Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions, Jan. 11, 2013

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

 
I did a clean out of the condiments in the refrigerator door and found these things that were long past their shelf life. Out they went.

 This Week's True Food Confessions

We have been traveling this week to help my mother who is in the hospital, so we have been eating out. Therefore, we're not quite back to "regular" eating. Maybe next week.

Menu Planning

We had a good menu plan this week.

Menu planning. I'm for it. I just don't always do it. It's not because I don't know how. It's just that, well, I'm not exactly sure, but I just don't do it. Very often. Unless, I'm feeling guilty about how we've been eating. Then we have a plan, unless we don't. As you can see, I have a confused relationship with menu planning.

My first menu planning came while I was growing up. My sisters and I were usually responsible for fixing supper after my mother went back to work and meal planning was not complicated at that point. Every meal had a meat, starch (usually potatoes), a green vegetable, a yellow vegetable, bread and milk. Our house was well stocked with vegetables from our huge garden and venison from my father's hunting, so it was easy to follow the plan.

Also, during those years, I remember an assignment in eight grade to plan meals for an entire week. Every meal I planned was well balanced and included something from every food group. Also, the calories added up to the appropriate amount for the day. I think that was the most complicated and complete meal plan I have ever seen. So I learned menu planning in the early years, both in a simple and complicated way.

Then I grew up and lost menu planning somewhere along the way. I think it started when we lived in New Orleans, home of fantastic food, both expensive and inexpensive. We ate out a lot and loved every minute of it.  However kids came, we moved to Texas, and the need for menu planning became necessary again. Plans during this time were sometimes written down and sometimes not but depended on easy to fix things for young kids--especially the ever-hungry Wally.

Another move landed us where we are now and it's where we've done most of our meal planning as a family. We've had family meetings and made up plans for weeks and months. We've made each person responsible for a day of the week. We've checked the ads and planned around what was on sale, and we've made plans from what was in the pantry and the freezer. We've assigned each day of the week a different type of food and planned within that structure. We've also used premade meal plans with shopping lists, and we've done a lot of last minute cooking.

However, my favorite way to plan was a way that Wally used for a while. He would take a cookbook and open it randomly. Each of us got to choose what we wanted from between those two pages. Then he would open it randomly to the next two pages and the next person would get to choose. We ate a lot of interesting things when he used that method.

So what does all of this mean? Menu planning. I'm for it. I just don't always do it. It's not because I don't know how. It's just that, well, I'm not exactly sure, but I just don't do it. Very often. Unless, I'm feeling guilty about how we've been eating. Then we have a plan, unless we don't. As you can see, I have a confused relationship with menu planning.

A Second Look--January 9, 2013

This week I took a look at some of the man-made features around the yard for a different focus during this dormant time.

 Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

Ponderings of Theodore--The Early Years

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck had an axe?

How many banks could a robber rob, if security was lax?

How many shells could Sally sell, if no one really cared?

How many tongue twisters like these, are slightly impaired?

(One of Theo's ponderings from elementary school.)

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But Wait, There's More.
Here are the original tongue twisters mentioned above.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck? 

by Mother Goose

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck

If a woodchuck could chuck wood?

As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck,

If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

 She sells seashells by the seashore.

She sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

Late or Early?

or Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I am generally on time or at least I try to be. I am pretty good at estimating how long something will take and as long as I have a clock around, I can usually make it to wherever I want to be on time. I have two clocks that I depend on to help me with this--the clock above the door to the garage and the clock in my car. One tells me when it's time to leave and the other lets me know how I am doing in traffic. With these trusty clocks, I am usually on time or a little early. That is until recently. Some how they both started to be off unbeknownst to me.

First I discovered the car clock was not telling me the time I thought it was. Over the years, it had gradually gained time so that it was several minutes fast. In reality the amount of time had not changed, but I liked to think that I had "extra" time when I checked this clock. However, one day, I found my "extra" time had disappeared. I was dropping Wally off at work and he was a couple of minutes late. I told him not to worry because the clock was fast. He told me that it wasn't anymore. He and Theo had set it to the correct time for me, BUT, they somehow neglected to tell me. So all of those times that I thought I had been right on time, I had been late. I appreciate the effort they made in helping me, but darn, I needed to know about it.

Next I discovered that the clock over the door was not correct either. This clock supposedly calibrated itself every couple of minutes with the atomic clock in Colorado. I never questioned its time and until recently, I didn't have to. However, I noticed that all of the TV programs were coming on "early" and I started paying attention to it. I discovered that it had had been losing time and was running slowly. So all of those times I thought I was leaving on time, I was actually leaving late. No wonder, the commutes seemed to be taking longer than they usually did. I was leaving later than I thought.

For now, all of my clocks have been fixed and are showing the correct time. If I'm late or early for something, it is of my own doing--not because I didn't know what time it is. If this clock confusion keeps up, however, I may have to join the rest of the 21st century and use my phone to see what time it is. However, that means that I would have to charge it regularly--something that eludes me at this point. But that's another story.

Are you one who is always early or always late? Do you set your clock ahead so you will be on time?

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But Wait, There's More
 In case anyone wants to take a walk down memory lane with Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is, here's a You Tube link.