Last updated on 14/11/2024
I know what I eat because I keep lists of foods that I purchase to keep in my kitchen, along with lists of the meals that I cook regularly. Each day, I write down, in my diary, what I had for dinner. I might also add details of other meals during the day. This helps me to keep track of my diet and to see that my menu varies from one day to the next.
Inflation
Now that we are living in such difficult times, with the cost of living soaring, it is all the more important to buy the right ingredients and foods and to eat well on a tight budget. What is ‘right’, in this context, is both a matter of personal taste and a matter of doing what is best so that we can exercise personal taste.
This post begins by thinking about the kinds of ingredients that can be used to make healthy, nutritious and tasty meals without spending too much. My aim is to suggest the kind of ingredients that many people would have in their kitchens. This assumes that the reader is able and willing to cook their own meals at home.
Cooking meals requires several sets of basic ingredients: vegetables, seasoning, and a range of foodstuffs that are frequently used in cooking such as flour, oil, pasta, rice, herbs and spices. Please don’t be put off when you see the word ‘spices.’ None of the recipes I give in this series of articles will involve richly spiced dishes. As I will explain, in a later article, spices and herbs have medicinal and health-promoting qualities that have been known about since ancient times.
My series continues by thinking about the raw ingredients that we buy to cook our everyday meals. These articles will be updated as and when new information (or ideas) occur to me.
Next: Cooking vegetables.