Food Larder

[suespud]

I was watching a programme last night about food and shopping healthy etc..at least I think thats what it was about as I was doing other stuff too and only half watching really.
Anyway that Gregg person went through this family's food cupboards and estimated they had over a thousand pounds worth of food in their fridge and larder etc... yet they were still going out shopping for more.

Do you have a full larder/food cupboard? Not including freezer
I do tend to stock up...got lots of tins, packets, basics.etc etc.
Bit scared to estimate...lol
Im not counting the cartons of washing stuff..fabric softener.dishwasher tablets...salt..cleaning stuff...black bags...toilet roll...etc etc etc.

Think I might have a hoarding tendency..

[barney]

It's a woman thing Sue

My wife goes shopping when we don't need anything and adds to what we've already got.

Nesting instinct ?

[GillD46]

I keep LOADS because I don't want to dind myself needing something, that I don't have. I am VERY GOOD though, at putting new stuff to the back of the cupboard/'fridge and using the older things first. If only I was as good with the freezers - I swear rhere are things in there that are YEARS old!

[Stephen]

I wouldn't say we keep food very long but it's priced in old money. What does UBD1967 mean.

[Kenmo1]

We keep a lot of food in even though we are only ten minutes walk from the town and five minutes walk from 2 mini markets. I think the main theme of the programme last night was to try to encourage the family to buy the cheaper versions of foods from supermarkets like Aldi, Lidl and value packs from Tesco, Morrisons etc.. It is surprising how much we judge items on their packaging and I know I am guilty of this - quite a few of the cheaper end items from Asda/Tesco etc came out quite well in the taste test.

Maureen

[Delboy]

Although we have both an Aldi and a Lidle in our town, have never shopped in either.

We are not great hoarders, other than the freezer, items used frequently we always keep spare packets, tins, jars, bottles etc, etc, but that's about it.

Before going to collect our weekly on line shop this afternoon, our fridge was fairly empty.

We very rarely run out, or find us needing an item we have not got.

Our council has just delivered our annual supply of black sacks for our rubbish, no wheelie bins in this area.

[Meg 50]

we do a big - non perishable shop every 3 or 4 weeks ..

this means a huge excel spreadsheet is on the kitchen clipboard to be updated as things run low.

Meat we buy for the freezer from the local butcher, and fresh fruit and veg from the local green grocer

It would look as though we are hoarders at the beginning of the month, but as shopping day draws nearer Mother Hubbard has a close competitor

[Dancing Queen]

I shop weekly for fresh produce and my freezer is always full except when I run it down prior to going on holiday, I don't buy much in the way of tinned goods other than the usual baked beans/tomatoes etc, other items I stock up as and when they are running low unless there is bogof offer on and as long as the use/sell by date is good I will buy extra.

Washing powder, dishwasher stuff, cleaning products etc etc .. I have loads if I see something new I just have to give it a try I also buy extra when the bogof offers are on.

Oh and the most important commodity ... I always have a well stocked wine cellar ( garage ) in fact I took delivery today of two cases of wine

Maybe we should start a thread ... This Week's Supermarket Bargains.

As they say 'Every Little Helps'

[Silver_Shiney]

Oh and the most important commodity ... I always have a well stocked wine cellar ( garage ) in fact I took delivery today of two cases of wine

Address is???

[wolfie]

I'm always well stocked up on cleaning stuff; washing powder, dishwasher tablets, etc. as I buy them when they are on offer and thankfully we have a place to store it all. I probably have around 6 months worth of dishwasher tablets right now so must resist any future offers for a while.

Our freezer is half full of useful frozen products, Ciabattas, garlic bread, bread rolls,ice cream, peas, fresh (but frozen by me) pasta, and a few frozen desserts, but also half full of home cooked meals when we feel like a lazy night with no preparation. I do batches of cooking for the freezer when I am in the mood, always useful when daughters come home and ask for spag bol, shepherds pie, a casserole, soup etc. or the ingredients, chicken, beef mince, for something else which can be put together with store cupboard basics. I am never without tinned tomatoes for cooking but not much other tinned stuff, pineapple for a sweet and sour Chinese dish, grapefruit segments, prunes, baked beans for OH and that's about it.

The cellar is always well stocked. Just recently looked up prices of some vintage port that we have had for many years and was amazed to see that we could fund a cruise on it!! One bottle alone was almost £200 to buy now when I know what I paid for it n the early 1980's.

A soon as I have done the weekly shop I start another list. Once something has been taken out of the store cupboard then it goes on the list so that there is always one waiting so as not to be waiting until we have run out, whatever it might be.

