Buying food on a daily basis?

alyth

I'm totally fed up of throwing food out - as background, OH works quite long hours, and I'm never sure when he's going to be home for dinner, and I temp and have started a new contract working 3 days a week for about 3 months. it came to a head towards the end of last week when I realised that I'd taken something out of the freezer for dinner, but when I got home I was starving, and he wasn't going to be home for another couple of hours. Our downtime is that we always eat together, it's important to us, it's a nice way of relaxing.

As I have to go past Asda every day, a thought came to me in that I could go and buy something eat night on the way home for our dinner - I am fed up of throwing out food, and this happens at least once a week, in that I could stop at the supermarket on the way home, buy something nice for dinner, therefore avoiding the wastage.

Does anyone else do this? I do make meals in advance and freeze them, nothing terribly exciting, just spag bol and things like that, but I am quite frankly sick of having a freezer full of food, and throwing out things! OH will not eat meat that has been frozen, so I'd be interested to know whether anyone shops like this - menu planning is no good for us due to work commitments!

letsgobilliejoe

i currently live in student halls after living with my fiancee (who CANNOT cook!) for 2 1/2 years, and she is in halls 5 miles away. Before we came down here we planned that i would batch cook (as i always did) and bring pots round for her to re-heat. However I have very little fridge and freezer space in my shared kitchen and she has the tiniest fridge (no freezer) in her room. Therefore it is practically impossible to cook how i would like. also my flatmates are scumbags who don't clean up after themselves. Stupid boys. You ask for mixed sex flats and what do they do? go and divided the flats predominately by sex. I get on so much better with girls!

I can't wait 'til next year and we move in to our place with one of her flatmates. So cosy, easy to manage and much more how i like it. I so do not live the typical student life.

whatatwit

The idea of daily shopping appears great, but, in reality, you end up buying ready to cook stuff.
After all, you don't always have the time to cook a roast when you get home after work.
Why don't you use a slow cooker more, that way, you could buy something the day before on the way home and then do it for the following nights tea.

If you did a basic mince and tomato sauce, you could have a bolgnaise that night and then transform the remainder into a chilli for the next night.

[Deleted User]

As whatatwit said it sounds good, but in reality you will probably spend more .but on the other hand if you try to cook two meals every other day you could probly do it .
Pork chops will be o.k. in the fridge if wrapped well should keep.I agree a mega saucepan full of cooked mince is very versatile . Spag Bol one night, and lasngne or chillie the following .A slow cooker is worth it's weight in gold as you can bung it all in in the morning, and it's ready when you are in the evening. When I was working full time and had a husband and two hungry children to feed I always used a long tuppaware container full of water to keep my peeled spuds in .That cuts down on time spent peeling spuds when you come in .
I used to peel loads and fill the container up every three or four days .As long as you change the water every night the spuds will keep beautifully. My frige was always full of peeled veggies in water as it saves no end of time when you stagger through the door exhausted from work.
Throwing food away is wasteful and very demoralising.My late husband worked very erratic hours in his job, and I too liked to have a hot meal ready for him.It was rare that the children ever saw their Dad for mealtimes during the week so we made up for it at week-ends . I would say invest in a slow -cooker then at least a casserole won't spoil as the longer it cooks the more tender the meat will be .You can cook almost anything in a slow-cooker and I have never burnt anything yet .

mrtg0525

Well, I currently do buy food on a daily basis but on the weekends only as I don't cook during the week (access to a very reasonably priced canteen at work and I don't really eat anything but an apple or so in the evenings). I don't do this because I do like food shopping so much, but rather because my fridge/freezer gave up the ghost recently and I haven't yet got around to purchase a replacement.

I would say that as a money-saving measure it doesn't work very well even if you're disciplined enough to go shopping with a proper list and stick to it. The main reason is that I always find that I've got leftovers simply because most pre-packed foods (like mince etc, not ready meals) are a little on the generous side for a single person. I'd rather be able to cook a couple of meals and freeze the leftovers, plus as I don't really like to go shopping for food that often, I'd be happy to revert back to getting fresh food in once a week.

GardenMillie

I wouldn't go for the daily shop either - it's just too tempting to go in for one or two things and come out with a lot more.

The slow cooker is brilliant you can makes soups as well as savoury dishes. My sister puts her soup in overnight, switches it off in the morning and eats the soup in the evening - she says the flavour is better.

Also how about pasta with a nice sauce - easy to make when your OH gets in and not too wasteful. I love gnocci with tomato & chilli sauce and flake some tuna through it.

Happy cooking.:T

Hardup_Hester

I shop daily, as I walk past a Tesco Express on my way to work, I go in every morning & head straight for the reduced section, if there is nothing in there we will eat I walk out again. It does take a bit of diciplne, but it works for me. I do a bulk shop around every 3 months & I buy most of my meat at the local butchers.
Yesterday I bought, a chicken, broccoli, spring greens mushrooms & crumpets, I spent around £3 & with stuff I already have at home, I will make 3 or 4 main meals from that for 3 of us & 5 or 6 portions of soup for lunches.
Hester

hannaha100

Welcome to the student lifestyle! Those of us without cars have to shop several times a week because we can't physically carry more food... And it can work well!

Although Asda is great I'd recommend looking for a local grocer or cornershop as they're cheaper and you won't be tempted to buy junk that's on sale - though this'll depend what time you get home from work, ours is open till 6 on weekdays.

Also if he won't eat frozen meat what about freezing some nice vegetarian meals? Ridiculously easy ones are vegetarian lasagne, chilli etc add a nice salad or something and you're sorted. Obviously you don't want that everyday but it's nice if you're coming home late!

stefejb

The only trouble with shopping daily is that you might get tempted into buying other stuff but i generally do this - meal plan and write a daily list and stick to it (more or less), take a basket instead of a trolley, stop at the checkout and just review the contents of your basket to make sure you've not been naughty. I'm limited by what can fit on the bike

alyth

thanks for all your replies, it's great to get other perspectives on this. Where I live there's only a tiny little shop, and the nearest town is 10 miles away, so no local butchers/greengrocers or anything like that. it's just I'm getting fed up with spending £50 a week on food, it lying in the freezer, and then not wanting to eat what I've taken out! I started going to Asda a couple of weeks ago after work, just picking up a basket and going straight for the reduced section, and I've been really lucky in getting things like sirloin steaks, stir-frys etc at a good price. My main point for this, apart from being able to just pick up what I want eat night, is that I'm saving for a big trip abroad, and I'm fed up with having food in the house that's basically money I've spent and perhaps won't eat for ages! I'm going to stop going for the main weekly shop and go every night on the way home from work, but as I only work 3 days a week at the moment, I thought if I do things like buy a chicken, then have that, make a curry with the rest of it when I'm off, make soups, then there will be food for us, but just not loads of stuff in the freezer! I'm certainly disciplined enought as the thought of my trip is stopping me spending!