Down to Basics - Prepare to be Bombarded

Food is everywhere it would seem.

So to get it out there and for the record, my record ... prepare to be bombarded with photos.  I need something to compare things to at the end of this Challenge so I thought I would get it all over with in one fell swoop.

For those of you that don't like looking at food cupboards you might as well go and do something more interesting now, but for anyone that likes taking a look into other people cupboards ... as I do ... here goes.

Spice cupboard

Baking cupboard

Condiments and Jars cupboard

Main Food Cupboard

Top Part of Larder Cupboard

(the bottom part hold dog supplies ... food, medicines and towels)

The Fridge

Shelf One

Shelf Two and Three

Shelves Four and Five

Top Fridge Drawer

Bottom Fridge Drawer

The Freezer

Shelf One

Shelf Two

Shelf Three

Shelf Four

Drawer One

Drawer Two

Is there anyone still awake or have you glazed over completely  😀

I'm here for at least a full week, so we shall see what in-roads I can make into some of these areas.  Looking at my last Eat the Stores Challenge it made the most impact eating from one designated area, as for the final week of that Challenge we switched to eating down the contents of the freezer and it made a huge difference.  But it turned out that this meant no foods were eaten from the cupboards towards the end of the challenge and they then remained pretty static.

In fact looking at these photos it would seem that the freezer is the one space that still looks much better than it did before the last Challenge.  There's no need to be ready to catch things when you open the door now and pretty much everything is easily accessible ... so some progress then!!

 I'm pretty much here for a week and then at the Van for a week and then back here, so photos will alternate between the food areas as I switch locations.  But very little shopping will be done for the duration of the Challenge at either location.


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Down to Basics - Home Stores

I'm back at home in Wales for the next week or so, and it's a good opportunity to eat through the store cupboard, fridge and freezers here as well as well as those in the Van in a bid to get us Down to Basics at both locations.  And just saying those words 'eat through the store cupboard' made me realise that in many ways this Challenge might seem the same as my first Challenge of this year.  You can see it here - Challenge One 2019 - Eat the Stores and also permanently on the sidebar listed along with all my other Challenges.

The main difference between the two Challenges are the end outcomes that I am aiming for.  

In January when I did the first Challenge my aim was to work our way through the food stores, using up the foods and tidying up the cupboards and shelves in the fridge and freezers.  This time at the back of my mind is the realisation that I want to get us back to eating simpler foods, less processed and less packaged foods and to get rid of and stop buying anymore of the things that I want to move away from.

Hence the title Down to Basics. 

This was my one of my cupboards in January before the first Challenge started.

And this is the same cupboard at the end of that Challenge.

And this ... the same as the top photo of this post ... is the same cupboard today.

As you can clearly see I haven't gone back to the cluttered days pre Challenge One, but there are things in the cupboard that I have decided I don't want to store going forward.  The stack of pasta stir-through sauces for instance.  The cake mixes and fillings.  These are things that may be bought in the future if the situation where they are needed arises ... but are not things that I want to store and be tempted to use on a day to day basis.

So the main purpose of this Challenge is to take us down to a base list of food items that will be purchased regularly.  I'm currently using one of the notebooks that I bought last week to start a list of core items that will form the basic store cupboard that I want to meal plan from in future.

It's something that seems to be overlapping on both my blogs at the moment, the need for simplicity in all parts of my life and my journey in heading towards it ... and it's something that I am really enjoying.

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Chickpea Tuna

A lovely and very healthy sandwich filling that I have on a regular basis is Chickpea Tuna. So called ... not by just me I hasten to add ... because of its slight resemblance in taste to a tuna mayonnaise sandwich filling.

Made with simple, tasty and healthy ingredients and full of protein so it's really good for you.   And it keeps in the fridge for up to a week once made, so you can have lots of buns or salads with a dollop of tasty goodness added.

It contains:

1 can Chickpeas, drained and slightly mashed

Half a small onion, finely diced

One stick of celery, chopped small

One clove of very finely chopped garlic, or garlic paste, or granules

A dash of lemon juice

Salt and Black pepper to taste.

You can play with the ingredients to vary it to suit your mood, I'm fancying a bit of curry powder in my next batch.  And it goes with crunchy Iceberg lettuce so well.

We also used up a ready made quiche base, some eggs, the last of the leftover roasted vegetables and more salad stuff.  Things are going down ... slowly but surely.

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Down to Basics - Using Things Up

So ... how's this going?

Well because I just jumped in with both feet, no dithering, no thinking of rules, no planning, no menus ... it's going casually.  But, and this is the main thing we are off and running immediately.

I'm trying to photograph ingredients as I use them up, relishing throwing empty packs in the bin after prepping each meal and positively loving every little bit of space that I make in the cupboard, fridge or freezer.

I even let Alan have a whole pack of bacon on his two breakfast bacon buns ... they were small slices and it the only time he's eating bacon this week so I'm not trying to kill him ... honest!!

While he tucked into bacon buns with good old HP sauce I had a couple of egg buns with mayo ... so between us an egg and bacon breakfast that kept us going for hours. 

