Boring thread alert. How do you manage shopping when you’re on your own and trying to eat healthy?

[Datingandnoideahowto]

Just wondering if there’s something obvious I’m missing

I live alone or with one DC (adult) most of the time.

I’m trying to get healthy and eat more fresh food. Salads etc. I hate iceberg lettuce so I buy the salad bags. (I know - but I really hate iceberg!)

I live rurally and the local shop is pathetic for fresh stuff and doesn’t always even the dreaded iceberg lettuce.

What way would you manage your shopping? I try not to go more than once a week but the fresh stuff especially the salad leaves doesn’t stay fresh.

And it wouldn’t be worth doing a delivery for such a small value shop it would have the additional basket top up added on and cost a bomb! Used to have the Tesco pass that let you order up to lunchtime for same day delivery but I don’t think they do that anymore.

I’m just wondering if there’s something I’m missing?

Apologies for boring thread!

Get a unlimited delivery pass, and get more than one delivery a week?
I know tesco do one, solves issue

You can get tins or pouches these days.

Roasted veg lasts for a few days.

I love cooking for myself and would love to have this problem. If you are going to be doing it for a while I'd buy a bigger freezer.

I know you're waiting until remodelling in your house to get a freezer, but if you could get one now it would make life much easier, as you could keep all sorts of frozen veg, batch cooking and also frozen berries, which aren't up to much fresh, but great for cereal and smoothies etc and trifle.

But otherwise, what @Inextremis says about buying carefully and using in order of of keeping qualities is probably the best solution. Plus growing you own if you can.

Stick a few sheets of kitchen roll underneath the leaves in the bag and it will keep them fresher longer.

I live alone
Start of the week I eat berries, bagged salad etc
Then as the week goes on I swap to
Apples and bananas
Frozen raspberries
Roasted veg and using up anything that needs it so tomatoes, onions, peppers, courgettes
Bags of steam frozen veg
Tinned sweetcorn
Batch cooking stuff with loads of veg in it

Lentils and legumes I buy in tins although they do sell them in pouches. I add them to dishes to reduce or eliminate the need for meat. I might do a big pot of a tomato based dish with onions, celery, garlic, tomatoes, stock and then add whatever veg I have in the fridge eg leeks, peppers, mushrooms, aubergine, and chopped up chicken or some chorizo. I add lentils or chickpeas. Flavour wise I might go for warm smokey spices like smoked paprika. It’s a really versatile way to cook and uses up random bits that you have.

Could buy some fresh veg to be cooked later in the week? They normally last 4-5 days (or you could cook them mid week and store them in the fridge).
Think peppers/aubergine/courgettes for a ratatouille, or broccoli/cauli to be roasted, or french beans to be boiled etc?
Tomatoes, spring onion and cucumbers last for more than a week in my house and they can make delicious salads if chopped up together:).

Alternatively, thinking just about salad leaves, have you tried to be a 'living' one? Ocado is now selling them. It's basically a salad head with roots, you put it in a vase, add water and only take the leaves you need. The rest lasts for a couple of weeks at least.

I like to get things like green beans, sugar snap peas, baby corn and asparagus which I steam in the microwave. It lasts longer that salad leaves so if you're doing a shop you can get some salad for days 1 and 2, then greenbeans etc for days 3,4 and 5. That way you have fresh veg that's low calorie without having to shop every other day.

One of my favourite lunches is a combo of that veg, steamed for 3 minutes in the microwave, with a tsp of butter, salt, pepper and some wafer thin chicken or ham sliced up and mixed in. It's really tasty, low calorie and very quick to whip up.

You could also use the same stuff to make a quick stir fry with a little chilli oil, garlic....

I don’t live alone but do eat a lot more salad and veg than anyone else in the house hold and during lockdown was only shopping once a week so needed to work out a plan to last a week.
If you can keep fresh veg in the fridge.
I bought whole little gem and romaine lettuces which lasted well in the fridge (don’t slice into them whole, pull the leaves off separately then chop).
Whole carrots also keep well and I would use a vegetable peeler to slice into ribbons for salad.
Red onions also keep fine, and I can get a week out of a pack of peppers, celery and a cucumber.
As the week went on I would add things like tinned sweet corn, pickled or vacuum packed beetroot, chopped apples.
I also like roasted veg in salads and find that frozen veg is fine once roasted.
I’m also a big fan of stirfries and would have usually bought the bags of ready chopped veg. In lockdown I made my own from carrot ribbons, mushrooms, peppers, shredded leeks, broccoli, tinned bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, sweetcorn and pineapple.
I have gone back to the ready chopped backs.

@GingerFigs The lentils are usually the small red split ones - they don;t need soaking, and cook in around 10-15 mins. Sometimes I use toor dall (larger, yellow) which take btween 30 and 4o0 mins - and again, I don't bother with soaking them. Chickpeas I buy both tinned and dried - the dried I soak overnight. As for beans - I buy tins of haricot, borlotti, butter, cannelini - any sort of bean, really, - can be used straight from the tin - and dried haricot, which I soak overnight before using. The only bean I rarely buy is kidney, 'cos neither DH nor I like them much. Come ajutumn, I make a lot of Boston baked beans with bacon or sajusage - very comforting - the lentils I eat daily in the form of tarka dal, or buy urid dal and make dal makhani (not daiy though, it's too rich for that!). I used to think beans and lentils were boring and tasteless, but they're really not - now just about my favourite food - though I do like fish and meat as well, they make up a smaller part of my diet nowadays :)

Like a PP we usually get cos or romaine.

I top up with a bag of baby spinach as it can go in salads and be used as a veg too.

Oh and grated carrot!

If you wrap leave sin kitchen roll they last way longer

*Leaves in

Thanks everyone there’s some great ideas here!

I really would prefer to avoid shopping more than once a week because of the time it takes and also because I’d spend a fortune!

I would focus more on vegetables towards the second half of the week.

So on the day or two after shopping, you eat loads of salady things while it's fresh, then from
day 3, switch to homemade soups, eggs and other vegetable choices.

We eat a lot of roasted veg at this time of year, with eg chicken breasts, veggie sausages, grilled halloumi, chorizo etc. I sometimes buy bags from Iceland which cook from frozen (I know you don’t have space for this, OP) but it’s a good way of just using up bits and bobs too. I tend to use fennel and cumin seeds sprinkled over to give them a bit more flavour.

Salad stuff we do generally pick up fresh on the day/day before, but I find spinach keeps best of all the “leaves” if you are buying bags.

You can grow lettuce at home, it's best to stagger the planting so you don't end up with all of it at once though - so plant some seeds, wait a bit then plant more.

Have you tried sprouting any seeds? They'll grow in a glass jar on a windowsill, look up seeds for sprouting.

@user1471523870

Could buy some fresh veg to be cooked later in the week? They normally last 4-5 days (or you could cook them mid week and store them in the fridge). Think peppers/aubergine/courgettes for a ratatouille, or broccoli/cauli to be roasted, or french beans to be boiled etc? Tomatoes, spring onion and cucumbers last for more than a week in my house and they can make delicious salads if chopped up together:).

Alternatively, thinking just about salad leaves, have you tried to be a 'living' one? Ocado is now selling them. It's basically a salad head with roots, you put it in a vase, add water and only take the leaves you need. The rest lasts for a couple of weeks at least.

"Alternatively, thinking just about salad leaves, have you tried to be a 'living' one?"

I can't stop laughing about what I wrote! Of course I meant 'have you tried the 'living salad', not have you tried TO BE a living salad!

😂😂😂 I’m more a living lard