Every year at about this time my beloved and I sit down to work out our goals for the year – individually and jointly. This year is no different – in fact, it’s happening tonight. Hence this post, which is helping me work out what I want some of my goals to be this year. Specifically my food-related goals.
Oh, who am I kidding! I can turn any goal into something food related. The general themes we use are around our finances, health, professional development and work, personal development and our relationship with each other as well as with family and other loved ones. Typically they include saving $$; getting fitter and healthier and eating less junk; spending more time together including date nights, holidays, long weekends; etc etc…
But what do these have to do with food? I’m getting there…
For a long time I have hated our kitchen. Actually since we bought our house. There is nothing hugely wrong with it – the house was only a few years old – but it is small with limited and very pokey storage that fits a small fraction of what I have, deep cupboards so you can barely find out what is behind the first layer, an awful electric stove, bad lighting and not enough powerpoints.
The good news – the reno is happening in 2012! Kitchen designers are being spoken to AS WE SPEAK {yippie-yi-yay!!}.
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| Horrible pantry with deep shelves – and yes it’s messy… |
So onto the goals:
In anticipation of the kitchen reno and having to pack {but financial as I’ll be saving $!}:
- stop buying stuff that gets shoved in the pantry and forgotten! As soon I’ll need to pack all this, my #1 goal is not to buy ANY pantry goods but to eat our way through what we have – including the 12 tins of salmon, 8 tins of sardines, packets of couscous, quinoa, crackers, many jars of yumminess, wild rice, dried fruits and SO. MUCH. MORE.
- eat our way through the freezer – it has a similar look thanks to a few not-really-necessary visits to SuperButcher to stock up on some of their incredible beef/pork/chicken bargains, the generosity of Silverwood Organics {I won a lamb pack at a charity fundraiser in October}, and more general over-shopping
- so all I am allowing myself to buy food-wise between now and the kitchen reno is fresh fruit/veg, dairy, bread and fresh fish. Of course, I may have to get the occasional chocolate bar as today I sadly discovered this house is chocolate-free 🙁
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| Kitchen benches like THIS will soon be a thing of the past!! |
- eat more locally grown and produced food, and support more local small food biz
- cook more at home. Especially since Kerry Heaney @eatdrinkbeKerry so kindly {note the sarcasm here…} told me of a study that shows women who eat out more than 6 times a week tally up the kilojoule equivalent of 1 kilo a month. I gained 10kg in 2011. Mostly because I ate out A LOT…
- entertain more at home and have more friends over for a casual mid-week meal
- eat more fruit, more veg and less meat – aim for one vegetarian day a week
- visit more markets and different types of food shops, especially when I’m on holiday {this is just part of the exercise bit – walking around markets for cardio, carrying my purchases for strength!}
The rest {including education, personal development and fun stuff!}
- blog more!
- try new foods and cook with new ingredients
- read more food books – and not just cookbooks!
- try more new restaurants, not just the old favourites – and use Brisbane Budget Bites a LOT MORE!
Love the intent! Oh and a new kitchen is worth so much sacrifice.
Wish I could blame the weight gain on eating out. I would like to eat out more.
Good luck tonight! Hope it all goes to plan.
Want to see pics of the new kitchen once it’s all happening 🙂
I LOVE your goals! In particular the one about having friends in for dinner during the week really resonated with me. This is something I never do.
I followed you here from Twitter and am so glad I did!I am currently in the middle of a huge kitchen and home reno and feel happier and happier with each little change. I will be documenting all of it on my channel starting tomorrow!!!
Keep us updated on your plan… what worked what was a challenge etc…
xoxo
Thanks Anke! I must confess there was a lot of comfort eating at the end of 2010 and throughout 2011 which caused a good chunk of that 10kg too I suspect.
hi Lyndsay – thanks for the comment! Can’t believe you are from Nanaimo. I lived in Victoria/Vancouver as a kid and in Vancouver for a year in mid-90s. And one of my mum’s best friends lives in Port Alberni – stunning part of the world. I’m due for another visit.
Can’t wait to see your kitchen plans too – I’m excited but a bit anxious as we are doing something completely different to what we originally thought. We should have our plans in a few weeks…
I love that you will eat your way through your pantry and freezer and will mostly supplement with fresh.
Hope you run a daily blog with your progress and menu!
The questions for me are what’s your contingency plan for cooking sans kitchen and are you going to keep the same small pantry but just make the design more efficient rather than have a mini-supermarket? Then you will have more bench space and storage space for non-food gear.
I downsized our pantry to a single full height pull-out which means I avoid lost ingredients and I resist the temptation to buy just-in-case. If it’s not on the shopping list too bad if we’ve run out.
I’d like to know whether there’s any correlation between a super-sized pantry and body weight or nutritional quality of diet. Don’t know of any studies. Do you?
Trudy
Sounds like a good plan! I’ve only made one real food resolution this year – aim to eat at a new restaurant once a month. I tend to get stuck in a rut. Also to post more on the blog (so I guess technically that’s two foodie related ones).
OMG. Your cupboard is scary! I have one of those pull out things and mine is always sparse cos I’m such a shocking shopper. In fact, I’m very not-grown up when it comes to food. I go to friends places and see their larders or fridges and get larder/fridge envy at how well-stocked they are… whereas I eat the same things all of the time so just buy and use, buy and use, constantly running out of stuff!
I cannot wait to see what you do with your kitchen, as I’m such a heathen on that front!
Thanks Trudy! We have a thermomix and BBQ so should be OK. Will keep a few pantry items unpacked to use – expecting the reno to happen in March so the weather should be pretty good for eating outside.
I’ve no idea re correlation, but our pantry mostly has condiments and healthy stuff – apart from 1 pack of corn chips left from Christmas, there isn’t a lot of high fat/sugar/processed stuff. Lots of rice, pasta, veg, legumes, fish etc
Leah – we are also aiming to eat at more new places. If you like sushi, go to Crave Sushi at Terrigal one Sat night (only night they do sushi) as it’s excellent and not exxy
Dietschmiet – I’m a shocking shopper too because I always buy way too much! And then forget what I have bought the next time I go!
Yikes… the pantry is something, isn’t it! Mine was starting to overwhelm me, so the first thing I tackled after xmas was a clean out and reorganise. If that is the only ‘spring cleaning’ I achieve on these holidays, I will still be pleased. Looking forward to hearing about and seeing your kitchen reno! Best of wishes.
Can’t wait to see the new kitchen. Having tasted what comes out of your OLD kitchen, I cannot imagine it being any better food wise, but you will be far happier doing it! 🙂
So glad you’re blogging more, I love your posts! I’m having my kitchen redesigned and reno’ed this year too! ASAP in fact… draftswoman coming next week, I hope, to turn my mish-mash of ideas into a functional reality. Cannot wait. We’ve lived without a dishwasher for too long.
I totally relate re your pantry issues. If I dared, I’d post a pic of mine 🙂
Good luck with it.
I can so relate to this post Mel. Having lived with my own kitchen design for 10 years with all I wanted to the tiny tiny kitchen at Browne St…and now back to a decent sized kitchen…oh the bliss of decent cupboard space. I can give you some design ideas on Monday that might be of use.
Hi Mel – glad to hear you will be blogging more. I look forward to it. In 2009 when I was going O/S for 2 years, I had a massive pantry clean out also. Same probs (small cupboard, too many packets etcetc). Since coming back, I have managed to keep the tins under control but I note the condiments and pulses/grains have started to re-populate. Your post has made me re-focus and use up what I have. Here’s a link to one of the old posts about my pantry http://tiffinblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/cleaning-out-pantry-moroccan-lamb-soup.html