What's for tea??

Do you find yourself staring at your pantry hoping for some inspiration?
Or do you seem to spend a whole lot of money on groceries and never seem to come home with much?
Do you often end up buying an expensive takeaway meal because you either can’t think of anything to cook or you are sick of eating the same meals over and over??

This was my situation just a few months ago. I started checking out different websites looking for inspiration. If you are reading this then you have probably done the same thing and would know all about the many different ways that people have to try to organise their cooking. You can cook and freeze all your meals for a whole month (www. ) or write down all your recipes and buy in bulk. In fact, there are countless ways to organise your household’s mealtimes. I’m not offering anything new or even that exciting – just a system that I’ve adopted which works well for me.

You see, I’m not a really well-disciplined person and so the thought of planning and cooking 30 meals in advance scares me LOL. I also love to eat food and enjoy different tastes so I like to have room for exploring new recipes and adapting the ones that I know and love. I should warn you now that I don’t cook with recipes – I make things up as I go along, adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I don’t think that I have ever made one pasta sauce that tastes the same as a previous one!!

With this system you are not tied down to a rigid meal plan nor do you have to go out and buy a huge deep freeze. The information provided here will help you to maintain a semi-organised meal system which allows room for improvisation and last minute changes.

The main objectives behind this system are to:

  1. Save money
  2. Avoid food wastage (and therefore money wastage)
  3. Provide variety
  4. Make grocery shopping less of a brain strain
  5. Avoid the "what’s-for-dinner" doldrums

So how does this system work? Well, it’s basically just a list of complete meals that you have in stock which you keep on the fridge door and cross off as you use one.

Sounds simple doesn’t it – well it is in principle, but in practice you need to maintain a fairly well organised system so that you have all the necessary ingredients to cook all of the meals on your list. There is no point in listing ten exotic dishes if all you have in your pantry is a can of tuna!