I'll make this as quick and painless as possible, which is to say not very.

Day 7 and we made it.  Pretty much.  Budget almost nearly kept, to within 5% anyway, which I'd call a win. I might even call it a first. 

Judging by the photos I took, it looks like we lived off snack food for the week, but we ate actual meals too.  Breakfast was mostly porridge or homemade muesli, an egg every now and then.  Lunches were sandwiches made from homemade bread, pizza rolls, bacon butties, often accompanied by fruit and popcorn, and I did succumb to cherry and chocolate chip cookie overload on one occasion or three.  You eat one and see if you can blame me.

Dinners: Devilled meatballs, roast chicken, chicken risotto, spinach and ricotta cannelloni, penne bolognaise, creamy tomato chicken, and pot roast beef.  There was even an apple crumble with cream, and a homemade peach icecream with rice pudding thrown in there too. Yes, it was rather a feast.

 

Which was the revelation.  I'm all for the organic thing, sustainability and animal welfare being rather hard to argue against, and there has been an immensely pleasurable lack of packaging hanging around the house too.  I don't much enjoy the sanctimonius whiff that seems to hang over organic stores sometimes, but maybe that is just the incense. The real epiphany came Saturday night when I answered the usual round of "what's for dinner?" with "I don't know.  Chicken something."

Because I didn't know.  None of my usual combination of recipe ingredients were in the cupboards, and the recipe books weren't of much help either.  Going to the supermarket for a top-up would really screw up the whole experiment, so I had no choice. I winged it.  Pulled out some ingredients I thought might like each other, including the stunted but still nutritious rainbow chard that has been sitting in a pot on my patio forever, and made up dinner.

Going into my pantry and finding quality ingredients there, ingredients that were costing me less than my usual chaotic style of medicore shopping, using them in a nutritious (and super yum too, she says modestly) meal that isn't in any recipe book anywhere and could only have come out of my kitchen in this season on that particular night - it was magic.  Pure and simple magic.

So the experiment continues and morphs into a lifestyle.  I am home-cook, hear me roar.

Comments

[Ali]

Sounds like a very tasty food week to me! It's good when a plan comes together.

And what is a pizza roll?

[Sue]

Yes, what is a pizza roll? I think the answer could be the one I've been looking for all my life.

Been following your challenge with interest - this is something I fondly imagine I will do myself one day soon - you have inspired me, so maybe, maybe...

:-)

[Tricia]

Amazing! Imagine...staying within a food budget and actually having FOOD around the house!
Sometimes I go to the grocery store and spend a ton of money and come out with...no food! Lots of treats and medicines and paper products...but nothing to EAT!
The last two weeks,however, I have been haunting a Pioneer Woman Cooks site and have managed to put together quite a few meals that at least half of my picky teens will eat so that makes spending a lot of time in a hot kitchen worth it!
Keep up the cooking and the pics!
Tricia

[Tanya]

FABULOUS! It sounds...reading between the lines....like it was actually a lot of work for you. But, you probably have to work pretty hard anyway, ;-) so that makes it over-the-top that you had fun along the way. LOVE LOVE LOVE the observations about Saturday night's epiphany and the noticeable lack of packaging. I'm all for that...I feel like all I do is rinse and sort packaging. I also thought the comment about the incense at the organic food store was pretty funny.

Thank you for sharing the 'summary' AND the photos. It was like a southern hemisphere "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" moment. But, better :-).

[Kate Bruning]

I just want to hear more.... greedy like my name I guess.

[Katie]

Love this. I'm inspired!

[Jennifer]

everything you cooked sounds like just what i want to eat...have lost my cooking mojo lately...you have inspired me to go and try to find it;)

[Ange]

Yes, the days when food just falls into place and it turns out all right and delicious are just splendid, aren't they?