Oh, also growing greens like lettuce, kale, etc. is pretty easy in pots too!

I’m following along with interest. The most challenging thing to me is trying to shop less than once a week while keeping fresh meat/fish, vegetables and fruit in the plan. We have plenty of nonperishable food (canned stuff, pasta, rice), but I prefer to save that stuff in case I really can’t get out to the store or supplies of fresh stuff get harder to find.

We are getting Blue Apron deliveries — 2 or 3 meals a week. It works well for the way we eat, especially if it’s just my husband and me. I leave the cardboard box on the porch and unload everything while disinfecting. I like that we get exactly what we need with no excess. But as I’ve said before, I am not an enthusiastic cook, and when I do find recipes that appeal to me, they often require ingredients that mean a whole other trip to the store, which is not a feasible solution right now. I’d rather load up on basic ingredients once a week and make what we can from that.

I’m not thriving in this situation, I admit. I’m an introvert and don’t mind alone time, but I like to be able to be out and about even in my alone time. I used to eat a lot of meals while out and about, so I’m adjusting. It’s probably healthier for me (I think I’ve lost a couple of pounds, despite baking banana muffins and pb&j cookies), so I’m trying to embrace the new normal. I don’t know if I’ll ever learn to love to cook, but I’m working on getting better at it.

Great info ladies! Thanks for sharing. 

I'm nodding along with Diana, Jenn, RunCarla and SaraD8.

I am not used to having such a full fridge, freezer, or pantry at all. I shop the Euro way - very fresh and all the time - but changed to another strategy now that I want to make stocks last for 2 weeks. It's been a fun challenge  The less we go out in the US at the moment, the better. I am taking that as seriously as I can. 

Some of the dishes I've been making:

I find there is plenty of produce that lasts well into a second week. You just have to be a bit proactive about planning and make sure it's in good shape when you purchase it. I routinely keep things like cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, zucchini for 2 weeks. Even tomatoes can last a long time if you keep them in the fridge.

I think it may matter how good your fridge is at keeping things cold. My current one is very good. The one in my old apartment was pretty bad and things (especially milk) would go bad a lot faster.

One hint to make fresh produce last longer: I swear these things really do help!

FRESHPAPER Food Saver Sheets for Produce | Keep Fruits & Vegetables Fresh | Perfect for Food Storage, Healthy Meal Prep | BPA Free | Made in USA https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V.....HEb50TPMPB

Debbie Meyer GreenBags - Reusable BPA Free Food Storage Bags, Keep Fruits and Vegetables Fresher Longer in these GreenBags! 20pc Set (8M, 8L, 4XL) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I.....HEbTXXZTQ8

Another trick to help keep greens fresh longer: when you bring them home, at minimum immediately remove any twist ties/bundling. Wash, spin dry, set out on a tea towel on the counter to dry a bit further, then wrap in towel and tuck inside a plastic bag in the veg drawer. Leaf lettuce keeps at least a week this way, and sometimes up to 10 days in my fridge. Romaine, especially bagged romaine hearts, will keep for two weeks in their original package.

This has been fun to read, and thanks everyone for contributing here! There are regional/cultural/environmental norms to consider, as well as practical issues like how many bags you can manage at one time (I'm walking up 21 outdoor stairs so it's one trip from the car, max) , and how much storage you have. This is sure a time for the organized and practical among us, and I have come away with a lot of great tips. Not sure how much of it I can promise to adopt but one can always try!

My husband has begged and pleaded for years to get us into a routine of meal planning, and I'm successful for a week or two, then it falls off. I'm outright jealous of you who are enthusiastic and creative cooks too.

In my part of Canada, food delivery isn't working well anymore with delivery or pick-up slots hard to come by. And I was one who adamantly refused to stock up and hoard when this thing first appeared on our horizon. No way was I going to participate in that. I kind of wish I had at least stocked up on things like coffee and cat food but - it is what it is.

