Maybe a little like yours....Now that it's just the two of us, I usually cook twice as much as we need, reserving half for later.

I tend to get a little compulsive about what I'm doing, and am not good at doing several things at once. For instance, I've been sewing a lot for the last few months, so I haven't cooked and baked as much as usual, and though I am an avid reader, I haven't read a book since I started on my current sewing gig. But, boy have I turned out the garments!

And since we have a big family, I still do cook huge amounts of food when all the kids are home. When it's Hub and me, and I'm on a cooking binge, I love experimenting with different cuisines. Hub is fun to cook for, always my biggest fan.

Last night we had shrimp alio y oolia and warm spinach salad, which took me about 40 minutes to prepare. I made enough pasta so in a day or two we'll have it with something else. Tonight, I have grilled salmon, rice and asparagus on the menu, another 20 to 30 minute meal.

No matter how much food is ready in the freezer or fridge, though, Hub rarely fixes anything more than a grilled cheese for himself when I'm not around. I don't get it. He's been cleaning up the kitchen, though, since he retired, and I am very happy about that!

Sherry

I plan out meals a couple of weeks or so at a time because I absolutely detest shopping and want to get it over with.
And try to plan things that will morph into other dishes without feeling like we're eating "leftovers".

A roast morphs into beef stroganoff the next night and the next night or two a beef burgundy pot pie. If there are leftover mashed potatoes, the pot pie turns into shepherd's pie.

Green Chili Pork will be a stew over hot rice one night, the next night soft shell burritos.

I love, love, love cooking - but like an idea of a menu planned out. Nothing set in stone, but if I have to get off work and rack my brain thinking "What should I make for dinner ..." it just ain't gonna happen and you can make your own PBJ sandwich. LOL

My style of cooking is the complete opposite of yours Claire. I've never been a fan of leftovers so I freeze very little in the way of precooked/prepared foods. Except for pasta sauces or something like chili.

I love to shop on a daily basis for what I'm in the mood to cook. Even when I worked in Toronto a million years ago I would stop on my way home from work, sometimes making two different subway stops just to pick up the ingredients for what I wanted to make for dinner.

I still plan our meals that way. I work four days a week and I stop at the grocery store either on my way to work or on my way home and pick up the ingredients I need for dinner. Sometimes I'll pull meat/chicken/steaks out of the freezer so I just need to pick up vegetables or a missing ingredient.

If I want a slow cooked pork roast or pot roast I get it ready in the morning and Moe puts it in the oven.

I'm home by 5:30 most nights and I start cooking. I love my time in the kitchen. I can have a roast chicken or a roast beef dinner with all the sides on the table in a little over an hour, especially if Moe has the oven preheated in advance. Fish, pasta, etc. doesn't take long to prepare. Or I'll grill something. Steaks or boneless chicken breasts, Souvlaki, are quick. Ribs take the longest and even they are ready in about an hour. While they are on the grill, the sides can be cooked.

Ann

For casual meals, I am the classic procrastinator! Unless I have some very special plans I usually wait until an hour before dinner to decide what to make. It never bothers me if I don't come up with a perfect meal :-) so I just wing it. I go to the fridge and pantry to get my "inspiration". Oh yea, I am a professional leftovers user! LOL

Al

Now that the kids are gone and it's just DH and me, I find meal planning and cooking a lot easier. He happily devours whatever I make and never complains, even when I make something he's not wild about. The funny thing is that I've really migrated toward quick and easy and I'm usually out of the kitchen in less than 20 minutes, often in 10!

I do still have things in my repertoire which serve four to six and when I make those things, we have the leftovers for dinner a few days later or a couple weeks later if I freeze the L/Os.

Off the top of my head, the quickest meal I make is probably baked or broiled chicken. Put the pieces in the pan, pour on some beer, sprinkle with S&P and whatever other spices look good and the prep is done. I make rice and a salad and voil

Baked fish, also quick and easy. Sometimes I pan fry fish but again, no more than 20 minutes in the kitchen for that.

