When I was in middle school and high school, I used to go grocery shopping with my dad. We would normally go on weeknights. Some things I remember always being on our family’s grocery list included:
shredded cheddar cheese (for melting over broccoli)
sliced provolone cheese and deli meats (for sandwiches)
lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, lemon juice (for my dad’s salads with homemade dressing)
apples
grapes
nuts
potatoes
ice cream
shredded wheat cereal (for my dad)
apple jacks / cookie crisp / frosted cheerios / rice crispy treat cereal (for my brother and me)
skim milk
bisquick pancake mix
rice crispy treats from the Publix bakery (we would usually eat these before we got home so that my mom would not find out)
When I went to college, grocery shopping by myself was very exciting to me as well. It made me feel like a real adult, even though I was not really paying for my own groceries or anything. I never made lists. I would just wander through the isles picking up things that caught my eye after hitting up the basics. I did not cook much in college so there was a lot of sandwich/salad supplies purchasing going on.
As what some might call a “real adult”, I still find trips to the grocery store fun. I thought the feeling would go away and be replaced by annoyance or dread, but it is still something I look forward to each week. Maybe it just reminds me of the good times scanning the isles at Publix with my dad when I was younger. I shop a little differently now. I usually plan what meals I will make for the week in advance. Now that I cook, my grocery list is usually just made up of the ingredients I will need to make the meals for the week. I rarely buy snack foods anymore. My list is made up of things like 1 large white onion, ground cumin, mango nectar or baking powder.
Like all things I actually enjoy doing, it is sometimes hard to find the time to go grocery shopping. Since I tend to buy what would be considered more ingredient-type foods rather than general foods or snack foods, if I skip a trip to the grocery store, I am pretty much left with a bunch of random things that do not go together in the refrigerator. This was the case yesterday for lunch at work. I had not done any grocery shopping in a while. I had plenty of leftovers thanks to Zach’s family that was recently in town visiting, but of course I left them all at home yesterday. As lunchtime rolled around, I scrounged the following things from the refrigerator that belonged to me: double fiber english muffins, little bitty cherry tomatoes from the farmers’ market trip on Sunday, some random pepperonis and a half-block of monterey-jack cheese. Sounds like pizza to me!
No Groceries No Cry Pizza
1 english muffin
4 quarter inch slices of cheese (right off the block)
about 8 cherry tomatoes
4 slices of pepperoni (or whatever deli meat is in your refrigerator)
salt and pepper to taste
Toast the English muffin in a toaster oven until it has started to turn brown.
In a small bowl chop up the cherry tomatoes into tiny pieces (or you can just squeeze them all together), and add salt and pepper
Spread tomato mixture over each English muffin half.
Place the cheese slices on top of the tomato and then the pepperoni on top of the cheese.
Microwave your little pizzas for about 30 second to melt the cheese.
Put them back in the toaster oven until crisp to your likeness.
This will cost you only about 250 calories for both pizzas.
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