Hello! If you live in the USA, I want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving holiday. I know you're most likely busy right now but I wanted to pop in to remind you to save that turkey carcass (such an unattractive word!) and make turkey soup! Last year I wrote step by step posts to make no fail turkey soup. This post is where it begins!  We will be a small gathering this year but whether large or small, I always make a big turkey because we are a family who loves their turkey. The day after Thanksgiving I'll be listening to carols, decorating the house for Christmas, and making turkey stock. I actually look forward to the day after! 

Both my pantry and freezer need a good cleaning. They are unorganized and jumbled and despite my good intentions, I've simply let them both go. I know I can't even begin to think about cleaning either of them until I use up much of the food I've been storing. So before the hectic holiday season begins I'm going to challenge myself to eat mainly out of my pantry and freezer--use it up and create some space with a bonus of making Zero Dollar Dinners. After the challenge, I can give everything a good scrub, but October is going to be for cooking and eating what I have, not for shopping. Want to do it with me? Please say yes! Read on to see how we'll do it.

I'll admit that the first 47 years of my married life I was haphazard about planning and shopping for dinner. I love to cook and make a nice dinner most nights, but my prep skills were a disaster. I like to think I was spontaneous, but really I was just a crappy planner, which is funny, because I'm an ace at planning for a party. But for everyday cooking, I'd plan for two to three nights tops, make a list, shop, then forget several crucial ingredients which would send me back to the store at the most crowded time. Here's the thing, I loved to cook but hated to shop. Enter my retired husband. He said he would take over the shopping duties and claimed to enjoy it. Actually I think he liked having a reason to drive his vintage red Corvette around town and loved running into my girlfriends and chatting it up over the produce section. This was a great arrangement for both of us and we went along for a decade like this. Then 2020 came along and we were asked to stay home. Plan ahead. Make do. There would be no more popping into the grocery store and local vegetable stand every day. There would be no spontaneity or spur of the moment anything. We all had to change our ways. (And in those early days, there were loads of items that were impossible to find. People were hoarding. It's off topic but I still can't get over that. So rude!) So I thought, well, if I can't change my ways in a pandemic, exactly when could I change my ways? I talked to my daughter and daughter-in-law to see what they were doing about getting food into the house. Since they have less time than I do, they both have always planned ahead. (Talk to a busy person, they always have the best time-saving tips.) I picked their brains, embraced their ideas, added my own, engaged my husband in the process, tossed out a few ideas that didn't work, and now we have a way of planning our meals that is easy and rather fun too. 

Friends, here is how I plan my dinners two weeks at a time, make fast trips to the grocery store twice a month, and visit the vegetable stand only once a week. It took me a while to get it right, but now I love our new routine.

First, and since we can never remember what we like (!), we made a master list of about 75 everyday dinner ideas. It included all our favorite stews, soups, chilis, a dozen chicken breast/thigh recipes, you get the idea. They were often simple things that I don't need a recipe for such as teriyaki pan fried salmon served on a bed of salad or a whole roasted chicken which I could make blind-folded. But if the dinner idea needed a recipe, such as Bahn Mi Lettuce Wraps, I put the recipe in my newly created "dinner ideas" folder.  Most of my everyday recipes take about 30-40 minutes active cook time, and some much less. In this master dinner list I also included several dozen of our favorite side dishes. Sides like roasted asparagus or roasted tomatoes don't need a recipe, but if it did, I added the recipe to my dinner ideas folder too.

The next time I went to the grocery store I took pictures of the signs above the aisles. When I got home I made a spreadsheet with cells for labeled aisles in order, see third picture below. Now when I enter the store at one end I follow my shopping list aisle by aisle to the other end. No more running back and forth in the store for things I forgot. I'm in and out in a flash. 

Twice a month I'll have my husband go through the dinner ideas folder. He'll pull out what he'd like to see on the menu for the next two weeks, I'll add my own and add side dishes too. I write our dinner ideas down on my shopping list, mindful of what is in season, consider if we might do a night of takeout, then go through the recipes to see what ingredients I already have on hand and what I need to shop for. This completely eliminates forgetting things like sour cream or curry spice, and trekking back to the store, which is a no-no these days anyway.

As I cook the dinners, I cross them off my list. The following week I don't go to the grocery store, but I'll pop into the corner greengrocer for milk and to purchase the fresh produce I need for our remaining dinners. I know that some dinners, such as a big roasted chicken will last for three dinners--first night is roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, then we'll have it again on the second night, and on the following night we'll have chicken salad. Then the bones get tossed into a large freezer container. When the bone container is full I'll make chicken stock and then chicken soup will be on the next dinner list. Some dinners will be doubled because neither of us mind planned leftovers. This is especially nice when we have Carter for the day and I don't feel like cooking dinner when he leaves, I can simply heat up the plannedover from the night before. We loved stuffed poblano peppers and lettuce wraps of any kind and have oodles of recipes for both, and they are perfect for doubling. 

And now I want to address all those cookbooks and recipes I've collected over the years. They did not avoid my 2020 decluttering extravaganza. My girlfriend lives in another state, but we decided to each go through our cookbooks "together" and get rid of the ones we didn't use anymore.  If there was a cookbook which was saved for only one or two recipes, the recipe was copied, put in my recipe file, and the cookbook was donated. My local charity shop took every discarded cookbook, thank heaven. And BTW, my recipe files got a deep cleaning too!  I was holding onto magazine clippings such as a super rich first course for a Stilton Stuffed Onion and even had one for Blueberry Chicken. What was I thinking? I had a good laugh going through it.

I hope you like my new-to-me dinner planning. I imagine if you live way out in the country this kind of meal planning is not new to you, but for me, planning ahead has been amazing. 

My recipes file is on the desk near my kitchen table where I do the meal planning.

My Dinner Ideas list is still growing. We need it because we forget what we like! Without this list we both just look at each other and can't remember a thing. The corresponding recipes are in the file folder.

Normally I print out my shopping spreadsheet two-sided so I only have to deal with one piece of paper. The list follows my store, aisle by aisle. I keep it on my desk and add things throughout a two week period then finalize it the night before I go shopping. No more forgetting things!

My condensed cookbook section is not too small, but now it is smaller by a dozen books.

We kicked off Christmas this year by hosting a gingerbread house decorating party with our little family pod of six. Carter 100% helped me from start to finish. This is obviously a wonderful activity to do with children, and even the tiniest ones can help. If you are concerned about offering so much candy, use pretzels, nuts, cereals, seeds, etc. instead. 

Day one we made the dough and baked the gingerbread pieces. I have a wonderful recipe that I've written down for you.  Find full recipe and how-to here.

Day two we covered cardboard pieces with butcher paper to act as bases, then constructed the houses with royal icing "glue".

Day three we did a decorating mock run because we were very excited and could not wait for the actual party.

Day four, party time! We asked each guest to bring a bag of candy to share but I made sure I had lots of candy varieties available as well.

This is a fun activity to do with your family or pod this year and you don't even need to bother doing it old school like I do. I know Target and Ikea sell pre-baked kits now, and of course loads of cute ones are on Amazon. Using a kit will dramatically reduce your kitchen time, but when I have Carter I'm usually looking for things we can do together, so baking the house pieces was a good thing.

You might have noticed my tablecloth. I actually cross-stitched it 30 plus years ago from a Bucilla kit. It's held up well and still looks so cute, especially for a gingerbread house decorating party!

I'll be back soon with more seasonal cooking, crafts and knitting, all of which are keeping us home; now more than ever it's important to stay home and stay safe. What activities are you doing this holiday season?

Hugs, Kristen.

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