No Food Shopping Challenge Day 1 Pitfalls

I was sitting here today wondering exactly why I thought it might be a good idea to even think about not going to the grocery store for a month!  First things first!  I decided ( perhaps a day late) to inventory the pantry and freezer just to see what foods are available.  I realized I had NOT thought this through completely from the beginning.  It is very typical of me to launch into something without truly seeing what my options are before beginning.  This morning it hit me, I needed to assess the food here so I could make plans for use.  I don't usually have to think about rationing items.  After all I have 3 large grocery stores within a mile and a half of my home.  Additionally I have a husband who calls me every afternoon on his way home from work to see if he needs to pick anything up. (TheHub has a love affair with Publix)

( Truth here:  I did notice I had only 1 onion before starting this journey so I bought a 3 pound bag yesterday. We were out of eggs and I purchased 2 dozen.  Son3 has been cooking a lot of omelets, so buying them was  an act of sheer kindness on my part. Luckily I also remembered that Easter was upon us so I bought a small ham in advance.  I understand that is kind of cheating, but our extended family usually comes here for Easter lunch.  I will still be at the mercy of whatever is in storage for the remainder of the Easter meal, and thought it would not be fair of me to invite them to a possible Easter Tamale Pie lunch.)

For storage I have a closet pantry, refrigerator/freezer combo in the kitchen, small fridge in the laundry room and an upright freezer.  That is a lot of space where food can hide.  To say I was surprised at what I found and also surprised at what I don't have is an understatement.

I thought I had many packs of broccoli in the freezer. Wrong! There is only one.  Vegetables are going to be challenging this month.  Hopefully some of the lettuce seed I planted will start producing soon.  If not we may have to call rosemary leaves and mint vegetables, cause that is the only thing currently growing.  On the other hand the 9 cans of green beans in the pantry will come in handy.

 I have steaks, roasts, chicken, ground beef and pork tenderloin out the wazoo plus I found a surprise package of bacon. There are a few frozen fish filets also.  Proteins should not be a huge problem but TheHub is already talking about cold cuts for lunch Saturday afternoon and there are none. (Who, besides him, has to worry on Tuesday what they will eat for lunch on Saturday?)

Because of a recent sale at Aldi there are about 7 packages of butter in the freezer, but zero bread products to butter.  Ditto for jelly and jam, as a result of home canning last summer.  I also have an extensive pickle and hot sauce collection.  Nine 8 ounce packages of cheddar, monterey jack and swiss cheese live in the freezer.  Aldi had a $1.49 sale a while back and I stocked up.  No milk! But there were a couple of pouches of instant milk in hiding to reconstitute as needed for cooking.

It turned out to be lucky I inventoried everything.  I was getting hungry this morning and found 6 grapefruit  in the very back of the small refrigerator.  They were completely forgotten and looked a little wonky but were perfectly delicious to eat.  Guess what breakfast will be everyday this week?

This next month is going to take a lot more planning and structure that I thought it was, and this is just day 1!  I may be in over my head plus this is going to be a lot of work.  I guess time will tell if this is a really good or really bad idea. Who knows?