So - guess what I'm up to today? Yes, the third trip to a store between R and I this week (one of those was a mission to find yeast, which is unavailable right now) : coffee, cat food, spinach, dishwasher powder, sour cream , salad stuff, vegan cheese, GAH! Someone is always forgetting something .

Again, I echo Diana and SarahD8. HIGH FIVE. It's like we strategized together

FRESH Fruit and veg that last for 2 weeks IF YOU PICK WISELY. Not too ripe:

• onions, carrots, garlic, REGULAR potatoes, broccoli, avo, courgette, bok choy, celery, tomatoes, green beans, peas, courgette, corn, eggplant, artichokes, peppers, romaine lettuce.

• oranges, apples, pears (UNRIPE), bananas (cook with them), mangoes (UNRIPE).

All grocery stores in Seattle are open from 7am to 8am for people older than 60 only. LOVE THAT! 

Angie- I love your roast chicken! We’ve done that twice now, and make stock from the bones. One silver lining for us, is having so much more time in the evening for dinner. I know we’re going to miss that, at whatever point our lives are more normal.

ETA- I also feel that I should be honest and give credit where due. DH actually does all the cooking at our house. I do the planning and shopping, and some baking, so making these changes is a shared effort.

For what it's worth, here are the bits of wisdom I gained being poor in a food desert in my 20s.

Meal planning will make the biggest difference. It only takes 5-10 minutes to make a meal plan for 1-2 weeks. Admittedly, I'm a planner by nature, so meal planning comes easily to me and I've done it for years. Folks who struggle with planning will likely have more insight into how to overcome that challenge.
Keep it simple. Until this passes, focus on recipes that you make often and know well--reduces the chance that you'll forget to buy a particular ingredient.
If you're about to run to the store because you "need" item X, ask yourself if you actually need it right now. You need pet food. You need toilet paper (if you can find it!). You need *something* to eat. You don't need lettuce or fresh fish or that one kind of cereal you love *right now*.
Fresh produce is tasty, but it is not a necessity. Frozen vegetables have roughly the same nutritional value as fresh. There is nothing wrong with relying on frozen corn for your risotto or eating canned peaches instead of fresh berries.
Grains, pasta, and legumes are your friends. You can get a lot in relatively small, easy to store packages, they are cheap, and they help stretch a lot of meals. Eggs are an excellent source of protein, can be added to a lot of other dishes, and last a long time.

Returned from grocery shop (and a trip to the pharmacy where I was asked to stop touching things ) and forgot 2 things that have been on the last 3 lists. I'm in such a state, and a rush to get out of there that I can't focus! I'm done . I think it's time to assign the shopping to someone else .

Here’s what our fridge looks like now. We last shopped on Friday, so a bit less than a week into a 2-3 week cycle.

We weren’t able to get eggs or milk, so that might require a mid-cycle trip. Parsley keeps longer stored upright in water. That’s kale wrapped in a moist cotton bag on the second shelf.

We’ve been forced to change from daily, spur of the moment shopping, to big weekly trips. Fortunately, my food hoarding practices are finally paying off. We always have a backlog of frequently used staples such as organic chicken broth, canned tomatoes, etc. We also have a full-size freezer.

That said, we still need fresh greens, dairy products, eggs. Etc.

I thought of Donna F this morning as I set off early for a senior hour shop dressed in a fetching mask, gloves, and basically holding my breath. Normally a friendly place, we all regarded each other as deadly pathogens. I got out as quickly as possible . Ugh!

Honestly, another concern I have is I’m buying way more carbs than normal, and my pants are tighter. But the carbs are soothing, and the gym is closed. Ugh!
.

@lisap-can DH and DD help out with the food management? Maybe DH can do the meal planning, or at least sit down with you and help out? I’m getting the DS’s to cook one meal per week. I walk them through the basics of a simple meal, and act as their ‘assistant’- putting things away, and cleaning up as they do the main work. The salmon dinner and beef roast dinner were made by #1 and #2 respectively (that’s why I took photos).

You might want to check out M&M meats.

...and, there’s nothing wrong with a can of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich! (Light rye bread makes an excellent grilled cheese, and lasts longer than other types.)

