shopping on purpose

I think one of my main concerns about life right now is that I'm not eating very well. What I am eating is highly processed or fast(ish) food of some kind. I NEED to start cooking again but it is such a daunting task to do for just one person. I found this amazing pin on pinterest about slow cooker meals for something like 30 days. This woman prepared 15 meals in a bag. In the morning, she simply pulls something out of the freezer and dumps it in her slow cooker. Because there are just the two of them, they regularly have left overs, thus adding to the number of days the meals last. I'm thinking I could cook three meals a week and live off the left overs for the rest of the week. At that rate, the 15 meals would last 5 weeks, more if I happened to travel during that time (and when have I NOT traveled for five weeks straight).

As part of my challenge to live on purpose. I have picked today as my shopping and prep day. I have my shopping list in hand. I have my recipes all copied. I am ready to do this! I think it will take me the better part of the day. The poster said it took her 3 hours the first time just to make the meals and put them in bags. I am doing all the shopping and everything in one day. Wish me luck!

An update, I decided to try this out on 6 meals and see how it all went. All the ingredients, including meat, cost me about $100. I figure that with me not cooking every day and with leftovers, these six meals will last me about two weeks. Once I've used them all, I'll let you know how accurate my estimate was.

It only took me about one hour to dump the five meals into a bad. On the first one, I put everything in a bowl and mixed it and then made a HUGE mess trying to get it in a bag. Then, I thought "Hey, these are slow cooker meals and I usually just dump everything in the slow cooker so why can't I do the same with the bag?" After that, it went much faster and was much cleaner.I ended up with a bag full of garbage but very limited dishes! Since I use all the same basic stuff to prepare every meal, I will only have to wash this stuff once in the coming weeks instead of several times a week. What an expected and pleasant surprise!! Wanna see what I did?

All six meals prepped and in their freezer bags. It wasn't as hard or time consuming as I thought. I would do some things differently but overall, I think this was a smashing first try.

  

Here is all the garbage. I just kept one of the grocery bags on the counter and threw things away as I needed to. It sure helped with the clean up afterwards! 

And here we have all my cute, little meals and safe and snug in their new freezer home. I can't wait to pull them back out and try them!! I'll give you an update on eating on purpose later when I've actually tried some of these yummy meals. 

 

Oh, wanna know what choices I have? Taco soup, beef stew, beef burritos, chicken broccoli alfredo, Hawaiian chicken, and chicken caccitore. I'll let you know which ones I'll be repeating!! Here's to shopping with a purpose and coming home with nothing but sugary treats and processed foods.