Burgers. Especially if I make the patties when I buy the meat and just freeze them already made. All I have to do is cook them.

DH is the steak griller so we have that fairly often. He can't really do much cooking aside from that so I buy tater tots for him to make to go with the steaks. That or frozen corn sometimes.

Fajitas. I buy skirt steak or some other thin steak like that, slice it into thin strips, add marinade and freeze in a zip lock bag. When I want to cook it, I defrost in advance, and just slice onions, sauté the onions and beef, heat up some tortillas, chop tomatoes. Add salsa and shredded cheese. Done. I buy small roasts and make them in the pressure cooker. Noodles or rice to go with. Again, very short prep time.

Not to often, but occasionally as a treat I'll make nachos. Brown some ground beef and simmer with taco seasoning OR some jarred salsa, making sure all the water has boiled off. Then layer chips, beef and cheese. Into the oven for 10 minutes.

Omelet/Frittata. In an oven proof pan (I use a le creuset cast iron skillet) brown onions and set aside. Layer the bottom of the pan with frozen hashbrowns or tater tots or any leftover precooked potatoes. Top with a defrosted package of frozen spinach, or broccoli, or browned sausage or ground beef or whatever. Add the browned onions. Top with a bunch of beaten eggs. Top with some shredded cheese. Into the oven.

Ciabatta pizza (someone posted this idea here a while back, I can't remember who, I'm sorry, but it's great!). Buy a loaf of ciabatta bread. Slice it lengthwise. Top with pizza sauce (I use jarred "ragu" type of sauce to make it easy on myself), and add whatever topping sound good. Bake.

That's just a few ideas. I plan meals in advance. I go into my freezer, pull out two or three things to defrost, then plan 5 - 8 days worth of meals based on what's defrosting, throwing in one or two vegetarian meals, and taking into account leftovers to be served as another meal. When I'm about 2-3 days away from the end of the planned days, I do it all again. I buy meats on sale and throw them into the freezer so there's always a good variety of stuff in there.

I have a ton of cooked chicken in the freezer now from all the chicken soup I made for passover. Gonna make chicken enchiladas next week with some of it. Probably will make chicken spaghetti the week after. Two more meals which take little prep.

The last thing I made which took more than 20 minutes (excepting Passover prep!) was Peppi's recipe for chicken and dumplings, about a year ago. It was delicious, but man-o it was a lot of work. I will probably make it again when I feel like going all out but on a day to day basis, I prefer quick and simple!

if I have to get off work and rack my brain thinking "What should I make for dinner ..." it just ain't gonna happen and you can make your own PBJ sandwich. LOL

Ya! That was exactly my problem in the past. I just didn't feel like cooking when I got home after work lots of days, and I finally figured out it was because I just didn't know WHAT to cook.

Planning it all out in advance has totally solved that problem for me. And the fact that I'm in and out of the kitchen quickly.

You know, I do love to cook and probably would do more elaborate stuff if I didn't work. But when I get home (between 530 & 6) we're both hungry and the last thing I want to do is stand in the kitchen for an hour. So even if the meal takes an hour to cook, I can at least relax within a pretty short time after getting home. And that goes a long way toward my mental health!!

when both girls were still at home, they made the menus. Every Sunday evening I handed them a stack of cookbooks, each had to plan supper menus for 3 days. That gave me 6 suppers, and we had pizza or something the other day. If it was a new recipe they had to mark it in the cookbook so I could buy ingredients if I needed them.

Double bonus was that they didn't complain much about what I cooked because they picked it out, LOL.

Now it's just me more often than not, so it doesn't matter what I cook, there's going to be leftovers. Some freeze well, some become the next day's lunch for Ashley or me and some become "hand me down" food for Amanda.

If I get hungry for something specific, I'll plan ahead. Tonight's beef stew is in the crockpot cooking right now but I browned the beef and the vegetables last night and just put everythng together this morning before I came to work.