For folks with very limited fridge space, here are things I learned about keeping food fresh for up to 2 weeks in a small sailboat (it has a very tiny fridge, but DH and I have a running argument re whether it exists to keep foods fresh, or drinks cold!):

Eggs: they will keep unrefrigerated if you turn them upside down once a day (that keeps an even layer of air under the shell). You can't wash the eggs before storing or it doesn't work.

Cheese: we had a very wide topped thermos jug (that I intended for lemonade for picnics but it leaked). I stuffed it with all the kinds of cheese we took on our trip. It was still cool in week 2. My kids were like, Of COURSE you have a dedicated cheese thermos.

Fruit and veg: I had onions, potatoes, carrots, cabbage; I unrolled the outer cabbage leaves for the amount I wanted, so the inside didn't dry out. Sweet potatoes, squash, turnips are long unrefrigerated keepers as well. (BTW some veggies, like cucumber and green pepper, actually keep BETTER if stored outside the fridge.) Granny Smith apples and oranges or clementines were the best keepers of the fruits; although at home we keep all kinds of fruit out in a fruit bowl.

Breadstuffs: Bagels and tortillas last longer than soft loaves of bread.

UHT milk is fine. Also you CAN freeze milk; the trick is, to let it defrost for 2 days in the fridge before trying to use it, and then shaking well, so the water and fat portions mingle properly.

I only have a tiny freezer but am on course for 3weeks without shopping.Sorry Lisa but PLANNING is key and actually quite fun to take up the challenge.A lot of good advice already so I maybe repeating stuff that’s already been said but get “long life veg”eg roots like potatoes,carrots,parsnips,store them somewhere dark and cool .ln the old days people would actually bury them in what was called a clamp to keep them over winter.Pumpkins ,any type of squash is my number per one keeper.ln fact we ate one we bought in October today that has sat on my windowsill since then and it was still perfect.celeriac and tight head cabbages are good too.You can easily make a pickled cabbage that lasts weeks in the fridge from these.Fruit can be trickier but tinned,dried which you can rehydrate as needed and again as Angie said buy underripe.Mangoes,pears,pineapples,oranges are good.We are lucky in that we grow rhubarb so will have a lot of this soon.
Then it’s dried goods,lentils,grains ,flour ,eggs and long life dairy products.Tofu has a long shelve life as do cured meats.
l know it’s not easy but rather than following a recipe to the letter think what you have and what you could make from it.There are some really good resources on line if you are strugglingLook for things with long shelf lives.l have frozen some fresh milk and meat but we have eaten vegetarian meals the last 4days based on pulses and today I made a jam rolypoly based on an old wartime recipe for my husband who has a really sweet tooth.I can make both bread with yeast and soda bread .
l don’t normally plan meals but I have been through all my cupboards and written out meal plans using what I have.l also write down what I would like to buy the next time I go shopping so I don’t forget in the panic of trying to shop quickly and get home again.At the moment I only plan to go out when loo roll or meds start to run low and I will do a shop then thus avoiding multiple journeys.
l think the key is not to try and cater as one normally does.lts a new situation and requires anew approach unless you want to keep going out all the time which really is to be avoided at present.

This has been an interesting thread and I have enjoyed reading it. Determined to not head back to the supermarket for a week now although I am shopping for my Dad as well which adds a complication. He is pretty flexible and his retirement village have been helpful as well.

The supermarkets here have been pretty good - yesterday I could not get carrots, lemons or some types of bread, but nothing major for sure. They are providing sanitiser and it is a one in, one out basis. Some are providing times for seniors to shop alone. There is a lot of spacing within so I did not feel at risk shopping. But we are a few weeks behind some parts of the world with this virus - and went into lockdown before there was much community transmission.

Online shopping is available but we have been asked to leave it for those who really need it which I am doing.

Here I can shop at the supermarket or dairy(corner store, a bit like a 7-11) - but not the butcher or greengrocer. There is the odd place approved for online meat deliveries. And no takeaways at all - even McDonalds is shut.

