Kindness...

Well...
My “Buy-nothing-in-March challenge”. It was a bust, I didn’t even last the week!

I’ve come to a couple of conclusions:
- I need to be a bit kinder to myself.
- I’m an opportunistic shopper.
- Cooking is my passion.
- My shopping is 95% whole foods.

Cooking as a passion, is a very useful hobby, it keeps the family well fed. Bonus.
Yes, I’ve got a full pantry and freezer, but that is mostly because I hate waste. Leftover bread gets frozen (croutons, bread crumbs, toasties,...), bananas that are ripening faster than the kids eat, land in the freezer (chocolate ice-cream, cakes, smoothies, porridge sweeter,...), a roast chicken carcass becomes stock (sauces, risotto, curries, soup), leftover roasted beetroot gets pickled (wraps, salads, lunchbox snacks). Leftover dinner is great for lunches, or boosted with legumes and veggies a quick dinner on a busy evening. I keep a lot of my seeds, nuts and flours in the fridge or freezer to keep them safe and fresh. Just like excess chillies, homemade curry pastes and chutneys. I have lots of those chutneys, pickles, pastes and ferments in the fridge. Right next to my homemade yoghurt, muesli bars and sourdough starter for our breads. Famers markets are once a week, I stock up on those lovely fruits and veggies and make them last.

Lunch in a hurry: turkish bread with hummus (freezer) with fresh veggies (garden) and chilli sauce (fridge)

So yes, my fridge and freezer are full, they’re are only small after all. But there is a good turnover, and I know exactly whats in there.
The pantry is filled with heaps of different ingredients like legumes, seeds, grains and spices that get used often, 95% is what we call whole foods. A couple of packets of pasta and crackers make up for the other 5%, hiding for backup.
I’m an opportunistic shopper, example: a trip to the library often also means a visit to the pharmacy opposite, in the 10 minutes it takes for the scrips to be filled, I go next-door and find the best local organic milk I can find in town. So what I last week crankily put down as shopping all over the place, isn’t madness at all, just time efficient... Like a said, I need to be kinder to myself...

What really bothers me is that every time I step into a supermarket you get bombarded with choices, you know what you need, but you also know they’re using every trick to make you buy more. And if I’m tired, stressed or hungry, emotional eater that I am, I fall for those tricks. That’s what really upsets me. With awareness, I’m going to let my frustration go, and focus on all those other nourishing ingredients that transform into enjoyable family meals. We all have our faults, there is (one of) mine.

This week I saw a sign on a road I very rarely travel, with farm fresh berries, I stopped and stocked up, a bit of puzzling and my freezer is closed again.
Rosella’s from another local grower also made it home, you don’t see them often and I saw it as a good way to test out if its worth the trouble growing them ourselves (oh, yes I need them in my garden, high priority). An Indian specialty store in a town I only drive through a couple of times a year resulted in a small bucket of ghee that will lasts me the year and a specialty curry powder that I haven’t managed to recreate. So, yes I didn’t even lasted the week,
and I’m fine with that.
Kindness.