V-Lookups, Bananas, & Brownies

Want to know how to get a lot of blog readers?  Write deceptively exciting titles to your posts.  Seriously.  My recent “I’m So Excited” post got tons of hits, and it wasn’t even about me.  So, I’m just warning you now that if you see a post entitled, “We’re Having a Baby,” it’s probably a hoax.  Scratch that, it’s definitely a hoax, and I’m just tricking you into reading the blog.  Don’t feel bad if you still fall for it.

Anyway, today I've been thinking about buying and making delicious things.  I’m in no way legitimate enough to post recipes on here and get some sort of following, but I do have a few thoughts on everyday eating.  Who knows, maybe something on here will resonate with somebody else (the Essen viewer perhaps?).

First thing’s first, I have a master spreadsheet, which rules the world (or at least our kitchen’s world).  I love excel a *little* too much, but whatever--it's a good idea.

One of my sheets has a dinner schedule (currently projected through April) with meal plans.  I take the meals we love and schedule them once per month or so and leave gaps for new dishes.  It’s nice to have something established when I make my grocery lists.  Just a few more blog visits, and the week gets planned.  The other sheets in the spread include lists of things I’d like to learn to cook and our food storage schedule, which is particularly sophisticated (It’s got about 500 imbedded V-Lookups in it for crying out loud).  In case it’s not obvious, I like to plan things (and find reasons for using excel functions).  Maybe I’ll patent this and sell it to the .005% of Mormon moms who use excel.

Second, we have some things that I just can’t believe we need to buy so often.  Like bananas.  We buy about 9 bananas per week.  For two people!  This is because Scott likes to have one every day, and I like them a few times a week.  Do the math: that means we buy a ton of bananas (approximately 275 since we’ve been married).  We should probably invest in Dole.  Or move to Hawaii and grow our own.  We also buy a lot of tissues, you know, for all of the crying we do.  I’m actually not sure how all of these get used so quickly.

Third, sometimes I worry that we are not very health conscious. I know it’s not a good idea to make a whole pan of brownies for two people, but what choice do you have when the boxes come in one size!?  Anyway, at the same time, we don’t buy most typical junk food (aside from the few brownie mixes) which helps our budget and our BMI’s.  I wholly recommend just skipping the “cookie/cracker” and “beverage” isles.  The margins on those things are ridiculous.  Oh yeah, and they are bad for you.

Well, there you go: a few random things relating to eating that I was thinking about today (probably due to the gross protein drink I was forced to eat for lunch…which is due to not using the spreadsheet very well.  It's perfect in theory.  Haha.)