How often do you buy groceries?
What types of things do you consider “essential”?
Do you make a list when you go shopping, or just have an idea of what you need?
Do you do one big trip all at once, or do you pick up just enough to make what you’re eating that night/the next day?
Shopping is a mix of buying stuff that is pre-planned, and impulse purchases. That depends on a number of factors. If I went to the supermarket to buy e.g. peppers, but the ones they have don’t look good, I can spontaneously change the meal and buy something else for which I can buy good products. Same at the meat frontier, I can easily switch plans if shopping reality dictates differently.
My sibling works at a grocery store, so I’ll text them what to bring home. So it’s more daily then weekly. Sometimes we go to the Asian Supermarket but that’s more monthly.
mostly produce (this is the cheapest food, don’t let anyone fool you), but that usually doesn’t last a week before you cook it. shop is a 2 min walk away, produce markets 3 and 10 mins away, so we go often.
1 lb of salt. 20 lbs of long pork.
The richer the better
Isn’t long porc cannibal slang for people?
Yes, that is the joke…
Anyway, I’ll warn you. The taste of long pork is really hit or miss. It really varies from person to person.
Just making sure I got it (and maybe other people that were unaware of the term)
I tend to spend a weekend cooking and freezing loads, then not really cooking for weeks.
So it’s a massive targeted shop every few weeks to do that, then mostly small trips (often on foot/bike) to the local shops to get milk and any odd things I run out of, or if I feel like mixing dinner up with something else.
I shop at our local grocery store 2x a month to get essentials as needed. “Essential” to us is anything we utilize the most, which usually boils down to milk, eggs, bread, fresh fruit/veggies. Every 4-6 months or so my spouse and I go to Costco and get items in bulk. Those trips are typically reserved for buying meats that we can freeze long term, along with frozen veggies, and non-perishables.
I always make a shopping list to make a point of not returning any sooner than necessary (but hey, sometimes I forget stuff anyways).
I tend to be the primary cook, but I make a point of making recipes that involve using dry, frozen, or canned ingredients as there isn’t a rush to use them since they don’t quickly spoil. Any fresh items are used within the 2 week frame between local grocery trips.
Usually a head of lettuce, a couple bell peppers, an onion, a lb of ground beef, any other meat that is on sale, a gallon of milk, bread, maybe some frozen or canned items, a bag of chips or some other snack, any staple items I might be out of, and a fifth of WT 101 if it’s on sale.
You buy a fifth a week?..
They’re not on sale every week. I go through one every 3-4 weeks.
Almost once a week from an online supermarket. I typically plan 4 or 5 meals as I shop, with adhoc rice/pasta/noodle dishes, frozen portions and takeaways/meals out that usually lasts for 8 or 9 days.
I mostly cook vegetarian so most of the shop is fresh vegetables. We do eat chicken or fish once a week though. “Essentials” are pea milk, fruit juice, tomatoes, bread, eggs, avocados, oats, fresh/dried/frozen fruits - everything else is meal dependent.
It’s much easier planning and buying from home and the selection online is much better than any of the local supermarkets. The only thing I regularly buy offline is coffee from a local roastery. There’s some great independent shops in my village, but the green grocer can be a bit hit and miss on quality and it’s rare that I can find everything we would like (or need) so I mostly use for the odd thing/special occasions. I will go to the bakery on a weekend in warmer months though.
The butcher delivers meat once a week on a schedule
About every other week go to the local wet market for variety
Anything else is ordered about once week from the local western style market (free delivery)
I go almost every day. It’s a good reason to get out and go for a walk.
What I buy mostly depends on prices/discounts. And only what I can carry in my backpack. Potatoes when affordable, otherwise rice; frozen veggies, ham/cheese, bubbly water, beer.
Potatoes are more expensive than rice in the Netherlands?
Edit: just did the math for my German prices and they seem about equal. I always thought rice was a bit more expensive.
Edit 2: just realized that it’s easier and cheaper to prepare a meal with potatoes for me. I’m cool with plain mashed potatoes or simple pan fried potatoes (about 50c of extra ingredients each) but for rice I need something to go with it, which is gonna be more expensive than what I need for potatoes
I’m not in the Netherlands. Where I live, potatoes were 1.20 eur per kilo last year so I don’t buy it. Normal price should be 40 cents.
Ah, I see. My bad for assuming. Yeah, 1,20€ is way too much.