[Delboy]

The only dish washer in this house is me, and I don't need any tablets, saves us a fortune.

The only thing I have ever kept in a cellar is coal.

[suespud]

OMG you people are so oragnised.....lolol
meg..... spreadsheets?????
I do none of this organised thing.... but very rarely run out of anything.
I stop buying for a little while when I cant shut my cupboard doors...lol

[Manoverboard]

We have a rotating 49 day Menu system based on a database, all different meals. Every 7 weeks ( or so ) we do a mega online shop. At this juncture the allocated store cupboards plus freezers are full to bursting. We still shop twice a week for meat plus perishables like vegetables and milk etc.

If any item on our list is on offer we buy more of it but we stick religiously to the list.

There are of course variations between Summer and Winter time or if we wish to revise one, or more, of the choices.

[Kenmo1]

Crumbs, I'm definitely more Suespud than MOB or Meg - like Sue said, you are so organised. I will try to get organised in future.

Maureen

[Dancing Queen]

And me

I don't even write a list I just take the same route up/down the aisles .. of course that gets bu**ered up when the supermarket decide to change everything around then I tend to forget all sorts of things and what I don't forget I can't find

[suespud]

We have a rotating 49 day Menu system based on a database, all different meals. Every 7 weeks ( or so ) we do a mega online shop. At this juncture the allocated store cupboards plus freezers are full to bursting. We still shop twice a week for meat plus perishables like vegetables and milk etc.

If any item on our list is on offer we buy more of it but we stick religiously to the list.

There are of course variations between Summer and Winter time or if we wish to revise one, or more, of the choices.

Moby..please tell me you are taking the P**S...
The only meals I plan are when Im having a family do or people for Dinner.
Not day to day things...
ohhh Im shocked people are sooo organised.
I just eat what I fancy on the day.

[Gill W]

I've just started meal planning, but only about two weeks in advance.

I do keep a larder, as I buy things that I use when they are on offer, but I don't buy things just for the sake of it.

I used to do an Internet shop once a week, and a top up on a Saturday.

But as we've recently retired, we now go out to the supermarket once a week to buy things for our meal plan, and will have a mega Internet top up periodically.

It seems the most efficient way to do it.

I can see that we've already cut our supermarket bills - we haven't changed where we shop (Sainsburys), just the way we shop

[GillD46]

We have a rotating 49 day Menu system based on a database, all different meals. Every 7 weeks ( or so ) we do a mega online shop. At this juncture the allocated store cupboards plus freezers are full to bursting. We still shop twice a week for meat plus perishables like vegetables and milk etc.

If any item on our list is on offer we buy more of it but we stick religiously to the list.

There are of course variations between Summer and Winter time or if we wish to revise one, or more, of the choices.

Moby..please tell me you are taking the P**S...
The only meals I plan are when Im having a family do or people for Dinner.
Not day to day things...
ohhh Im shocked people are sooo organised.
I just eat what I fancy on the day.

I just COULDN'T plan and stick to it. Even last week, I took something out of the freezer ready in the morning but by the evening, couldn't face it that day. So we had it the following day, and I made pitta bread pizzas, which is what I fancied!

My late mother-in- law stuck religiously to a meal plan, eg Mondays were always two boiled eggs because they would have eaten out a lot over the weekend. I couldn't bear that! I'd rather spend a bit more and have some choice.

[Delboy]

We normally do an Internet grocery shop once a week, mostly order on line and go and collect, occasionally we may do a run out at week end to visit shops in Colchester or Ipswich or go into town to visit our high street butcher for our meat products.

We are both retired, times our own, so other than things we do on a regular basis, such as school run 3 afternoons per week, we take life as it comes very rarely plan, especially in regards to meals.

Mrs Delboy will ask me sometime during the day what I fancy for dinner and we take it from there, my normal stock reply is what have you got on occassions we will have different meals to one another. On the days we collect our granddaughter from school Mrs Delboy will cook seperately for her, but again will ask her when we get home from school what she fancy's for tea.

Mrs Delboy will start cooking our dinner once our Granddaughter has been collected, round about 5 pm, you have probably gathered I do not cook.