Other nights it's pancakes and eggs or cold cereal and I always have home canned soup or vegetables to fall back on.

I'm definitely not a planner, and I think I cook more like Ann T. I don't really mind going to the grocery after work, as long as it's an ingredient that I can get at my small town grocery store, because I am NOT driving that 50 mile round trip to go somewhere to get a "strange" ingredient!

Annie

I think this is going to be harder than I thought. I would love to try your different methods, but think I probably have more limitations than some of you. I find shopping and cooking in the same day very tiring, and have to do most of my prep work sitting down. This is probably why I make ''two'' instead of ''one''. Also, that farm we used to live on was 20 miles from town so I'm used to packing quite the pantry, even though I haven't lived on a farm in years. (See? Early conditioning!)

This is the year of the handicapped sticker for my car. Bite Me.

It's probably too hard to change at this point, but I'd like to fan out and expand my methods if I can. Am I too old a dawg to learn any new tricks?

I change my mind too often about what I feel like cooking or eating, or have time to make, in order to plan ahead too much. So when I shop ahead of time all too often the perishables, well, perish.

Making big batches to count on leftovers sounds good on paper, but then I feel like a slave to them. For example, today is the last day that I'd eat the pastitsio I made Sunday before it's time to toss. Do I feel like eating it? Nope. But I will because I don't want to waste it. So here I'll sit eating a lovely meal only because the calendar is forcing me to eat it. Doesn't seem right, does it?

The freezer is a place to safely store food until I need to throw it away to make room for something else. I buy chicken breast every week even though there are a few pounds in the freezer that I bought on sale a while back. Why don't I use those? Because they'd need to be thawed first. Which requires planning. See paragraph one. So before I know it that great sale was a great waste of money.

I shop and cook virtually every day. I enjoy it. The major downside is that there are plenty of days where I'm suddenly short on time and end up getting take-out to make life easy. The kids love those days; they'll take Chinese or pizza or McDonald's any day before anything I cook!

We usually cook a new meal every night. The leftovers get eaten for lunch the next day. Sometimes for a later dinner, but not that often.
We don't use our freezer well. It is used for stock (freeze in gallon bags) and ''great deals''. I think at least 1/2 of the stuff in our freezer is mystery food that we really shouldn't be saving even if it was a great deal at the time.

Do I really need to store enough bacon to get me through the Apocalyse? Unless bacon becomes the new currency of a post-apocalyptic world, this is a waste of space and electricity.

I find that most meals only require buying a handful of ingredients. The supporting cast - onions, potatoes, shallots, stock, nuts, corn starch, lemons, whatever - we usually have on hand already. So that's a 5-10 minute stop at the grocery store on the way home.

Claire, before I get into trying to describe my style (or lack of) I want to tell you about 3 cookbooks that I have really been enjoying.

~~The Best Skillet Recipes, Cooks Illustrated
~~The Best 30 Minute Recipe, Cooks Illustrated
~~The Best Simple Recipes, America's Test Kitchen (these are also 30 minute or less recipes)

Simple Recipes just arrived in March, so I haven't made too much from it yet, but I plan to.

These books are well organized and most important, I trust the recipes. I just tweak, if needed, for our tastes.

So here's how I cook... I decide on the type of meat, poultry or fish I want, then I just look for a recipe that sounds good. I have the T+T dinners that I don't need a recipe for that stay in my head all the time. Sometimes I plan ahead for the week, other times I just try to think of something the night before.

We like variety, so I try to mix up the menu with meat and potato type meals and everything else... I also have seasonal favorites. I keep a very well stocked pantry and I use the freezer for very few leftovers, it's mostly full of meats, vegetables and fruits.
I do put together some homemade individual dinners when I make a turkey, but other than that I try to only cook enough for the two of us and the dog... One night of leftovers is about enough for me.

I just made the rounds of Whole Foods, TJ's and an Asia Mkt on Monday and I ran to the local store today for some staples. Last night we had taco's with ground turkey and tonight it's pork roast. I had apples to use up, so I am also in the middle of making applesauce.

