My husband came up with this nifty phrase to describe our family the other week – the accordion family – which is how we came up with our renovation plan a few months ago – to create a cosy, energy efficient space that works for my husband and I while the kids are at their other homes; and a large family home when the kids are all here.

Next week, the kitchen is pulled out and we are without a working kitchen for four weeks. Scary.

Today, in preparation for this huge food shift, my daughter and I made six freezer meals. We will be eating lots of bbqs and slow cooker meals to the extent that it works for the four weeks after next. I started packing up our utensils and cookware today, just leaving out the essentials for the next four weeks.

It feels like accidentally we are taking up the packing party challenge that The Minimalists advocate – packing up your things for thirty days and then removing only what you need from your boxes over time.

So for the next four weeks we will live like real minimalists in the kitchen and hopefully, I can restrain myself post the kitchen renovation to only unpack the things that we need.

Of interest to me today is the pantry. We are now in the process of eating everything we have in the pantry, so I don’t have to pack it into boxes. It is inspiring me to be creative in the kitchen. The 2 cups of dried chickpeas will be made in hummus tomorrow after being soaked overnight. My daughter made three lots of tuna curry to use up three cans of tuna and two jars of mayonnaise. The half packet of French onion soup will be combined with the cream cheese in the fridge for a dip when my mother-in-law comes for dinner tomorrow night. Dinner tonight is chicken breasts with half of the left over potatoes and the last two cups of couscous, with roasted vegetables. My overwhelming concern of wasting food means I am looking at the pantry and its contents in a new way.

The new kitchen also gives me an opportunity to start again. A new simplistic, minimalist approach to food, and a chance to use up the food that we have. I love the way that Bea Johnson, from the Zero Waste Home has only one type of dried legume at a time, and one type of pasta – there is only one pasta jar and one dried legume jar. This approach to food requires you to use what you have, and to not waste food.