An Empty Refrigerator is a Happy Refrigerator

I just looked in my refrigerator and it is getting pretty bare. This makes me rather happy.

Why? you ask. Good question!

I know many frugal grocery shoppers out there are big fans of stocking up. I don't shop that way, however. In fact, I prefer to buy most of my food items in pretty small quantities. For me is a little like dollar cost averaging - I might buy some things high, but other times I buy them low. I guarantee, however, I only buy what I need.

I work from a menu. Once a week or so I sit down and make a menu of things I can make for the upcoming week. I usually try to shop from my own cupboards first. I look for recipes that will let me use up that half a bag of lentils or partial box of whole wheat pasta, for example. I also prefer to eat seasonally. This means in the winter we are talking about a lot of beans and grains here. In the warmer months I shop at the farmer's market and buy all my produce there, but with a few exceptions, I don't like purchasing produce at grocery stores. Too much of it is shipped in from other places and grown not for flavor or nutritional content, but its ability to survive a long trip. That isn't healthy eating to me. Besides, some items like bell peppers are so ridiculously expensive they are hardly frugal.

So, I make menus. I like to sit down with cup of coffee and pour through my cookbooks and find things that look interesting. I rarely make the same recipe more than once or twice. I'm like my father in that way. He was a fellow home cook who would bored with making something after awhile. Half of the fun of cooking is figuring out new recipes!

While I am making my menu, I am also making a grocery list. It is so much easier to just do the two at the same time. Then, when I go to make something off my menu, I know that I already have the ingredients in the house. So, if I love to cook, why am I happy my refrigerator is empty?

Well, if you think about it, Refrigerator = Perishable. Items in the freezer are going to last quite awhile. Same thing with items in the cupboard, but the majority of things in the refrigerator are items that you either have to eat up, or it goes bad. I absolutely hate wasting food. It drives me crazy to throw something out that just didn't get eaten - and since I live alone, believe me, I know who is at fault!

Over the holidays with parties and holiday gatherings, my refrigerator got stocked with a lot of perishable food. Every time I had dinner at my mother's, for example, she sent me home with bags of leftovers. I threw a big gathering the Saturday after Christmas and ended up with a whole stocked refrigerator of delicious, but perishable, foods. On top of that, one of my friends gave me a Christmas gift that was absolutely perfect for me - a whole basket of cheeses. (Yum!)

I am rather pleased that very little went to waste. The cheeses were enjoyed over glasses of wine on several cold and snowy nights, and I was able to either eat, freeze or cook with nearly everything else. Leftovers are wonderful a wonderful thing. I would have been sad if I had had to dispose of them. (I even managed to freeze all the bones from a chicken dish a friend made at my house for the party. I plan on making a big pot of homemade stock.)

Now as I peer into my refrigerator and see the empty shelves, I smile to myself. It is time to make a new menu.

Photo by: Miss Barbara