The planner pad worked well last week, especially as it stopped me stuffing the presses further with bits and pieces.

The sum total of all groceries this week has been perishables (mostly bread and dairy), some fruit, baby things, two fajita dinner kits (€3 on special, which is cheaper than a single packet of tortillas), garlic granules, frozen chips and tinned plum tomatoes. Everything that went into the basket was a completion of pantry ingredients for a planned meal, apart from the fajita kits which I tend to stock up on when they’re going cheap.

Tonight’s dinner was simple as it gets. 28 day aged striploin and chips. Blue.

Steak from the freezer, bought a couple of weeks ago at the butcher.

I’ve actually got two freezers, truth be told. In the kitchen there’s a standard fridge freezer, which is about half of each. I’ve also got an under counter sized one in the box bedroom. It’s a leftover from when we were renting and only ever had tiny freezer compartments. It came in very handy at the end of my pregnancy, as I batch cooked and filled it solid, which kept us going for the first month with a newborn. I’d like to get it turned off and back into the shed though, as there’s no major need for it right now.

I’ve used steak, wings, chicken breasts and chips out of it this week, and there’s some space freeing up at last. I’m hoping to take some bits to work for lunches this week too. It’s hot lunch weather here, and cheese toastier get boring after a while.

Two tubs with some lasagne for tomorrow, and a huge tub of soup for Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s apparently sweet potato, but I can’t remember after that.

Also, a “before” of my dried goods press. Argh.

In theory it’s full of jars of flours, pulses, oats and the like, plus bottles of oils as it’s one of my taller presses. In reality it’s full of crap that doesn’t belong in it. There’s a half sheet pan and a couple of huge sandwich tins; a 30 cm cake board, a very nice whistling kettle that my current hob doesn’t love but that I love. Baking parchment, cling wrap and foil. Random things like a can of coconut peanuts and a single curtain tie back *mortified* that was stuck there to get it out of the way and has lived there since.

This needs a massive rethink, as I’ve a 10 kg bag of rice that could do with living on the bottom shelf. It’s also a combination avalanche/Tetris situation every time I need to get at the plain flour or chickpeas. I’m probably going to attack this in bits during the week, but I’d like it sorted before end of the month!