Kitchen management

Monday is kitchen management day.   Winco has a special with coupon at the store or buy a 1/2 of a ham and get a package of bacon for free.    That makes a three pound ham seven dollars or so.   A three pound ham goes a long ways.

It's not something we eat every day, so once or twice a year won't kill us.   LOL

The first step is to look at your meal plans and see what you can do ahead to make life easier.   This weeks plans.  This week, there is not much that can hold a few days: most of the cooking can be done in the morning each day.

• Clean the fridge and organize it.   Sweet on one refrigerator door shelf,the rest on the other.   Milk gets a shelf and salad dressing gets another.  Top taller shelf gets the oversized things, next floor tortillas, eggs, ; dairy ( yogurt is in a bin ) and the bottom shelf is for the bread bucket and the celery crisper.    
• We have cheese drawer, vegetable drawer, and meat drawer.   
• Clean out the drawers and wash them.  I line the drawers with paper towel.    
• Wash the stove top and filter.   
• Wash the floor 
• Organize the pantry : take inventory 

Starting the week clean and organized goes a long ways in taking the stress out of meals.    

Better, cheaper, faster for five dollar or less dinners.    Our average weekly food budget was about 55 a week including stocking.   Without stock, it was 40.00 a week.   The USDA stars for the three of us for the lowest category is about 110.00 .   Note : my daughter reimburses me for daughters part.   

This is done by paying  1/2 price for our food and buying best quality more economical cuts of meat,  

All the while, we are watching our fat, sugar, and salt consumption by cooking scratch instead of packaged products and finding scratch recipes that take minimal time to make dinners more efficient.  

Yes, you can have it all!