Land o' plenty

Wanna know a secret about me?

I love food. I don't mean I love to eat it. I love to collect it. I love to open my cabinets and have a bag of rice fall out. I love having choices. I think for me it represents security. There's comfort in knowing that if I didn't set foot inside of a grocery store for two weeks, we can still eat well. Not that that would ever happen.

I just got back from picking up Angel Food. Single parents, listen up! This is an awesome program if you need a little help. (Check it out at http://www.angelfoodministries.org/.) I'll tell you up front that if you're trying to eat healthy, this probably isn't going to be for you. Some of the stuff is processed to the hilt. But if you're trying to fill bellies inexpensively, you can't beat it. I paid $82 and ordered two of the large boxes. I've now got frozen soups, frozen beefaroni, boneless skinless chicken breasts, more chicken with the bone in, chicken nuggets, pork chops, ground beef, sausage, hamburger steaks, salisbury steaks, muffins, milk, eggs, frozen veggies and oatmeal, to name some of it. Times 2. It's enough to feed my little family for the most of month.

How's this for a perk? Right now I have probably 8 lbs of Chick-fil-A waffle fries (well, no, it doesn't say Chick-fil-A, but do you know anybody else who sells round waffle fries? In 5-lb brown, industrial bags?). And we have gotten the Burger King crown-shaped chicken nuggets in the past. A 10-lb box that I bought seperately, I believe. I thought I was just buying regular old chicken nuggets.

We never finished all of last month's boxes, so my kitchen freezer overfloweth, and my upright's getting that way fast. I love it! Another time saver? I don't have to plan a menu and then shop accordingly. Instead, I take what comes in the boxes, plan meals off of that, and fill in the gaps. (Which I can usually do for about a $100 a month). Most of the time, that means "I want chili, meatloaf and my own spaghetti and meatballs, and you didn't give me the ingredients for that!" Considering the program boasts that their signature box (which is a little smaller than the one I buy) feeds a family of four for a week, there's not a whole lot of gap-filling to be done. You can even order online, so I do it at the same time I'm paying my bills every month. Then I pick it up from my host church one Saturday morning a month. It saves me a lot of time as well as money.

Now, after putting away all of those groceries, I'm thinking one of my upcoming vacation days will need to be spent rearranging my kitchen cabinets. Maybe then the rice won't fall out!