When I notice my fridge fails to either 1) hold enough prepped stuff to microwave an entree, or 2) provide snacks or something-pie – it’s grocery shopping time. I mostly keep to the membership stores, so just one/two visits a month, maybe. I only buy as much as I can carry in one trip from car to fridge.
Until yogurt drinks are in season again. Then it’s worth getting delivered by the pallet.
Ayran 🤤
2 cups of rice, 1 cup of pintos, 4 flour tortillas, a nebulous amount of grits, 6 english muffins, 6 eggs, a few bananas and plain oat cereal, two bags worth of frozen veggies (cauli, broc, carrots, bell peppers, onions), a single chicken breast, a small roll of ground beef, a small roll of pork sausage, a half gallon of OJ, coffee, tea, oatmilk, and a hand-waved amount of spices, salsa, seasonings, choese, vinegar, and/or sweeteners.
huh, i eat more than i thought. I shop about twice a month, and usually buy the dry and freezable stuff in bulk so I don’t notice as much how much I’m taking in on the regular.
A mix of pre-planned list if we ran out of something or we want to cook something specific and in-shop decisions seeing what’s on promotion that week or what’s close to the expiration date and discounted a bit more.
We try to have like 3 servings of meat per week, and a constant stock of tomatoes, onions, garlic and lettuce and two other veggies (depending on what’s cheap that week: pepper, broccoli, zucchini, eggplant, potatoes).
For dinner we usually try to stock: Bread, 3 types of sliced cheese (a cheap “mix”, a cheddar and something fancy like a Camembert or Gorgonzola), and 3 types of cold cuts (prosciutto, krustenbraten, salami, chorizo, Mett, etc).
We keep a big stock of UHT Milk, pasta and rice, and restock when there’s a promo or we run below 2 weeks of supply. Some lazy food like frozen Pizzas or ramen always needs to be available.
We buy eggs every two weeks from a local farmer.
Usually one big trip a week with short visits on a need-to basis if run out of something mid week.
Crate of 24 beers, five pizzas, two large steaks and a packs of French fries.
This is kinda where I’m at, but it’s not conducive to GERD unfortunately.
You ok? It’s never too late to start eating right. It will make you fell better now and definitely in the future.
concern-trolling is boring
I can respect this. Beats racking my brain every night trying to think of what I want to eat.
These days, we tend to sit down on Sunday evening and plan out our meals for the week, then go shopping on Monday. We go to the farmer’s market Saturday and plan our meals around what vegetables we could buy locally.
I don’t consider very many things essential. Maybe dry beans, rice (sub millet, quinoa, or other cookable grain as needed), lentils, flour, and salt? Without those I’d have troubles surviving, with an adequate supply of those I could live for months, it’d take a while to even get sick of all the things you can make with it. I’m willing to cut pretty much anything I need to out of my diet if it’s not available and honestly I think the obsession with having all foods available at all seasons is weird.
How do you do your beans and lentils? My mental illness has me stockpile food, so I have quite a bit of black beans and lentils, but I just can’t figure out how to cook them to make them work for me.
The red lentils seem to be less bitter than the brown ones. Lentils seem to be the best option, since you don’t have to soak them as long as beans and I struggle with that aspect of food prep.
All kinds of ways, but I think a good few recipes to check out are:
- cuban style frijoles with the black beans
- red lentil hummus
- dal makhni for kidney beans (needs a lot more special ingredients than the other two though) Green lentils aren’t one of my favourites most of hte time but they do go well with rice
I can find a recipe similar to mine for any of these if you like
If you have trouble with the soaking, black beans do very well with a “quick soak”.
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Cover them with water about twice the depth of the beans. Add about 1 teaspoon (~5 ml or 5-7 g) salt.
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Bring to a boil and keep it boiling for 2 minutes. Then cover and turn off the burner/hob. Let soak for 1-2 hours.
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Add any extra seasonings now (but nothing acidic). Then bring back to a boil and then simmer until soft. Adjust seasoning and you’re done.
They should take much less time than cooking from dry. How long will depend on the beans. Older beans can take much longer, but most should be soft in 1 hour or so.
Yep. That works well unless you’re cooking at altitude, then an overnight soak is the best and easiest way. Unless you own a pressure cooker.
Some beans you can get away with not soaking at all, just cook them low and slow for a couple hours. I’ve done that with great northern beans.
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