I'm not working at this time, so I really can get into cooking. But I still have other things to do and don't often want to spend the whole day in the kitchen. That will get even worse as summer approaches.

Nancy

Nancy, that's actually very helpful. I have two of three of those books, and see I need to get them out again and look them over. I also trust ATK recipes, so I'll see what I can find. Thanks!

I dont think I could change my style, if you can call it that, if I wanted to. We have lived way to long with limited shopping. I keep several well stocked pantries and my freezers are like a butcher shop in a box. I usually go down the canyon twice a month for grocery shopping and just pick up fresh fruit and veggies up here if I need them when I go to visit my dad.

I always decide whats for dinner first thing in the morning and prep everything so when DH gets home I dont have to spend a lot of time fussing around. Sometime I cook extra for the leftovers but mostly not. I always have cooked rice in the freezer ready to go along with chopped peppers and mushrooms. This may change when he retires in 52 days, did I say we are excited about him retiring, I am going to try to serve dinner a little earlier so we have time for a walk to the river before the sun sets. DH said he would go for it if we can stop and get an ice cream cone on our way back.LOL I think my life is about to change and it may effect more than my cooking style!

Claudia

I keep our meals as simple as possible since there's just the two of us and we like to eat food that hasn't been manipulated too much.
So I shop once or twice a week for our meat and fish and put two or three of those items in the freezer.

Then I buy fresh vegetables according to what looks best or in season and what we haven't had for a while, always trying to keep a rotation and a variety of colours: plenty of light and dark green and yellow/orange with some red and white. I lived for years on Mediterranean islands and learned how to preparing fresh, simple foods the Mediterranean way.
So salads and seafoods are common at our house with tomatoes nearly daily along with local tropical fruit.

I decide first on what meat or fish we're having for the next day, take it out of the freezer or buy it in the morning, and then make steamed mixed vegetables or salads to go with it. Sometimes I'll prepare something that uses a recipe but most often not. I tend now not to thing of a 'dish' but rather what vegs will go with what protein and the occasional day just a salad or pasta.

SharonCb

I change my mind too often about what I feel like cooking or eating, or have time to make, in order to plan ahead too much. So when I shop ahead of time all too often the perishables, well, perish. This is my dilemma too. I average 6 trips a week to the grocery store were I buy ingredients for one thing then move on to something else.

I started once a week Family Dinner Night back in the fall in hopes of establishing a family tradition/memory for the kids. So it is important to me to make each dinner good and enjoyable. I was stressing about the menu starting the next morning. Now I only stress for 2 or 3 days each week. The kids (5 & 3) are very picky so it's hard to keep it memorable and enjoyable for them. I do have a lot of leftovers; fortunately DH will eat whatever is in the refridgerator for breakfast.

Bottom line, my cooking style is no help to anyone!!

I only have the time and energy to cook on the weekend. I usually make a big pot of something--a pasta dish, enchiladas, crockpot stew like chili, soup, stir fry, and maybe a salad like coleslaw or potato salad in the summer, etc. That's what gets reheated for dinners and lunches during the week. I also freeze stuff. With just single me, I have to cook this way, it is very hard to make "dinner for one" without leftovers. But if I have to, dinner for one is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some cottage cheese, or nachos, or a can of soup and grilled cheese. I also can on the weekends so I usually at least have good homeade jelly to go with the peanut butter. I love to have dinner parties where I can justify doing something fanicer like lasagne or phyllo pie or quiche. If it's just me, I'll do scrambled eggs with melted cheese, not quiche! I also use my bread machine on the weekends. Yes, that's the kind of cook I am, throw it together. But that doesn't mean I always sacrafice taste. I mean stir fry is basically a "thrown together" meal, but still delicious.