  Later on all we needed as a late lunch was the coffee and cake we tucked into at  the local garden centre.  Our tea was therefore much more like a supper so we decided to share a homemade pizza.

Keeping it simple I managed to use up half a tub of Dolmio pasta sauce from the cupboard, along with some leftover roasted vegetables from the fridge, some slices of red onion and the last of one of my packs of ready grated cheese.  For Alan's half, as I had no cheese I could grate I finely chopped up a cheese slice.  Of course it worked well, it always does, cheese is cheese is cheese ... whatever its starting shape.

Not a bad day of using things up ... a full pack of buns, leftovers from the fridge, cheese and of course a full pack of bacon.  What it does highlight to me straight away though is that while I am so thrilled to use things up, most of what we eat seems to come in excessive and mostly unrecyclable packaging.  Both the bacon slices and the Dolmio sauce for instance had cardboard sleeves over the plastic tray and tub that they came in, very decorative and full of information but mostly unnecessary.  

 At home we can compost and burn things, here at the Van it's a different thing altogether.  ALL rubbish goes into the big shared rubbish bins, if it's recycled at its destination I'm not sure.  The only reason for this is that the local recycling vans don't fit under the railway bridge that leads into the caravan park.

My answer to this dilemma I have decided is that once this Challenge I might try a 'packaging free', or at the very least 'much less packaging' challenge, especially here at the Van.  Back home in Wales, Conwy Council is leading the way in recycling and it's not quite so much of a worry.  

Back tomorrow with some more chatter/waffle/photos ... well that's what my blog has always been full of  🙂

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Down to Basics - Accountability Photos

So yes, of course most of you knew immediately what this Challenge would be about. ... eating down the stores, emptying the cupboards, not shopping for a month, call it what you wish,

 But I decided to call it 'Down to Basics' because once I empty the cupboards, fridge and freezer ... mostly here but also to some extent back in Wales ... I won't be shopping to restock them in the way they have been stocked in the past or present.  Instead I'll be moving to a more basic, but useful and healthy store cupboard of our most used and basic items.

I'm putting up these photos as a record of what is here in the van food storage areas at the start of the Challenge so I can see in a couple of weeks how much difference there is.

This Challenge isn't to be about deprivation in any way and I will be shopping for things like milk for Alan's cuppas ... and maybe once ALL supplies are used up bread for toast.  I will also buy things like onions if they are needed to make up recipes with ingredients I already have in the cupboards.  

But apart from things like that I will be using up what we already have before any shopping for what we fancy takes place.

As you can see from these photos we are not short of food here at the Van, how things are back in Wales I have no idea, but I will be back there on Wednesday night so I'll check and photograph the cupboards and will continue the Challenge at both addresses.

I'm not sure how long this Challenge will last, a week wouldn't make much of a dent in the food stash ... so possibly at least a month 

Anyway this is the basis of the Challenge and hopefully I will be back most days waffling on about something and sharing recipes that use up the ingredients that I find in the stores in the best possible way.

Oh, and I'm using one of my new notebooks to makes notes and list the foods that come out of the cupboards, fridge and freezer so I can keep tabs on my progress 🙂

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Down to Basics - Challenge Triggered

This is my food cupboard at the Van.

I hadn't realised how full it already was until I got back from a mooch around the shops.  It was the type of shopping trip done a bit here, a bit there, going back to the car with bags between various shops.  Crossing things off my list and then for some reason still shopping for more.

As I unpacked the bags when I got home my heart sank ... I'd only gone and done it again.  Backed myself into a corner piled high with foodstuffs that mostly weren't even needed immediately. 

I laid everything out and took photos.  They were things we needed yes, but not immediately.   The cereals for instance, yes I had just eaten the last two Weetabix for breakfast but there were still oats in the cupboard for porridge or bread in the freezer for toast, I could easily have managed for a week or two before buying anything else.  Also I didn't have to buy Alan a different sort of cereal, he would have been just as happy sharing the Weetabix, or porridge or toast.

I treated myself to some flowers to brighten up the Van for the Bank Holiday weekend along with my annual purchase of Gardeners' World magazine.  It's the issue with the two for one entry into various gardens around the UK.  This particular one came with gardening gloves and seeds as well.  Hopefully we will be able to make use of the offer card a few times this year, we didn't get round to it last year ... or the year before.

Another silly purchase?

Time will tell.

I also bought these ...

Three pretty notebooks.  I never regret buying stationery

But it was after photographing all these additional purchases that I spotted I still had one more bag to finish unpacking.

More food!!

So ... a Challenge has been triggered in a very natural way.  It's not the one I had in mind to do but it's a very needed one, and one if I do it properly and completely will lead neatly into the one I had in mind anyway.

It's starts NOW.

I'll be back tomorrow with more information, but long term and regular readers will have a bloody good idea what I'm going to do 😀


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Back Soon ... I Promise

I've not vanished completely  - honest!!

My only Challenge recently has been keeping a secret.

All will be revealed in just over a week on my other blog.

In the meantime here are some puppy dog eyes ...

... and this mornings cuddles.



Not Challenging in the least but totally adorable.


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