Day 2 of my 30 day blog series journaling my experiment with a Capsule Kitchen. The plan? Use 33 ingredients to create all our meals for three months. If you just joined me you can either start at Day 1 or view all Capsule Kitchen posts.
On Day 1 I laid out the rules of the Capsule Kitchen and my goal for the experiment: Simplicity.
Why is simplicity so important? Well, sanity. But past that - I’m doing meal prep for a family of four while living full-time in an RV. I don’t have a ton of counter or pantry space to work with (see some photos of our ‘home’).
Today I am going to look at our current eating habits and determine 4 or 5 of our go-to meals.
Changes We’ve Already Made
As I look through my pantry and recipe list, I notice that we’ve already been minimizing ingredients.
- I used to buy both potato chips and tortilla chips. Now I only buy tortilla chips (except for picnics).
- I stopped buying “cow milk” for dietary reasons. I ended up buying both rice milk (my preference) and almond milk (what the rest of the family likes). This got to be a hassle so I relented and quit buying rice milk.
- I rarely eat cheese (my body doesn’t like it) so I haven’t been buying it unless my kids request it to make a meal.
- I stopped buying bread/buns/english muffins/bagels and buy tortillas as a way of eating less bread. I also quit buying crackers. My children have balked at this decision.
- And then there’s the great household debate: crunchy or smooth peanut butter. I used to buy both in order to satisfy both the adults (crunchies) and the kids (creamies). I finally decided the kids could specify their preference when they were paying for it, so stopped buying creamy.
My Go-To Meals
My saved recipe list is long, but I often find myself returning to these family basic meals:
- Sweet Potato/Apple/Sausage Bake (we call this “Bob”)
- Taco bar - ground beef or shredded chicken, sweet peppers, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, beans, avocado, onion
- Eggs in many forms, often times accompanied by breakfast meat
- Honey-Sesame Chicken with veggies and rice
- Chili - ground beef, beans, tomatoes
- Smoothies - veggie smoothies and fruit smoothies
- Granola - served with fruit and yogurt or almond milk
I can’t rotate these few meals every week for three months, so I will look for other recipes that use the same ingredients.
What’s Next?
On Day 3, I will create my Capsule Kitchen List.
What Small Changes Can You Make?
Where can you start minimizing your groceries/food? Can you reduce the forms of bread you are purchasing? Can you settle the great debate: Crunchy or Creamy?
Follow Ditching Suburbia’s board Capsule Kitchen on Pinterest.
I have not attempted a capsule kitchen project intentionally, but have discovered through reading aloud to my husband that we already do this quite a bit.
Lonna,
I’ve found that to be true for a lot of people.
Maybe it was for us a bit, too. Then I found myself trying to add more variety, so I’d find new recipes that needed ingredients I didn’t have on hand and the resulting meals didn’t seem to live up to the image in my head.