That always brings a bit of trepidation to the Texas Gulf Coast.
We’ve been pretty blessed and darned lucky the last many years.
One philosophy you will hear a lot in hurricane zones is: Don’t fill up the freezer until October.
So from June until October, I keep meat buying and stocking up to a minimum, usually going through my freezer first, then buying only what we can use in a week (or two if there’s a good sale).
Meal planning for a week in advance can become a bit of a chore, I’ve never been good at that, but it becomes a necessity when you don’t want to store too much food “just in case” of a storm or a lengthy power outage.
I have my basic proteins list for 1 week (for 3 people) I cook most meals except breakfast, and I make enough for supper for hubbs to take for his lunch the next day:
1 whole organic chicken (makes 6 cups of broth and about a quart of chicken salad)
18 large organic eggs (not every week, it depends on how much mayonnaise I make as well as mug muffins, scrambled eggs, etc. Some weeks we go through the whole 18, some weeks we hardly touch them)
3Lbs ground beef, usually 90% lean (burgers, meatballs, chili, taco, taco salad, pasta sauce, just cooked with veggies)
1 beef or pork roast (carnitas, carne guisada, pot roast, stew, crock pot w/vegetables)
4-6 steaks, beef or pork chops, depending on size and cut
2lbs salmon, tilapia, flounder or shrimp (baked, pan fried, grilled, stir fry, scampi, fish cakes, fish tacos, curry)
The list can vary a bit, depending on the sales and what I feel like cooking, but that’s a pretty basic proteins list.
I usually keep some canned proteins as well: tuna, sardines, salmon, chicken, smoked oysters or mussels. Look for olive oil packed, not soy or cottonseed oils.
Hubbs usually picks up breakfast on his way to work (it’s breakfast taco heaven in these parts), son is a cereal eater, and I have never really been big on breakfast.
While I do pick up a pound of bacon now and then, it sometimes expires before we use is (I know!).
Mainly because neither of the testosterone based ones here can be bothered to cook it.
If I cook it, it’s gone by the time I’ve cooked it all.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that a block of cheese can sit, unopened, in plain view every time the open the frige, for weeks. But, the second I cut it into cubes, they start eating it.
Maybe the packaging confuses and confounds them, I don’t know.
They would have sucked at the whole “hunter gatherer” thing 😉
So that’s my basic necessities for a week, meat at every meal.
dieting sucks blog 