Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Happiness

To some and with apologies to Charles Schultz happiness is a warm puppy. To me, today anyway, happiness is a frozen bagel.


Lately I’ve felt that my monthly food spending was much too high. In addition, I found that I was wasting and throwing out a lot of food while also eating too much in the form of much too large portions. I realized too that I’d fallen prey to supermarket advertising gimmicks. If it’s on sale, it must be a good buy. And, if it’s a good buy for one, why not buy three or four. Of course, once in the store, I couldn’t stop with just the sale item. I might as well stock up on other grocery items.


As a challenge to my ingenuity and to cut the waste, I decided to stay away from the supermarket for a month.

My freezer had been well stocked with meat, chicken, fish and vegetables, the pantry had enough staples like rice, soup and that old standby, tuna fish. I’ve been living out of them for almost a month and it’s been going quite well. I’ve experimented and tried a few new recipes. Dinners and lunches have been great. Breakfast not so much.


Today, it looked as if I would have to give in and shop. There didn’t seem to be anything for breakfast. The milk was getting pungent since it was in the refrigerator too long. I didn’t dare have cereal. I didn’t feel like cooking eggs so early in the day, besides there was no bacon or sausages. All the frozen waffles, pancakes and muffins were long gone. Even the freshly baked bread from last week was stale. What would I do? It was time to rummage in the back of the freezer. Maybe I could find a stray muffin hiding there.


As I moved the chicken aside very carefully to avoid an avalanche I spotted it. One lone package of Lender’s Onion Bagels stuck in the back. I’m good for a few more days. AND, right next to the bagels, I spied some coffee. Now I won’t have to give up my caffeine.


What could be a better way to start the day than cream cheese on an onion bagel and a steaming hot cup of coffee? Sheer bliss!

Of course, now that I’ve used up most of my reserves, the next grocery bill is going to be a doozy

2 comments:

Pamela said...

I usually don't care for onions in the morning ... but I lie. Alot of hash browns have onions in them, and so do omelets.

Okay.. we can share an onion bagel. (:

(you are becoming frugal. I need to take lessons)

BetteJo said...

Those have long been my favorite bagels. But in order to justify the carbs in the morning I have switched to whole wheat bagels with American cheese instead of cream cheese. I've gotten used to it and I like it now but oh - a Lender's onion bagel sounds wonderful!