The First Shopping Trip

Day one of a new lunch regime and I'm going shopping. Taking inspiration from various lunch-related blogs, I've drawn up an ambitious list that looks a bit like this:

• Goats cheese and mozzarella
• Avocado, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, spring onions and lettuce
• Salsa and guacamole
• Raisins, oranges and grapes
• Bread, tortilla wraps and pitta bread
• Marmite
• Yoghurt
• Olives and nuts
• Rice cakes
• Basil plant

Phew! Some of that will come from the village shops, some from a supermarket and some from the open-air market. I've already got a collection of sandwich spreads, but most of the time I end up just eating tinned soup or pieces of plain bread. So this blog is a project to tackle my lunch apathy, expand my repetoire and hopefully get some more inspiration and variety.

My biggest lunch issue at the moment is the fact that it is a chore, and as a result I usually don't bother. As a result I've fainted more often than I'd like to admit during particularly busy periods of term, when I've also been skimping on breakfast and dinner.

Time to get to those shops! Here's to the future, and a parade of delicious lunches.

Later: Well, the shopping is done and all packed away. I had underestimated how much bag space I would need - that list is substantially longer than my usual weekly shopping list and it wasn't a lot of fun carrying it all home. Here is what I got.

As you can see, there are several types of cheese there because I'm a sucker for cheeses, and a few things are missing from the list because I couldn't find them. I skipped the spring onion because I realised I don't actually like it enough to use it before it goes off.

Prices varied wildly - the little local store which I was so excited about when I first found it a few weeks ago is sadly very overpriced, so I think I'll only go there for the cheese counter and only sometimes. The bakery in the same area is only open in the mornings so that will have to wait until the next shop. I got the fruit and vegetables from the market, which I've always found pretty reasonable and there are several stalls so you can find the freshest and healthiest looking food.

Finally I got the rest of my list plus a few other things from the supermarket. The whole lot came to over £30, which is horrifying considering it is predominantly only for one meal out of the three, but it should last a while and I won't make the same mistakes again - food from the market first, and the supermarket to fill in the gaps. Not the local shop.

Tomorrow will be the first lunch, and I think I'm going to make wraps with guacamole, salsa, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms and emmenthal cheese. Just thinking about it is making me hungry!