Question Of The Day #20

What strategies do you use to make the most of groceries? Do you buy ingredients you can use in multiple dishes through the week? Carefully measure how much you’ll need for each dish? Or just wing it and hope there won’t be too much waste?

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Comments

cammarata.nick

I've been using GoodEggs recently in SF. It's fantastic, somewhat reasonably priced and free delivery! I started using it last year but it was insanely expensive so I stopped. They've dropped prices something like 40% since then now, and I've started back up again. Living in a proper city I hate going grocery shopping(liked it when I didn't) because it's so busy, and it's really made it far more enjoyable. I make ~2-3 deliveries a week.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I tend to keep the same dinner schedule each week (i.e. monday - veg centric, tuesday - sandwiches due to work, wednesday - tacos, thursday - italian, and wing it on the weekend) and then when I'm at the store I just get whatever I feel like would fit into those molds. So really anything could become a taco so it may be traditional barbacoa one week or carnitas the next, whatever's fresh or on sale. Same for the other dishes. This way I feel like it cuts down on waste and it gives me the freedom to be frugal if I want or to splurge if I see that oxtail is on special and I want to make amazing tacos or ragu

Tim_Sutherland_52834

I shop at least 6 days a week, four of them due to working as a private chef four days a week.

For me, my weekend meals heavily use the left over ingredients from the client shopping and I wing it. When I have small amounts of leftovers I will also make tasting portions for a family to see if they like it. If it is a winner I'll add it to the meal rotation.

My pantry does overflow with various flours, powders, spices, Asian dried things that I used in a recipe, and then forgot I still had the product.

My biggest issue is going to Asian/Ḥalāl markets and buying weird stuff and filling the freezer. I buy enough to feed 10 people when there are only two of us in the house. I clean the fridges out Monday (trash night) and usually toss a sickly single carrot, 50ml of chili lime vinaigrette and other small amounts of vege/sauces. All protein gets eaten. The freezer I try and clean out every three months. This is when I find freezer burnt skin on salted cod, 20lbs of mixed poultry carcasses and mystery bags with only a date on them. At times some of this is tossed.

michaelnatkin

I tend to buy what I need for Sunday suppers, which are always our most ambitious meal of the week, and usually have leftovers both cooked and raw that can factor into one or two more weekday meals. Monday is almost always a simple tofu & broccoli stir-fry (the kids fav) and usually my wife puts together a taco night later in the week. Try as I might to keep the waste down, I'm still dismayed as to how many odds & ends of limp vegetables and sodden fruit end up in the bin.

jonathan.mota

Very similar... skipping the part being a private Chef! hahaha. You just reminded me I have to give a serious clean to my freezer!

tshewman

Produce is purchased almost daily, proteins 2-3 times per week (depending on the freezer space and my goal-I go through Stock making spurts). Generally measure most things for experimental dinners and bases 9e.g. stocks). Then I base the dinners from what we know will be left over for other meals of the week. Try to buy so that we don't use things more than twice in one week (e.g. brussell sprouts etc). We don't like our palettes to be board so I tend to have 2-3 sauces/pastes/compound butters ready to throw on a number of things (from pasta, to eggs, to quinoa etc). We restrict ingredients to 2 meals per recipe if we can to lessen left overs. Since getting the vacuum chamber freezing left overs has been more common (and handy with he circulator for warming :-)..). Just need to get a label maker.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I tend to shop like a European, meaning I go to the market every day that I'm going to be cooking. For about six or seven years I lived a few blocks from the Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax, so that would be the post-work stop and then I'd spend half an hour going from purveyor to purveyor putting a menu together.

As my cooking has gotten more ambitious that type of strategy is a little less practical, but I make do.

Matt_67991

I read all of the flyers on Friday morning and since my girlfriend works all over town on different days of the week, I plan the meals around where she works and what she can have picked up by that point.

SteveM_20803

Sharpie on the top edge of the bag works great for vacuum sealed left overs.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Produce daily, if I am in need of something more fun, WholeFoods (which is a bit more of a drive).

I try to bake and all proteins unless seafood are frozen. Sea food I want to smell and touch.

If I buy things I will have plenty of, I try and freeze, pickle, store, make variations on it.

That is a reason I like to buy produce daily and only as needed.

We certainly waste more than I'd like, especially fruit.

Tim_Sutherland_52834

Due to all this food waste stuff I have considered purchasing a CLO'ey, but I'm sure the shipping would kill me.

There are a few restaurants in Australia that keep their waste down to almost zero or only one bin a week for city pick up.

tshewman

That's what I do now but my handwriting sucks. :-)

SteveM_20803

LOL, mine too, so I do the sealing, and my wife does the printing.

Nick_14981

We buy based upon or needs of the day sometimes the next couple days, usually not much more in advance that that unless it's something special like a Turkey or Ham. Otherwise we pretty much wing it and still always have too much. Though we are getting better on portioning.

I'd love to be able walk or shop a really nice market each day.