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Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Shopping and Eating, Eating and Shopping...


The aisles of a  supermarket are full of crying children and  tired people all hungry and ready to go home and collapse. Supermarket's shopping is an endurance sport, predicated on your ability to stay focused and take advantage of any  advertised sales for that day.

Do you shop with a list based on a menu you anticipate to prepare? You are half way right. At least you know that you have to stop by the dairy case for your milk, and visit the vegetable/fruit area for your fresh food.

The experts tell us to stay on the outside aisles. Guess what? The advertisers have that figured out; so, your grab and go stuff meet you at the door and at every angle as you manage to walk on the outside aisles.  My biggest challenge is keeping my mate from ruining my budget and my plan.

For years, I shopped with a list, and he and sometimes the children would wander around to pick up some of their favorite food items that they knew would not be on my list. I would pick up the plain oat cereal, they would show up with a new box of cereal they wanted to try.

We have a better plan now. Once a month we shop at Costco, mainly to stock up on paper goods, canned food, wine, meats and cheeses. The rest of the time, we visit a local grocery store every other week for fresh goods and dairy. We try to walk briskly across the aisles, making this our indoor walk on inclement weather days.

We shop with camera phones and take pictures of specials to share and consult with each  other if one of us is picking up something  across another aisle. This technique has worked well. Hubby eyed avocados and send me a text on the day I took the picture above; I responded by asking how big the avocados were. He answered they were small.  I texted; they might rot before they ripen.

I ended up buying one big avocado that day because once the idea came up, I began to crave for guacamole. From then on, back to the vegetable aisle to pick up tomatoes, cilantro and jalapeno to make pico de gallo.

Here is my guacamole recipe:

One ripe, large avocado, cut into small cubes, and mashed.
A small pinch of salt.
A tablespoon of jarred salsa or fresh pico de gallo. (Recipe on the right.)
Chips for dipping. Buy small corn tortilla, cut them in quarters and fry them in hot oil.



4 comments:

  1. We have a predictable diet. No need for a list. We buy the same things every time with an occasional foray into something new and different. Plus we both hate doing the grocery shopping so we stretch it out as long as possible. Never been to Costco but they built a new one within about 30 minutes or so.

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  2. You have a good plan, Rosaria! I make a little calendar with the days of the week -- Friday through Thursday -- and fill it in with various short menus. Then I make my list. I shop on Friday and don't return until the following week. I have a second list of things I prefer to buy elsewhere and try to stick to that list. My greatest difficulty is my husband keeps going to places on his own and he never takes a list and keeps thinking he's picked up a bargain! Bless... ;-)

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  3. That's a really excellent plan, Rosaria! My husband and I haven't been as wise when it comes to grocery shopping. We'll start shaping up, using some of your strategies!

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  4. That is a great idea to text the specials in a store to each other. Yum. Now, I'm hungry for some guacamole.

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