Cardiff Girl, you’ve made me think... in the past, I’ve entered ingredients I have in Google, etc., and gotten recipes in return! It’s amazing how many things out there people have tried putting together

I meant to say that I'm doing less meal planning than usual, and like others, much more seeing what's available in the shop and taking it from there.

I could manage to do a fortnightly shop if it wasn't for the fact that I am feeding five people. I already do most of what Angie is doing.
How many are you feeding Lisa?

I am already thinking that despite all my calls to go easy on the milk, we are not going to make it through the week unless we use frozen or uht (I use uht mostly to make homemade yoghurt, and powdered to thicken it, but powdered milk is very rare now and also counts against your milk item limit)

Item limits at our major supermarkets on meat, milk, frozen veggies, pasta, rice, egg, canned veggies and many other things.

Our supermarkets are also doing the seniors hour, which is great. We've persuaded the over 70s in our lives to either get delivery or let their children shop for them.

I haven't really cooked more than a couple times a year for the past 40+ years; DH has been the cook and would shop every couple of days. We have a tiny 18 cu.ft. fridge with a freezer door that pops open if you carelessly slam the fridge door -- so not so great for frozen food.

But now things have changed. DH is the poster child for being at risk; he pretty much checks off all the risk factor boxes, plus his lung doctor told him that because of one of the meds he takes he is likely to die if he contracts coronavirus. No, he actually said he would die. And his kidney doctor and primary care doctor told him he needs to keep taking that drug. So I won't let DH see the inside of a market until maybe this fall.

Good news: He is still doing the cooking. But the tricky part is combining a planner (me) with more of an emotional cooker.

We used to shop at Trader Joe's twice a week (together), and he used to shop at Safeway probably three times a week. He would buy bread and meat at another market every ten days or so, and go to a fourth market for fish every week or so.

My goal for the short term is to shop at Trader Joe's every two weeks and Safeway every two weeks, staggering the weeks. They each have stuff not available at the other, same with the other two stores where we buy food. I will also add that he likes to cook semi-Asian and that we have a wok burner on our stove.

First, I keep a running list of staples, and am trying to keep track of what I've seen gone at Safeway like chicken broth or chicken stock, either to pick up at Trader Joe's or buy the next time at Safeway. I'm also trying to keep track of how fast I use something so that I don't run out.

I go to the meat/poultry section first because what's available or what looks good can vary from week to week. I had to cook for a couple of weeks last month as DH was in isolation awaiting covid19 test results, and learned NOT to buy Value Packs: Too much in the way of leftovers.

Then, I see what looks good in the way of vegetables, because again, what looks good can vary from week to week. I also learned that microwave steamed veggies go bad much, much quicker than stir-fried or roasted ones.

I was thinking that I need to have the pantry stuff around to make minestrone soup to take care of the bits of veggies hanging around just before a shopping trip. DH would never do this, but I abhor waste.

Anyway, I woke up at 5 am today wondering if I needed to put vanilla on my list (no, I have plenty) and to make sure I bought aromatics like onions and shallots. Just because. I also have DH on phone standby as I shop (what type of bacon? I don't eat the stuff) and have him empty the shopping bags so he knows what I bought.

It won't be perfection, but we'll get through this.

Dear heaven, I am terrible at this. I buy stuff that catches my ooh look it's a bunny attention. I now have 3 bags of purple and gold and pink fingerling potatoes (down from 5), at least 43 boxes of cereal, several bags of flavored coffee, 4 bags of ravioli, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 loaves of various types of bread, a package of pork chops (and I don't even eat pork chops), no less than 7947 tins of soup plus several packages of dry soup mix, olive oil, grapeseed oil, a package of chicken breasts, 5 packages of southwestern seasoned chicken breasts, an institutional size jar of peanut butter, enough yogurt to feed the entire army breakfast, 1/2 jar of arrabiata sauce, a pizza crust, several blocks of cheese, pepperoni, several types of apples, 6 bananas (4 of which are still green a week after I bought them), 3 packages of breakfast sausage, 2 or 3 cartons of coconut milk for all that cereal, some P3 type snacks, 2.5 cartons of 1/2&1/2, around a half dozen eggs, and one pear.

