Anyway, what I mean with be really good at being a
housewife is to be on top of everything in the household - the
cooking, cleaning, decorating, gardening, and so on - and be
organized about it so that I can also enjoying an ample amount of
time for my other hobbies. Still find time to read, write, draw
and paint. I wanted my hiatus from the corporate world to be still
productive in other ways. Like, perhaps, making my dream of getting
published someday come true, eh?
The biggest chunk of my Time Pie Chart I thought
would be the meal planning and kitchen preparation. I would surely be
cooking everyday, not just for meals in the house but also for My
Pet's everyday "baon", or lunch box to office. I'm
trying to feed him healthy foods so I'm keeping him away from fast
food meals, which is what he usually eats when in the office. That is
if he eats at all! Sometimes he gets too busy that he forgets
the time altogether and goes home way too ravenous. And that's
not healthy at all!
Meal planning proved to be a huge challenge. It
starts with making a grocery list and I also have to be super
organized about this. The trip to the supermarket requires a
car because we live in a village where there is no such thing as
"walking distance". It's in an estate that is composed of
many other villages. There's a hub or business district of some
sort at the entrance of the estate where we shop and dine out. And
there's also a bus shuttle that goes around every hour or so to take
us there but it's a bit of a hassle since you have to wait long for
the next bus if you miss it. Plus, it would be a bigger hassle to
carry heavy grocery bags to the bus terminal. Point is, I have to be
smart in making my grocery list so I won't be forgetting anything
essential and save me extra trips to the store.
At first, I would confer with my many recipe
magazines and books in planning our meals for 2 weeks. As in I write
down the particular dish that I would cook for each meal of the day.
It would look something like this:
Meals for 20 Nov. to 03 Dec.
20 Nov. (Monday)
Breakfast – Tapsilog (I make my own tapa and longganisa)
Lunch & Pet's Baon – Grilled Herb Chicken
Breast
Dinner – Beef Kaldereta
21 Nov. (Tuesday)....
and so on... and so forth... and this is how I'd look like every two weeks:
After listing all the dishes I want for 2 weeks, I
would list all the ingredients needed for those dishes plus other
staples for stocking in the pantry such as condiments, herbs, cooking
oil, etc...etc... And oh, plus the toiletries for the bathroom and
and all other cleaning agents. This laborious task must be done twice
a month since my meal planning was for two weeks. That's just about
the amount of proteins I could store in my freezer and I don't really
want to store them for too long. Of course, I want them as fresh as
possible.
Anyway, this task proved to be stressful and
frustrating. For one, it is time-consuming. Two, there's always some
ingredients that are not available in the supermarket. So, I would
come home with slightly, if not completely, different sets of
ingredients and I'd either substitute ingredients, or change the
entire menu. In short, the meal planning goes to waste. Ugh!
I did this for about 2 – 3 months, or so, until I
finally got tired of it and gave up the hope that it's going to work.
So I came up with another strategy... which I would tell all about
next time in another blog post. :D Till then....
To be continued.....
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