Recently I’ve been trying to figure out how I can live up to my grand ideals while not ending up completely exhausted. I absolutely want to minimise my impact on the environment, preserve our planet for my children’s children, and so forth. I’m still learning to live more frugally and to generally manage money better. But does anyone else find it somewhat ironic that living the ‘simple life’ seems to involve having to do a load of time-consuming, menial activities that can often be (initially, at least) quite complicated undertakings? In our convenience-obsessed society, I think that this puts a lot of people off even trying to ‘get back to basics’.
For example, there is this nice idea of ‘cooking from scratch’. This really appeals to me – I love cooking, and I prefer to use fresh, locally sourced, organic (if possible) ingredients and to prepare food that is as healthy as it is delicious. However, cooking from scratch becomes significantly less appealing at 5pm in the evening when my toddler starts hanging off my leg and pulling everything out of the kitchen cupboards while I am in the middle of preparing a meal.
It is also difficult to devote time to preparing food from scratch when there is so much else to be done. In the coming months I’m going to be heavily pregnant, and then later there will be a tiny baby to cope with. If I am finding it a challenge to put my beliefs into practice now, just think what it will be like in a few months’ time!
These are the thoughts that have been running through my head in recent weeks. I have realised that I spend more time, on a daily basis, preparing food and clearing up than I do on any other activity (besides sleeping). That’s a lot of time! Part of this has to do with having a toddler (meal-times take such a long time) but I think there’s more to it than that.
So, being a determined little bunny, and not one to accept defeat easily, I have tried to devise some cunning strategies to ease the practical burden on myself – specifically in relation to food. I thought this might make an interesting blog post for any other mums or ‘whiz in the kitchen’ wannabes who, frankly, find the whole food preparation thing a bit hard to cope with at times. I think, if we’re honest, we all do. That’s why the takeaway business is a multi-million dollar industry!
Here are my mini-goals for the month ahead:
- To continue planning meals a week in advance and doing the weekly grocery shop based on the meal plan
- To have a firm budget for the weekly grocery bill, and to stick to it
- To make a big pot of hearty vegetable soup once a week that will serve for at least one evening meal and one hot lunch (to coincide with our meat-free day and to be incorporated into the meal plan)
- Wherever possible, to always cook enough for two meals so that I can have every other night off cooking (this is to be incorporated into the meal plan)
- To plan so that a maximum of one meal per day requires any significant preparation
- To incorporate more ‘whole foods’ that can be eaten raw and cold dishes that do not require cooking or reheating into our diet
- To plan so that I can have one full day off of cooking (and doing the dishes, hopefully, if the husband will oblige!)
- To regularly reflect on what has and hasn’t been working in terms of specific recipes, portion sizes, quantities of ingredients purchased in the weekly grocery shop, etc and to try to learn from past mistakes and successes
A lot of inspiration for this blog post is due to the Frugal Girl, whose blog I stumbled across recently, and who seems to do an amazing job at coping with a very busy lifestyle while still managing to cook from scratch. Let’s see how I do putting her top tips into practice! Any other suggestions would be very welcome – please feel free to leave a comment.
