My kitchen, and today's shopping

Today I went food shopping. I skipped the farmers market for a change--I got an email saying Skoloff Valley Organic Farm wasn't going to be there--and it ended up raining buckets anyway. I went to Wegmans and bought way too much stuff, then later finally went to Health U in Vestal to check it out and ended up buying too much again. Most of it was pantry stuff, just to have on hand, a few things I'd never seen before that I wanted to try, and some frozen basics like pie crusts, veggies, and yes, ice cream.

My shopping today was not part of the food challenge, for a few reasons. First, I have not yet decided on a dollar amount for the challenge. Also, I have a lot of fresh food that I want to do something with so I can start with more of a clean slate next week when I start properly. And finally, another week will help me prepare so I can do this right and make the most of it.

From kitchen 9/27/08 7:45 PM

today's shopping total: $161.27

I wouldn't say this is necessarily typical.  I did buy beer on a whim--I do buy beer on occasion, but not usually this expensive.  There is no meat here and very limited dairy--I've gotten a bit complacent with all the meat in the freezer.  There are a lot more convenience items here than usual, but mostly because I was curious about some new things at Healthy U and exercised exactly no self-control in buying only one at a time to try.  

I've been doing more thinking on the guidelines of the challenge, and I've got an ongoing list of criteria.

• If Topaz won't eat it, it's a failure.
  
• Not too many ingredients
  
• Quick and simple to prepare
  
• No hard-to-find ingredients
  
• Food I already have in the house is off-limits, unless I " buy" it with the  food budget
  
• Everything has to be really good and fresh
  
• No huge upfront costs
  
• Will document all cost and estimates of time involved in each meal
  
• The duration of the challenge has not yet been determined.
  

Who I think will be interested in this challenge:

• Families in general
  
• Stay at home AND working parents
  
• People who can afford a higher budget but want to cut back
  
• People who don't think they can afford organic food
  
• People with very low incomes who want to eat better than ramen
  
• Anyone looking for simple, healthy meals that don't cost a fortune
  
• Anyone willing to try new healthful foods