KissKus: Fridays

As part of the Calendar series there was a little interview with me published on Whip Up: welcome anyone who hasn't been here before!

I truly love my new Friday routine. Friday is now the day that I do our weekly shopping (I wrote about it here). Today I spent quite a long time planning our meals for next week. It was very relaxing and fun.

I simply start by taking a white sheet of paper and writing down the days of the week. Saturday and Wednesday are easy to fill in, because they are always the same. On Saturday we have our traditional pancakes (made by Michel). On Wednesday it's spaghetti (also made by Michel, because I'm at work). Tuesday is a bit of a hectic day where we cannot all eat together, so we usually have soup or something like that.

To fill in the rest of the days I first check what I still have in stock that I can use. Today I found asparagus, chickpeas and pumpkin. I googled recipes until I found some that I liked to try. I'm starting to really enjoy this kind of puzzling!

When I have a complete week menu planned I make my shopping list. I write down everything that I need for the meals and I check off my basic list that I keep in my pantry. Lastly, I checked the offers of my supermarket, so that I don't miss out on any good deals.

This afternoon I added two new things to my schedule. They are small things, but important nonetheless. The first thing is that before I go shopping I clean my fridge. By the end of the week it's become pretty empty which makes it easier. It really is a light task, but not one that was part of my routine yet.

Another thing that I started doing as of today is to take the empty glass bottles with me to the recycling bin. It's something that I hate to do and tend to leave for far too long. However, if I just do it every week then there will never be a lot of glass, will there? I felt really pleased about myself ;)

For the groceries I set myself a budget of 100 euros per week. Until now I've managed to stick to my budget, although it was a close call today. I'm curious to know how much other families spend on their weekly shopping, I haven't really been able to find that out on the internet. I don't think 100 euros is a particularly tight budget and in coming weeks I think I will lower it slightly.

With all these changes cooking has become such a pleasure for me again. There is no more stress involved: I have a plan and I simply stick to that. It's obvious that the rest of the family benefits from it as well.