I like to keep a full pantry and freezer so I can make whatever I feel like eating right away. Only about once a week or so do I make something so involved that I have to have very special ingredients and take a long time cooking it.
I have learned that when we have good leftovers- lasagna, for instance, to immediately put it in the freezer. I won't want to eat it the next day after cooking it and it will end up going bad if I don't freeze it.

I have to wait to clean out the freezer before throwing it out :)

Someday in life I will make a bread that requires me to start ahead 3 days but it hasn't happened yet.

I feel like I ate leftovers the first 18 years of my life, then the cooks' mistakes for another 15, so I have a real bias against leftovers now. I'll eat the same thing a couple days in a row, but I don't do freezer stuff well, even if it's made to freeze and use later.

On the other hand, I only get to the grocery once every three or four weeks, so I've had to figure out how to work around that. I don't go nuts with overstocking the pantry, but I keep a fair amount of staples so I have options.

I guess I don't really have a style anymore.

My style? I too want to feel spontaneous, really I do. But I am a planner, production line kind of person, simply wired that way. So how do I compensate? I let myself plan the menus and buy an entire month's worth of groceries. The planned meals for the week (one or two nights) are so that I have nights I don't have to think. And put some in the freezer. Some nights I "shop" in the (now well stocked from the monthly groceries) pantry/fridge, letting the ingredients inspire me to steer away from the planned menus. The best thing I've added to my repertoire is... I make myself experiment on a set night of the week. Kinda like a date night with your husband. Planned fun. Sounds counter-intuitive, but in actuality I find myself freer, more motivated to try things I've never found the energy for before. It works for me. I find a recipe that I've looked at a million times and not made. I'm out of excuses since I've dedicated my night to experimenting. I even try two recipes a week that way. Seems easier for some reason??? Last night was curried fish and chardonnay carrots. They don't have to be a meal, just things I want to try. I hated the curried fish and threw it all out. Something I never do. And the carrots, well, they weren't cooked enough, so I'll re-roast them. At least they are half done for tonight's meal. But I've found recipes I love, like Lori's carrot fritters or her granola. Or Lindac's mac-n-cheese. Sol's MLCs. I could go on. Bust or boom, but it's making me jump in there more. Hope this helps!

-Robin

How is it possible to shop only once a month? What do you do for fresh foods - produce and milk, fresh orange juice, fresh fish, bread you don't bake yourself? Grapes, bananas, spinach, greens, don't last that long, and even if they did we'd need to buy so much we couldn't store it for a month! Once a month shopping is amazing to me.

I keep a well-stocked pantry and cook all the time, but still I shop for fresh foods weekly. I need some lessons!

Sherry

Milk and orange juice last a month, easily. Those things that have roots still attached, fennel, carrots, spinach, celery, herbs.... just stick them in water and cover them. I have plastic two liters (sounds like Alton Brown, doesn't it?) I've sliced the tops off of and just an tad bit of water in the bottom. Plastic baggie on top and it's good to go. Fish gets cooked the week they're bought, while the other meats go in the freezer. Or the bags of cooked Alaskan pollock last fine in the veggie bin. I don't live on the coast, so my fish is never fresh anyhow.

;)

To shop once a month you need a freezer and you need to eat storage type fruits and veggies like cabbage, potatoes, carrots, apples, oranges, etc. Banannas freeze OK and can be used to make breads, muffins, etc. when thawed. Berries and lots of veggies freeze well. Milk freezes. I have to do that myself as a single gal or it goes bad on me. I also buy little milk in the aeseptic cardboard packaging, that stays on the shelf.
Cottage cheese is a big problem for me. I can't get the kind I like, those little Breakstone lowfat ones, at my regular grocery. Even though they are much more expensive than the larger containers, they keep a long time UNOPENED. Once I open a cottage cheese container I almost always can't finish it in time before it spoils. Same goes with other dairy products, they keep a long time unopened in the fridge.
Butter freezes ok. Cream cheese freezes but is never quite the same after thawing. It's OK though. Same with hard cheese. About the only thing that doesn't freeze is lettuce, and I buy romaine for that and it keeps a good long while. Also fresh greens don't freeze, they are my splurges. But usually "fresh" greens aren't that fresh even in the grocery so I don't even bother with them, I use frozen ones. Fennel is another splurge, it keeps a while. Two things that I have to watch and do go bad on me are celery and green peppers, I have thrown a LOT of those out! Eggplant isn't worth eating out of seasnon, IMHO.

