Home Economics | Hope for the Best Veggies, Meal Plan for the Worst

All single-occupancy dwellers know how much food you waste when you're living alone. Your eyes are a lot bigger than your stomach come market time. If you want to avoid food spoilage, I think it's important to plan your meals for the week even if you don't have an army of children. It may even be more important if you're just a household of one. Meal planning helps you avoid waste and ultimately, save money.

I hate wasting food. It really gives me a heavy heart. So, I try to meal plan and make sure I can get all the veggies through the week. I try to mix it up so I'm not eating the same thing every week and the vegetables get cooked a bit differently throughout the week. Here's an example...


Meals

• Monday - peppered steak, arugula salad, broiled zucchini
• Tuesday - teriyaki zucchini and steak stir-fry
• Wednesday - garlic pasta topped with arugula, insalata caprese
• Thursday - zucchini, tomato & mozzarella bake, grilled steak
• Friday - garlic pasta topped with arugula, broiled tomatoes with mozzarella

Grocery List

1. Arugula
2. Pasta
3. Zucchini
4. 3 packs of small steaks
5. Basil
6. Tomatoes
7. Mozzarella

Once you've got your meals all planned out and the food all purchased, it's important to make sure it'll survive the week. I've searched high and low for recommendations on how to preserve food in the fridge longer. The Old Man is extremely against organic leafy greens, but I buy them because they always look better than the conventional bagged lettuce. (So we get E. coli, big whoop!) I can put a sheet of paper towel in the box to suck up moisture and prevent the lettuce from wilting. If I buy heads of lettuce, the revive the wilted lettuce in a cup of water the day of. I do the same with parsley and cilantro the day I buy it, as seen below.

Hydroponics are another option for preserving vegetables, especially herbs. Green onions, you never need as much for a recipe as come in a bunch. So, I put them in an old jar with a little bit of water to let the roots grow and I always have a bit of green onion flavor or garnish. (I do add NPK to the water.) There are all kinds of "living" herbs, like the basil below, at grocery stores now. Or if you have a green thumb, you can plant a nice boxed herb garden.

Note: I'm slowly killing the basil. (Despite working in agriculture, I may have the blackest thumb known to man.) The basil has gone through two meals so far. (I think I added too much water to the jar I put it in.) However, it was only $3.99 at Wholefoods. That's how much cut basil is most anywhere, so if I can get a few more meals out of it, it's well worth it!