Before we went shopping, we made a list of ingredients.
the use of before shows us that the events happened one after another."We made a list of ingredients while we went shopping." this is incorrect because by saying while, that means that the person did both at the same time, not doing one thing after another. "We made a list of ingredients, so we went shopping." this does not tell us that one event happened after another because there are no significant words such as after, before, or then. "We went shopping, and we made a list of ingredients." this is wrong because it does not use the vocabulary that I mentioned, and does not indicate if the events happened one after another.