This Time I'm Really Going To Do It

Firegirl

Oh I love a good clear out!!!!! I wear the same things over and over anyway! The favourites!!!

CathT

Hi watty, i looked for your diary a few days ago after seeing your posts on other threads. Have really enjoyed reading it and I hope all goes well with most handsome and your dog is doing OK.

Congratulations on becoming MF, an incredible achievement.

Watty1

Thanks CathT.
Dog is doing so much better than expected. He is still here, still well and still enjoying life and bringing so much joy.
Mr Watty and I are trying not to leave him on his own at any time so he is loving all the extra fuss and attention. I try to make sure that the dog has something to enjoy every day too, so make the effort to walk him where previously I might just have let me run over the fields while I did the horses and as he loves car travel he comes most places with me now. I think Wattydog enjoying life very much at the moment.

Watty1

Started the month food plan today so no time to de-clutter.
My idea was too cook for a day and then we will be set for the month. Didn't quite work out like that as didn't have the whole day free as working but a very respectable 6 servings of fish in orange, 6 servings of beef stew, 8 lentil soups, 6 curried parsnip soups, some chicken curries and 6 ginger pear puds all stashed along with beef chopped up ready for the stir fries and 8 pasta sauces all freezing away.
Tomorrow will make a sausage stew and pick up a couple of pork fillets for roasting from butcher and make 6 servings of lamb shanks in balsamic vinegar.
Mr Watty is making a chilli first thing.
Just need to buy a few salads and veggies to eek the meals out and that is the cooking done for the month.
Am hoping this will save both time and money.
Did have to buy some more pots to freeze everything in though (£40 worth of pots in fact!)

hiddenshadow

Very nice! I'd like to try once-a-month cooking sometime - need to figure out what to cook!

apple_muncher

Did you need to buy a new freezer to fit it all in...?

Watty1

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Very nice! I'd like to try once-a-month cooking sometime - need to figure out what to cook!

Well doing a month food plan seemed overwhelming to me but then a website suggested picking a few meals you would be happy to eat 4 times. Suddenly it was obvious.

apple_muncher wrote: »

Did you need to buy a new freezer to fit it all in...?

No. I thought we might but I spent last month running down what we had in the freezer. I did have to buy a lot of storage pots that were just single portion size though.


Went to butcher today for to buy meat for the rest of the meals. Love the butchers. He sold me lamb shoulder much cheaper as they didn't have lamb shanks and cut it into hunks for me and did a special deal on the sausages so rather now have to squeeze those into freezer but was so cheap as not to worry about that!
Work busy though so no time to cook or declutter. Hope to be caught up this evening and back to decluttering and cooking tomorrow.

CathT

Very productive batch cooking!

Watty1

Monthly cook session done. Just need to divide up cheap sausages and freeze and wrap pork in herbs and freeze.
Tips for next time

• Put the ironing board away! Having walked around it for two days I have stubbed toe countless times and knocked iron off.
• Make sure there is clean teatowels. Can't believe the mess I've made
• Start with sufficient containers. Wasted an age tipping things into freezer bags and labelling and washing up a mountain of containers. Buying more part way through with next day delivery solved that!
• Buy the food the day before so that any extra dash trips to local shops don't eat into day. The large bags of onions bought and delivered by Mr O contained 3 onions roughly golf bowl size :rotfl:
• Rope Mr Watty in for washing up

On the plus side I think this will save us money and time and we should eat better too.

greent

Wow - great goings on the monthly batch cooking! :T We are 'eating the freezer' this month - it's crazily full of weird odds and ends (23 bananas....??) and I'm determined to get it down!


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