Vegingly Frustrated

I am feeling somewhat vegingly frustrated.  No, it's not a typo.  Vegingly.  This is meant to somehow imply to you, dear reader, that the object of my frustrations is my vegetables.  Did it?

After having two Foodboxes, and going once to the market, I decided to keep my Foodbox on hold and go back to the markets.  I was so pleased with last fortnight's stash, it seemed a great idea.  Ugh.  Why, oh why do I do this to myself???  I went.  The guy with the lovely cauliflowers last time wasn't there.  That meant no cauli, broccoli, silverbeet, or cabbage.  The lady who sells really nice little bunches of kale wasn't there again...I wonder if she's gone for winter?  I came home feeling disappointed, and (you guessed it) vegingly frustrated.  If I hadn't needed to buy a tray of eggs it would have been a waste of time.  I got a lettuce ($2), small bag of baby spinach ($3) and some tomatoes ($3).  It's not that they weren't nice.  They were very nice, it's that I then went to the supermarket and got a cauliflower ($3 or something), and more (but I forget what!).  Then came home and grumbled my way through the rest of the morning.  I'd been to two separate places, but got less than half the things I wanted/needed for this week.  So I reinstated my Foodbox.  Mum priced her's out (actually went to PaknSave and priced each item from her last box) and was happy with the prices, plus the greens are definitely fresher than at the supermarket.  It is just easier at the moment to know that we will at least have some veges in the house, without me having to traipse around town all day to do it.

I completely forgot that it was due to arrive today, so was pleasantly surprised to find it on the doorstep!

This week we had:

2 x 250g mushrooms
2 x silverbeet (you can't see in the photo that there's two bunches in that bag)
cos lettuce
cherry tomatoes
eggplant
grey pumpkin
gourmet potatoes
avocado
1/2 celery
broccoli

Plus 2 pears, 2 apples, and another mushrooms as a 'top up' from when the website was saying the wrong veges a few weeks back!  Grin.

We are eating eggplant for the first time ever tomorrow night!  Got a recipe from a good friend who says it is fabulous, so I'm hopeful!

I made a menu yesterday:

I've worked out that the best way to utilise my Foodbox (or any other groceries for that matter) is to make a menu based on them, so I did this menu knowing what would be in my box.  Rather than just writing the meat or main idea for the night, I'm now writing the specific veges I will use.  That way I'm less likely to forget to use them!  And I'm more likely to realise I haven't planned for them when making the menu!  I also checked the freezer first, as shown on right of the top photo - that way when I did the menu I knew not only what veges (on a separate list) but also what meat I had to combine with them.

I picked up a 1/2 savoy cabbage from New World for $1.30 as well as some potatoes and kumara, and we've got onions and carrots already so we now have a fridge full of veges (seriously, there's not much room for anything else, but I guess that's not a bad thing!).  I'm wondering if I should just have a rule that I can buy whatever veges I want, no limit...as long as I never throw them out!?

I am still feeling vegingly frustrated.  I'm still spending time getting veges.  Our Foodbox is still too small to do a fortnight on it's own, but I don't want a weekly one as they don't seem to be getting kumara, spinach, etc that I want.  This is a compromise.  The best we can do right now.  I guess I want a market I can go to myself that has EVERYTHING in it, pretty much every week, cheap as, and very, very, very fresh!  Hahaha.  Dream on, Amy.  Oh well, in the meantime, Foodbox is helping me cover some of it.  Looking forward to our summer garden too.  Have you ever thought about how much time we spend organising food?  I mean, really sat down and added it up?  DON'T!  I don't want you getting depressed.  And just think, we hardly ever grow it all ourselves these days.  But then good food is worth spending time on.  I know it is worth making sure my family eats well, and I'm remembering just how blessed we are to simply HAVE nutritious food.  So I will try not to grumble too much over the how and when and where our veges are coming to us at present.


Amy