This week it's a bit busy, today we are off to see Sam Bailey in concert at Southend, so we will stop and have a meal en route probably at a harvester, tomorrow we are at a funeral our daughter is taking us, so will stop and have a meal en route home.
Friday its my birthday so all the family are coming round after work, we are laying on a small buffet and Saturday we are all going out for a meal. As I say we just take life as it comes enter on the calendar any fixed appointments and then work around them, certainly never had a meal planner

[CaroleF]

I tend to plan what meals we are having over a weekend and somehow the rest of the week takes care of itself - often using the freezer. John is always out at Rotary on a Wednesday evening so that's my night off - usually something like jacket potato and beans - something easy. I do an internet shop once a week - started when I broke my ankle four years ago and find it so convenient that I have continued to do it. In between I will pop either to our local, small, Tesco or to our local Waitrose.

I do like cooking, especially for friends but the everyday meal gets a bit monotonous. I have recently been trying to do new things during the week and have just had a spell of cooking some Nigella recipes - John loves her Chicken and Chorizo Traybake - so easy and very tasty. I fiddled with the recipe a bit but I think it's so good I may well give it to friends who come to supper. I love pasta which John doesn't - he's a real potato man - and annoyingly slim whatever he eats. Tonight I have some frozen raw king prawns in the freezer so am going to do a pasta recipe John does like - chopped shallots, skinned chopped tomatoes, white wine, add prawns to cook, season, add a small amount of double cream - serve with pasta and chopped basil - lovely.

We are going away for two nights this week - a late birthday present for me and it's John's birthday the day we go so am looking forward to two nights in the Cotswolds. Am already thinking, right we come back on Saturday, what are we going to have for supper on Saturday evening? There's a food festival in the Cotswolds while we're there and on Saturday morning there's a sort of Farmers' Market in Chipping Campden so may well look for something there. Sunday our daughters are taking us out to lunch to celebrate John's birthday so that's Sunday taken care of.

Now what about Monday? And what about my internet order that I usually have delivered on Friday morning - when am I going to do that? Decisions, decisions!

[Manoverboard]

We have a rotating 49 day Menu system based on a database, all different meals ....

Moby..please tell me you are taking the P**S... I just eat what I fancy on the day.

Nope, no joke and certainly not a p*ss take

It started in a small way many years ago when I took early retirement, Mobietta explained to me that she would just wander up and down the aisles picking up what she thought we would fancy but rarely with a plan in her head. The reality was that she would tend to pick up the same old things, we didn't have eggs on a Monday and pasta on a Wednesday etc but our meals were deffo a tad repetitive and I doubt we had more than a dozen different day on day type meals. It is also a very expensive way of shopping or at least it was for us.

Her domain entirely back then but she asked me to generate a computer based system that would give us much more variety and a better way of doing the shopping. This I did, even down to aisle order ... boy was I mad when Sainsbugs reorganised their store for Christmas that year

It has evolved but it is not restrictive, we can chop n change else go out without any problems at all. At the end of the cycle I do a stock-check and adjust the next online shop ... simples and it works a treat. We also have a Menu Book with a page for each day containing the ingredients to buy and where to locate the recipe etc.

[Meg 50]

........... to generate a computer based system that would give us much more variety and a better way of doing the shopping. This I did, even down to aisle order ... boy was I mad when Sainsbugs reorganised their store for Christmas that year

our list is supermarket aisle sorted too.

They are forever rearranging the store - I'm sure they do it out of spite so we have to rehash the list!

[Stephen]

We have a rotating 49 day Menu system based on a database, all different meals ....

Moby..please tell me you are taking the P**S... I just eat what I fancy on the day.

Nope, no joke and certainly not a p*ss take

It started in a small way many years ago when I took early retirement, Mobietta explained to me that she would just wander up and down the aisles picking up what she thought we would fancy but rarely with a plan in her head. The reality was that she would tend to pick up the same old things, we didn't have eggs on a Monday and pasta on a Wednesday etc but our meals were deffo a tad repetitive and I doubt we had more than a dozen different day on day type meals. It is also a very expensive way of shopping or at least it was for us.

Her domain entirely back then but she asked me to generate a computer based system that would give us much more variety and a better way of doing the shopping. This I did, even down to aisle order ... boy was I mad when Sainsbugs reorganised their store for Christmas that year

It has evolved but it is not restrictive, we can chop n change else go out without any problems at all. At the end of the cycle I do a stock-check and adjust the next online shop ... simples and it works a treat. We also have a Menu Book with a page for each day containing the ingredients to buy and where to locate the recipe etc.

What's the recipe tonight Jim

[Dark Knight]

some people need a job and have too much time on their hands

[Dancing Queen]

Just a bit of useless information

The only aisle(s) that never get moved are wines/spirits/beers and the reason for that is because to obtain the licence it is dependant on where they are situated.

I don't know how some supermarkets get away with doing promotions and placing W/S in other locations but they do.