Since last week I have further eaten down without replacement:
- seasoned rice wine vinegar
- oatmeal
- tin of roasted eel
- rye flour
- silken tofu
- capers
- can of baby corn
- 1 qt frozen peaches
- 1 jar of commercial jam (raspberry)
This week I spent $25.54 on food groceries, to bring the total this month thus far to $41.37, and purchased mainly often used perishable and veg (carrots, onions, cucumber, milk, heavy cream, coconut milk, can tuna, mozzarella, chickpeas, tortilla chips). The heavy cream I bought to make ice cream with half, the other half I will use to whip for the cupcakes currently in the freezer. The coconut milk I consider a necessity as I eat curry often and have quite a lot of curry paste still. The tuna likewise as I eat it fairly often and it is nice to have a can in reserve in case I don’t have anything easily assemble-able some time. (I try to buy yellowfin and it doesn’t really go on sale, so it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to stockpile it.) The chickpeas, although I am trying to use those up, I bought so that I would have enough to make a batch of hummus, having only a small amount in the house. The chips I could not resist and were perhaps the least necessary, but they were 99 cents for a big bag, so… Still have potatoes, a bit of cabbage, frozen beans, frozen zucchini, frozen peaches, citrus from neighbors.
I made this week (among other things) crab cakes, homemade tartar sauce (for said crab cakes), lasagna (using up the silken tofu I bought probably 6 months ago for no specific purpose, plus part of a jar of homemade marinara), knockoff 360 Burrito bowl (using some Thai sweet chili sauce and aforementioned chips), sushi bowls (with vinegar and sushi rice plus toppings). I do use seasoned rice vinegar quite often, but have found that apple cider vinegar is a decent substitute, so I will use up all that (which I use less quickly) before I purchase more. I ate a tin of roasted eel bought a few months ago - it was ok (had on/with a sushi bowl) but won’t purchase again without a specific purpose. Used up 1 of the 2 bags of freezer peaches from last summer. Made tzatziki. Made mocha ice cream. Baked bread. Finished the previous open jar of jam (raspberry) and opened up a jar of peach rosemary jam. Still slowly working through powdered goats milk mixed into smoothies. (Smoothies are sometimes just fruit/yogurt/milk and sometimes protein powder/yogurt/milk.) Still have 2 meals frozen fish/shrimp. Still have partial jar of cherry juice. Old rye flour is now gone and I have moved on to using up the spelt flour. Made “toast” pizza (like English muffin pizza but on toasted bread because I currently have bread and no English muffins) using the open marinara and mozzarella, rehydrated mushrooms, and pepperoncini peppers.
Added to the “stock” of items the tin of tuna and the chickpeas (though this is kind of questionable that they truly are “stock”), but drew down much more than this, so am still further net negative (which is good and the goal). I will soon need dill, maple syrup, tahini, maybe cabbage. This week’s grocery shop felt slightly spendy (mozzarella and heavy cream are a bit lux) given my goal of using up what I already have, but 2.5 weeks have passed and only 2 to go, so I will likely end up below $100, unless I buy a bunch of more expensive stuff (like maple syrup and tahini). I am craving good olives. I could easily drop $20 on olives.
I condensed my master list from ~5 pages down to ~3.5. It becomes ever increasingly difficult to cross things off the list. This week will likely include leftover crab cakes, black bean soup, ramen/udon/miso-type soup, curry, more toast pizza, tuna sandwiches, fish/shrimp tacos, pasta, dolsot bibimbop, dolmades, seitan “ribs” (with homemade BBQ sauce), and I don’t know what else. I have a plan to use my coffee flavored soy milk (which actually contains real coffee!?) to make smoothies with chocolate protein powder. As some of the lesser-used condiments get used up the refrigerator feels increasingly free. The quest continues.