I shop every couple of weeks, but I could go longer if it weren't for milk. Unless they come from my garden, greens are not all that fresh here, my homecanned ones are better. I don't care for tossed lettuce salads so I don't eat many of those, but I have a head of romaine that's been in the fridge for two weeks and it's still OK. Those bagged salads don't last more than a couple of days before they get slimy.

Like Lpink, I eat things I can store, like carrots, rutabaga, parsnips, beets, cabbage, brussels sprouts. I don't really care for fruit, but I'll sometimes eat an apple or an orange and my freezer has blueberries, strawberries and sweet cherries that I picked myself last year. Other fruits usually just spoil and I'm never eating a banana for any reason, LOL. I do have some canned pineapple, but I'll probably never eat it.

When I do shop I'll buy more perishable things like avocados and grapes or melon and eat those first, then use up the less perishable items.

Eat fresh and in season and you can cut way down on your grocery bill, LOL, because in Michigan that means strawberries only in June and never any citrus! Since those are shipped a zillion miles before I get them, most times I might as well eat the canned stuff anyway.

Annie

Oh yeah, and good fresh bread freezes well too. I have to do that because with just me I can't use up fresh bread before it goes stale, so I almost always save some to eat now and freeze the rest for later. I would do the same with meat if I ate it.
But I've taken to making a lot of my own bread to save money. I can no longer afford the quality stuff and can't abide by the cardboard stuff, so I have to bake it in my bread machine if I want good bread.
I have bags of frozen spinach and I think maybe collards that is how I almost always eat my greens unless it is summer. Zuchinni and summer squash I don't eat much off season, but I did manage to find some yellow squash frozen now.
Eggs keep a long time too actually.
I can't think of anything I couldn't keep on hand for a month if I didn't plan it right. Even my great love sour cream I could keep stocked for a month if I bought the smaller containers and only opened them one by one when I needed them. That's what I do with yogurt. But that would be more expensive.
I shop about every two weeks, just for sour cream mostly, lol. And also because I have a tiny house and don't have much storage space. Even my upright freezer is relatively small.

I cook from a food pantry storage program so we only shop once a month for perishables & once every 3-5 months for everything else.

I use dried powdered milk when I've run out of fresh. Same with eggs...powdered when fresh are too expensive or I'm out. I'll even use Cabot Sharp Cheddar in powdered form before I'd consider a trip to the store when it's not time for a major shopping trip.

I plan menues around what's available in my very well stocked pantry not what's dancing around my head as sounding good. My pantry is better stocked than many small neighborhood grocery stores. :)

I could never control our budget if I went to the store every single week. Food is expensive in the northeast & I buy a lot of organics & other higher priced items. For instance, I have to pay about $5.00/lb. for Horizon butter. Holding down costs where I can is important for us. I figure every trip to the store will result in at least one impulse purchase that we don't really need.

Perishable foods are eaten first. I dehydrate many foods during the growing season. So, if I run out of even something like carrots I can always use my home dehydrated & nobody will be able to tell the difference. We eat green salads during the weeks when I can grow greens, not in December.

I love fruit. It's my favorite food group. But even there I buy mostly in season (with a few splurges) & wouldn't buy berries in the dead of winter except around the holidays. After a monthly shopping, I gourge on fresh fruit & then it's frozen, dehydrated, or canned until the next shopping trip. I do buy Florida tomatoes from about January on until our crops come in but we don't use many & I use them up shortly after the monthly shopping trip. I put up lots of tomatoes in late summer so it's only occassionaly I'd buy fresh anyway.

