know, I know. Who wastes junk food, right? How'd you guys do? Were you able to foist off holiday leftovers on others, or did you wind up wasting food?

And, this is back too. Obviously, it's not summer anymore. And also obviously, I'm not still on the $10/week budget. Also, I get to use the Cave again. But, now that I'm living on my own and my whole life is different, I wanted to lay out some new rules for my grocery spending. This week I forgot to save any receipts from buying groceries, but I'll be doing that from now on again so y'all can see what kind of stuff I'm up to, in terms of shopping and also in terms of keeping the new budget. So, the new rules: 1) My new budget is $20/week. I actually believe this is far more money than I need, but I wanted to make sure that if I go on an olive and/or cheese binge, I've got enough wiggle room to compensate for it. Also, I'd like to entertain more. This means, since I only have a two person table, that I'd have only one person over at a time (well, unless people want to eat on the couch and/or floor). But still, I want a little extra food monies f...

It's back! In my effort to post more, I want to bring this back. Right now my cooking has been more related to comfort foods you guys already know about, but next week I'll start trying to do at least one new recipe per week. Anyway, back to the waste. As you might expect, I've created a lot of trash while I've been moving. But that's got nothing to do with food. This week, I wasted: NOTHING! Let's see how many weeks I can keep this up for!

When I was a teenager, my friend T and I used to slice up avocados and tomatoes. We'd put the avocados in a layer on the bottom of the plate, then top with tomatoes, then top with lots of salt and lemon juice. It always felt like a wonderful treat eating that (and drinking all the juices left on the plate). I'm all moved into my place. A few things are still at P's (mostly athletic gear), which I'll pick up as I can, when I'm visiting Francis. But other than that I'm moved and completely unpacked. I even managed to get all my art hung on the walls. My kitchen, however, is pretty small. It's a big transition going from the large kitchens I've used over the last 15 years to a little bitty kitchen. It's small enough that I'm using the dishwasher to store dishes rather than to wash them. Now, I'm not complaining about the size; it's cozy in there and it seriously limits the amount of kitchen stuff I can buy (i.e., I bought an old Oster blen...