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Dana K. White

A SLOB COMES CLEAN

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Pantry Challenge is Making me a Little Nervous

January 15, 2010 By Dana White | 4 Comments

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I’m getting nervous. My convenience foods are disappearing. The cupboard and the fridge are beginning to look especially bare. The freezer is getting there.

This is what I wanted to do. But convenience food is so . . . . convenient.

My mother grew up on a farm. She had a disdain for convenience food that she passed down to me . Things should be made from scratch. “Preservatives” was a bad word.

When my husband and I were first married, I clearly remember a conversation that we had while driving home from work together. I said something like “Just think, when we have kids and I stay home, we won’t eat Velveeta anymore!”

He was horrified.

I was thinking that once I had all that extra time because I wasn’t working (har–dee–har–har–har) I could make everything, and I mean everything, from scratch.

He was thinking that he loved Velveeta.

For years after having children, but before I learned how to really use coupons, I avoided convenience foods out of a sense of duty. But I also found that I didn’t have the time or energy to make everything from scratch. Consequently, we often didn’t have much food around.

Then, when I began couponing, I experienced what so many new couponers do. My once bare pantry was now full to the brim with pop-tarts and fruit snacks.

I quickly learned that I had to achieve some balance. New rules were made. Pop-tarts were designated for Sunday mornings, when Mama has to be at church early and Daddy has to get the kids ready by himself. (A good time for some convenience.)

I’ve definitely learned better balance over the 2 years I’ve been couponing, but this challenge has helped me get some perspective back that I had started to lose. I was relying too heavily on packaged convenience foods.

As I’ve been decluttering kitchen cabinets for the last two days, I’ve found things that I had completely forgotten. I found a pound of beans. Beans are rarely on our menu as an individual item, but I do have several recipes in which I use canned beans. The beans were being wasted because of their “inconvenience.” So I hauled the crockpot out of my newly organized cabinet and dumped them in with some water and spices and set them on low.

This morning, after they had cooled, I divided them into ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. Now I’ll use them instead of canned beans in recipes. Equally as convenient, AND from scratch.

I also found an almost full bag of brown rice that I had forgotten about. Hubby likes to take “real meals” for his lunches, so if we don’t have enough leftovers from the night before, we’re sometimes scrounging for a carb. I always have chicken breasts or beef patties cooked up in the freezer, but I’ve been eyeing those “NEW!” individual servings of Minute Rice that came out recently. So this morning when I found the brown rice, I pulled out the handy-dandy rice-cooker. Now I have enough to make my own individually frozen servings of brown rice, using something I already had, and basically with no work on my part. Totally convenient.

I’m very thankful for this pantry challenge because it has helped me get back to the roots of who I want to be as a mom. I’m all about making life easier, but sometimes a little bit of upfront work provides equal convenience to the packaged foods without the guilt, unknown ingredients, and that dirty word . . . preservatives.

I’m not saying that I won’t grab convenience foods when I can get them for ultra-cheap. But as a slob, I tend to imagine that tasks like cooking dried beans are much bigger than they really are. I needed this reminder.

Check out Frugal Friday at Lifeasmom.com for some great ideas.

Related Posts:

Read Newer Post I’ll Declutter . . . But Do I Have to Give Up ALL my Dreams?
Read Older Post Daily Checklist – Kids are home

Filed Under: kitchen, pantry challenge Tagged With: frugal friday | 4 Comments

Comments

  1. Jennifer says

    January 15, 2010 at 11:41 pm

    Way to go on figuring out how to live without convenience foods. I have been trying to make my own more and recently tried pudding, hummus and garlic herb bread. I felt so much better giving my kids the food I had made rather than the store bought stuff loaded with yucky ingredients.

    Reply
  2. Nony says

    January 16, 2010 at 4:28 am

    I'm not giving up all convenience foods, but it is amazing how small successes in making my own encourages me to try more.

    Reply
  3. Jenny says

    January 17, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    I have slowly started to pull myself away from convenience foods too. I started by making my own chicken broth. So EASY and SOOO much better than what I was buying at the store. From one chicken I got 8 cups of broth and 4- 5 cups of shredded chicken to put in my freezer. Beans are my next attempt.

    Reply
  4. Kristy K. James says

    August 7, 2013 at 4:02 am

    I had to give up gluten a couple of years ago…and did very badly at it. Sometimes I’d go months at a time, but then things like a real hot dog bun would send me on a weeks-long gluten binge (and I’m not especially fond of hot dogs). Over time, I learned that my asthma like symptoms were caused by gluten. Once I realized that, I’m off gluten permanently. I like to breathe, lol.

    I also learned something else that totally stunned me.

    About a year into my on again/off again attempts, I found myself jealous that my kids could eat all sorts of prepared food, and was overjoyed when I found some individual serving microwave dinners. I bought two, intending to have one as soon as I got home, and the other the next day.

    Much to my surprise, ALL I could taste was chemicals. No hint of even the tiniest bit of flavor from the chicken, rice, or veggies. About four bites into and I pitched it in the trash.

    All that to say that having to make most everything I eat from scratch (now on a permanent basis), it’s quite an education for your taste buds when you do find convenience foods you can eat…or in my case, toss them out.

    My ‘convenience foods’ these days is thawed, flattened chicken breast tenders, or ground beef patties…and instant potatoes or salad. Knowing that I can freeze RICE will help me come up with more quick meals. I’m already impressed your suggestion to cook, drain and freeze packages of cooked burger.

    As a side note here, my son is autistic…high functioning enough that he can cook a little. He was extremely disgusted when I froze the first batch of burger. He has since ‘seen the light,’ and asks regularly if there’s cooked burger in the freezer. 🙂

    Reply

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