Food: Storecupboard Challenge Week

This week, my family have gone travelling and I am home by myself (completely my choice by the way). I love time alone and the last couple of years with the lockdowns and increased working from home, I just haven't had enough of it, so I am really going to cherish this week.

Something that I have wanted to do for a while, but wouldn't really be able to effectively whilst everyone else is home, is to only eat from our food stocks. We have accumulated what I would call a fairly eclectic mix of foods, particularly in the freezer where I have attempted to reduce food waste. The issue is that there is rarely enough for more than one portion, so it gets left longer than other produce in the freezer.

So the last time I did a weekly food shop was one week ago. I did pop into Waitrose yesterday to pick up some lettuce. The plan is to:

• Do no further food shopping for at least a week
• Maintain a healthy diet (5 a day etc)
• Waste as little as possible
• Try and use less energy to cook

Here is a picture of the contents of my fridge. Actually, there is still quite a lot of fresh food in there that we bought last week. Things that really need to go soon are: half an avocado, a couple of bacon rashers, 2 eggs, coleslaw, 3 mini scotch eggs.

The fruit bowl is looking particularly sad (but there are also a few grapes and some sorry looking strawberries in the fridge).

The pantry is also pretty well stocked (top picture), and of course I have the freezers (one as part of my fridge freezer and a chest freezer in the garage). I do appreciate how lucky I am at the moment, and I am in no way comparing this challenge to how some people have to eke out food to make ends meet. However, I am mindful that the cost of everything is rising so fast, that any savings I can make doing this will be beneficial.

What I want to achieve is a reduction in the odd bits of food hanging around and I am also hoping to be a bit more inventive in what I eat.

Love Mrs Jones x