What about keeping on top of your regular planning, shopping, and cooking so that having company every so often doesn’t throw you for a loop? A few ideas have worked well for me.
First and foremost, keep a pre-printed grocery list on your refrigerator at all times. You can make one on your computer or even I your sweet little ol’ handwriting. List what items you commonly buy for your family and stock your pantry with. Then arrange them in the same order that you will find them in the grocery store, leaving some blank space at the end of each section. Most stores have similar layouts: produce is first, followed by bakery and breads, canned and boxed dry goods, frozen and refrigerated fare. Train the members of your family who are old enough to read to help you keep this list up-to-date. When they use the last squirt of mustard, they circle the word mustard on the list. Pour yourself the final bowl of cornflakes? Grab a pen and circle!
When readying yourself to hit the grocer’s aisles, this preprinted list will have you already halfway home. Simply add any ingredients in the blank spaces for new dishes you will try that are not part of your regular inventory. If you hit more than one supermarket, accentuate the items that you will get at one store with a brightly colored highlighter. This way you can buy your meats and other ingredients where they are at the best price. Simply consult the store’s circular before heading off on your shopping excursion.
If you like to post your menu on your fridge or write it down in your planner, when you eat a meal, cross it off, but circle any items you did not use. For example, let’s say you planned a meal with steamed broccoli as a side, but you never got around to making it. Well, rather than letting it go bad, circle the word broccoli on your menu to remind you that you need to make soup out of that bunch or cut it up and serve it with dip for an afternoon snack. A great resource for using up these leftover and unused items is The Use it Up Cookbook by Catherine Kitcho. It lists recipes by grouping them according to single ingredients. Stuck with some leftover tomato? You’ll find multiple recipes to make with it. Stumped with what to do with that surplus of garden veggies? You’ll discover dozens of dishes here. This book is worth the price simply by virtue of the money you’ll cease wasting by cooking from it!
Cooking for a Crowd
Let’s face it, if you want to be well practiced in the area of offering hospitality to larger groups of people, you are just going to have to learn to cook for a crowd. Here’s how:
First, make friends with your Crock-Pot or slow cooker. Go buy one if you don’t have one. This is the single most important tool for making large and easy meals. I actually own three. I can make our main dish in one, peeled cooked potatoes in the second, and a dessert in the third.