There is no method to my madness, but I've got food to last through all of my 14 days of self quarantine and then some.

Let's not talk about the toilet paper and wipes and paper towels. I don't use paper towels unless I'm dealing with my cast iron skillet after cleaning it, yet I bought the largest package of them Walmart had back in early February. I am only on the 3rd roll with at least 3 more rolls stuffed behind the chair in the corner of my living room. My toilet paper hoard did come in handy when I worked a deal with ex-DH to trade toilet paper for surgical masks, aloe vera gel with lidocaine, and 70% rubbing alcohol, which has to be one of the strangest drug deals of all time.

I. Am. Crazy.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the sheer ugliness of privilege as it’s been revealed during this crisis . And it occurred to me tonight that my haphazard method of grocery shopping and off-the -cuff meal planning is a symbol of privilege itself . I am self employed and work from home . I don’t need to shop after a long day at the office , or only on weekends . I can run out to the store every day if I feel like it . I don’t have to watch prices super closely , although now I am , and never stopped to think about how lucky I was to be able to operate that way . Felt like making a salad with fresh cilantro ? Went out and bought some ! Felt like baking cookies ? Went to get brown sugar and chocolate chips . I learned a big lesson with this thread, my friends , and will take my meal planning and shopping to a new level - one that reflects the necessity of spending as little as possible and not wasting anything , while hopefully staying on course with what I need/want to eat for health reasons.

You all are so savvy!

One idea that I don’t think has been mentioned is to see if you can sign up for a CSA share. I usually don’t for winter/spring but have been able to get a box at the farmers’ market. We don’t meal plan and cooked by mood so this has worked out well.

I have to agree it is all about planning. We plan the menu for two weeks, and I am feeding five (three teenagers). I plan all the way down to desserts and snacks. I have a list of ingredients for each recipe, check what we have before we shop and once we walk out of the store, we are DONE for two weeks minimum.

If you are short on refrigerator space or freezer space, keep in mind that beef and pork do better for several days in the refrigerator than chicken, so prioritize freezer space for raw chicken you aren't going to eat or cook immediately. Alternatively, you can also precook things like a pork roast (for pulled BBQ pork sandwiches) or chicken breasts if you have recipes where you can use them, and cooked meat keeps longer in the refrigerator than raw.

As for veggies and fruits, we plan those, too, making sure to eat those that will go bad more quickly sooner than those that will last. I also buy frozen veggies to have with dinner unless the recipe calls for fresh.

Ok. I like this topic. Eg, I love that show, Chopped, which I see as a less scary Iron Chef (lol). You get a basket of crazy things and then have to make a meal. And also, I realised I was throwing away food that was fine to eat but just looked less pretty and wanted to stop that. With the coronalypse... things are sorta snowballing to make it all the more imperative, interesting and worth pursuing.

Anyways, two cookbooks that I think are interesting:

- a free cookbook on eating on a food stamp budget: https://www.leannebrown.com/cookbooks/

- using scraps and ugly produce: https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w.....1455536177

I love Leanne Brown’s work!

I’ll put in a plug for Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal. It’s kind of next-level using-up and repurposing but totally changed the way I cook and greatly increased my joy quotient in the kitchen.

I have a huge Wegmans that I can walk to so it's tempting to decide what to eat and walk up there. With the onset of COVID19 I am trying to only go every week or 10 days. I could certainly survive longer and I am willing to eat leftovers - my husband not so much, however I do find that right now at the end of each day I find I do need a nice meal to look forward to !
I'm certainly planning more and go to the store with a list.
I usually don't buy milk and last week a recipe I made required it . I was proud of myself for substituting a can of evaporated milk I had and watering it down, simple win lol.

Rachy - thank you for the link to Leanne Brown's book - it looks terrific!