The count down is on!

So I started this blog on Sunday, September 19 with a view to trying to reduce the amount of food in my cupboards and freezers.  I was also hoping to induce a state of greater clarity in myself about both what I bought and what I ate.  Today, I realized for certain that a change has occurred.

The fridge freezer in the garage is virtually empty save for some Naan bread (took that upstairs to make pizza for the kids' lunch tomorrow with it btw) and a couple of small things.  The chest freezer is about half way down and I can actually almost see what is in it.  Sadly the pantry still contains pearled couscous (my nemesis!) but substantially fewer cans of misc. beans, sauces packages of pasta.  My grocery bill has certainly gone down and I am putting far less into the green bin.

While I have never been one for fast food or prepared stuff, and I love to cook for those I care about, I certainly had lost my inspiration and passion for preparing food.  I think shopping in places like Costco and big supermarkets literally bred that out of me to some degree.  And that's not me.  I'd start in the freezer and then go with whatever we had on hand to make up the meal.

Since I've undertaken this challenge, I've definitely adopted a more European attitude towards meal planning.  I have found myself on numerous occasions in the past weeks walking up and down the produce isles buying what is local and seasonal (beets....yum) or whatever looks fresh and inspiring and basing dinners on that.  Maybe it was bok choy one day, rapini another and butter nut squash another day, but I realized that for a change I wasn't buying all at once and throwing out half of what I bought because it went bad.

Today I really felt like pasta for dinner - it was THAT kind of day - so I went to Longo's with a plan to buy plumb tomatoes and make a fresh sauce.  Gasp!  No fresh plumb tomatoes.  I found myself walking to the canned food section - a place I hadn't been in over 2.5 weeks - and staring at jarred sauces.  $4.99 for the brand name.  $7.99 if you were taken in by the fact that Christine Cushing from the Foodnetwork put her name on another.  Or it was $1.49 for the passata di pomodoro.  Guess what I bought?  Of course, the passata.  Took it home, tossed a glug of olive oil in a pot, added a few cloves of crushed garlic, poured in the passata, added a teaspoon each of oregano and basil, and half an hour later I had a beautiful tomato sauce with enough left over to use for the pizza for the kids for lunch tomorrow.

While I don't think I will be cancelling my membership to Costco anytime soon, I certainly will be more mindful about what I buy there.  To be honest, I think we have depleted things in the freezers to an extent that a visit to Costco is actually NEEDED.  YAY!!!!!!!  I really can't wait.