I would never run out of any staple because we keep a storage program so it's not a problem waiting 3-5 months for a staples shopping trip. We could easily go 6-9 months without any trip to a grocery store & eat just fine.

Obviously, with this type of pantry program, I'm a planner in my cooking style. I use my freezer extensively & do a lot of batch cooking. Been cooking like this since the early '80s. It works. We eat well & I'm always looking for new ways to add to our storage program. We've just started smoking our own meats. It's been fun & we've added 5 lbs. of smoked applewood maple/black pepper bacon to the freezer. That's enough for at least 4 months. One more thing we won't have to buy at the store.

/tricia

I declare, y'all make me feel so inept. I have never, ever, been called organized and growing older hasn't changed that. I do try to plan ahead but DH makes frequent trips to the grocery.

My biggest problem is probably my memory, which has never been good. I buy ingredients at the store, forget what I was going to do with them...copy recipes from here that I plan to use and then can't remember what inspired me to copy them. I put up numerous jars of Chase's Italian tomato sauce but have not used it as much as I should....there again, couldn't remember all the dfferent ways I was going to use it.

Since I discovered this forum, and all the cooking magazines I subscribe to,I have been much more adventuresome in my cooking...sadly there's only the two of us now, so that limits me somewhat although we don't mind leftovers.

It's much easier to cook in the summer when fresh veggies are available, either from the garden or the Farmer's Markets. We don't eat meat nearly as often in tthe summer.

I think one thing that frustrates me is planning the entire meal, what sides to fix or what entree to make with particula sides. Today I'm making Ropa Vieja for the first time, and right now canteloupe and bread are all I have in mind, and of course the rice which is probably enough. We don't eat a lot of desserts.

jude

Sherry, not being flippant, just answering your question: Shopping once a month is possible because that's my only option. I can't drive. I live ten miles from the nearest grocery, and DH is home only once ever 4-5 weeks. The public transportation here is almost non-existent and not dependable, so sometimes I can work in an extra trip using para-transit, but I can't (and don't) count on that. It's not ideal, but it's the situation we have to deal with for another year or so. Also, 95% of the time, Im cooking for one. If I had three or four people here, it might be a problem. But then, if I had three or four people here, chances are one of them could drive. If you had to do it, you could do it. Ive already said, however, that when we move, I want a grocery store within walking distance.

Lpink and Annie pretty much nailed the strategy, although I don't have a freezer or Annie's basement of lovely canned goods. I don't drink a lot of milk or orange juice, and I keep boxes of soy, rice and evaporated milk on hand just in case. My primary beverages are tea, water and a bit of cranberry or lime juice diluted in tonic water. I haven't seen fresh fish at any grocery since I lived in San Jose -- so I just ask the seafood clerk to sell me what he has that is still frozen.

I use those green bags that inhibit outgassing (thanks Beverly for introducing me to those) and things like celery, peppers, carrots, kale, romaine lettuce stay fresher much longer than when not using them. When those are gone (usually after 7-9 days), I use frozen vegetables. Not much nutritional difference between frozen veggies and out of season fresh ones. I prefer grapes frozen, and frozen or in a muffin is the ONLY way I will eat a banana. If I buy berries, I eat them right away. And now I've learned (from here) that I can freeze lemons and oranges, well, that makes me happy! I don't eat summer squash out of season because it usually has no flavor. Eggplant is impossible to find here anyway, and I'm not paying $3.50 a pound for winter tomatoes even if they did hold up well. I just plan to eat things like asparagus, mushrooms and such early on.

Bread is a problem. I have not gotten the hang of baking good bread in this climate/altitude. I use tortillas and pita bread mostly. Both freeze well and don't take up a lot of space. Herbs are another problem. Sometimes I buy fresh, chop it up, mix with a bit of olive oil and freeze in teaspoon quantities.

Lpink, try turning the sour cream and cottage cheese containers upside down. I don't know why, but it seems to keep longer and they dont get watery.