cross-posting this from tumblr for reasons

[jmtorres]

So i have this idea for food managing. I know that kind of stuff can be triggering for people so I'm dropping it behind a cut, but if it's relevant to you: i'm not dieting, this is more about not being wasteful of food I have/saving money by not ordering delivery as much/my intermittent depression-related lack of cope for food prep. But in general this is a pro-food, pro-eating good things project.

I am trying to live within a budget; when I first moved out on my own I calculated my groceries needed to hit $10/day or approx $3/a meal on average. I can do that, if TV dinners and canned soups are on sale, or if I plan to do food prep and make up a batch of something that will last a decent while for what I put into it.

But I am sort of terrible at following through on the batch food prepping; I am also worn down by eating the same kinds of prepared food all the time; I also have an out of sight, out of mind problem for forgetting what food I have on hand; I also am chronically depressed and liable to lack the cope for doing any kind of moderate food prep, even sticking something in the oven for twenty minutes.

What I decided to do was inventory the food I have on hand (i just stocked up at the grocery store, although I am not totally sure I needed to stock up more) and make a list in my phone under various categories:

(This is an iphone app called Checklist+, which is available for free with ads, although I ended up giving them a couple of bucks because I like it a lot. You can make separate list headers that open and close, and within the lists you can nest items.)

My divisions are primarily based on How Much Effort Am I Capable of Expending Today, with a sort-of-related issue of whether things are hot or cold (frequently when I order take out, I am like, I want hot food! but I don't want to actually cook things!)

cold instant is pretty self explanatory; the most any of these items need is to be dished. (Bread pudding is on here because, as noted in a previous post, it is too alcoholic to put in the microwave.)

Room temp is actually MOSTLY my stash of graze snacks (I stopped delivery for the month of December when I realized that my stash had sort of gotten out of control). I have been known to make a meal out of boxworth of graze stuff; it is a compromise between "I do not have enough cope to wait for things to microwave, but eating cold things makes me feel like I am a failure for this lack of cope"

Heat and Eat is stuff with super light prep. Peptalk, juls: you can have hot food! in a variety of flavors! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STICK IT IN THE MICROWAVE, jam the microwave door into place, and wait 3-10 minutes! Take-out would definitely take longer than that! This list includes soup flavors, lean cuisine flavors, and things I have actually previously prepped and stored, like chili and apple brown betty.

Many times I feel bleh about eating the same kinds of prepared foods, but this is why i try to stock so many different flavors. Cannot decide if that helps or not, actually though.

Light prep: if I can swing it, this is stuff that requires like, the use of the oven, or the stove, or the blender, but should be doable in 20 minutes or less. (I actually moved PB&J over to room temp foods, I decided it was even lighter than light prep and did not belong here.) so: still faster than take-out! most of these things are also more taste-satisfying than the heat and eat category, too.

If I'm having a good and ambitious day, batch prepping might occur. I actually have several things that I have all of the ingredients for, or most ingredients save a couple of fresh things I could get quickly (and cross my fingers a two-item store trip wouldn't take up all my cope for the day). When I actually make the tamales or the falafels or the curry, I'll end up freezing them in servings and put them on the heat & eat list. (the chili that's on the heat and eat list is frozen from crockpot batch prep a few months back--that's why there's four servings of it, where I normally only have like one or two of a variety of things. )

fortunately list-making is one of those organization things I actually like doing, so I've finished my current inventory already and i think this is something i could maintain for future grocery trips. My hope is that having this list will knock out the "out of sight, out of mind" problem where I forget what food I have, and the "so out of cope i don't want to get off the couch to go see what i have" problem, and the sorting should help with the "what am i capable of doing right now" problem. It might even get me to do more--like, the light prep list is a lot more enticing than the heat and eat list. If I have that list to look at, maybe i can talk myself into making myself better food more often.