This month, we’re shopping our kitchen in order to use up what we have so we can save money and clear kitchen clutter.
Here we go with Day 16 of the Pantry Challenge!
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I’ll send you budget recipes and money-saving tips every week!
A few of us are feeling under the weather today, like last year, only not me this time. Bryan and a couple of the boys aren’t up to par. Here’s hoping it stays contained and goes quickly.
I woke up early to put a pot of chicken stock on the stove and to make crumpets. The discard from Sourdough Starter has gotten a little out of hand and crumpets are a great way to use it up.
I use this recipe, but they’ve edited it over the years. I always use ½ teaspoon baking soda per cup of discard.
What We Ate
Breakfast – Crumpets. I also ate some rotisserie chicken I bought at Costco.
Lunch – It was a shooting day and I was shooting baked goods, so not so much in the way of lunch. It was a fend-for-yourself kind of day. Bryan had a frozen burrito. Not sure what the others did. I had a salad with chicken — and the aforementioned baked goods. 😉
Dinner – Fridays are pizza night, so I made a double batch of Sourdough Pizza Crust and Bryan Grilled Pizza.
How did Day 16 go for you?
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/16/26
I’m not sure what happened to my post. My comments came through but my post did not. I’m hoping this won’t be a double post.
B: dh had toast and coffee. I had yogurt and add ins plus coffee.
L: I made sandwiches for the road so we didn’t need to stop along the way, and to avoid fast food. We had sandwiches using up the last of the bread, the last of the deli meat in the fridge and the last piece of Swiss cheese for DH. We also had mandarins, chips and beverages from home.
S: after a quite energetic gymnastics class with our GD and her other 4 friends at 2-3 years of age (!) we came home. Dear GD was talking about being hungry so I’m glad I just had to reheat the food I’d prepared at home. We had Salisbury steak (comfort food # 7 requested by DH), mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a simple peach cobbler using up the rest of the peaches from the freezer and LO cake mix.
I have about 8 inches of white space in my small chest freezer and about the same in my refrigerator freezer. Getting the prepared frozen food out of there and the other items I brought certainly helped. So glad to see continuing progress!
We stopped at Aldi en route to pick up some items of my son’s family favorites-salmon, blackberries and Honeycrisp apples. This didn’t come from our food budget, rather from another category. I did buy bread there as I knew we would need some here. I think I spent about $5. I’ll hunt up the receipt for accuracy. The closest Aldi to us is 2.5 hours away. We often stop when traveling to purchase certain items we like from there.
We’re enjoyed our time here and my sweet little GD looked up at dinner and said “I’m so glad you are here.” I melted of course. 🙂 We have so far gotten all the hugs we could muster from an almost 3 year old. Such a sweetie.
Heather M
Oh Lynn, what an absolute delight hearing those words from your sweet granddaughter! Hope it’s been a fantastic visit!
Heather from Sacramento
B- coffee
L- I treated myself to all you can eat lunch buffet at Round Table Pizza. The location that I go to is mostly commercial so a lot of guys in the trade. That pizza moves fast and is so good! I had salad, soda and lots of pizza.
D- not hungry
I forgot to mention that I spent $2.49 on half and half this week.
Karen J
Friday, Day 16
One of those wonderful days with nothing on the calendar. I reorganized the freezers-we have just the two- on top of both the house fridge and the shop fridge. While still a lot of food, at least I am not shoving things in to fit anymore. Progress! We leave on vacation a week from today so I’m pretty sure I can make it without buying any more groceries, although I will probably buy cupcakes for my youngest granddaughter’s class as turns 9 this week.
Breakfast-McMuffin made a home with egg, cheese, and freezer bacon
Lunch-toast with apricot jam from my Bonne Maman mini collection, orange
Dinner -fish and chips in the air fryer
I made a Goodwill delivery, then shopped there and bought nothing.
Kathy in Denmark
Day 16:
B: Rye porridge for DD2, yoghurt with HM granola for DH, chia pudding with fruit and chopped nuts for DD1 and me.
L: Packed lunch for the kids, rye bread with toppings for DH and myself, as DH was working from home.
D: Nachos with chili beans, guacamole, salsa and crème fraiche. I also added the rest of the crème fraiche dressing form earlier in the week, to use it up.
S: Honey cake for Movie night.
Allie from Ontario
I must be feeling my age because I somehow posted this on Day 15 so here it is in the right place 🙂
Today is my birthday & my morning present was…more snow. I seem to say something about it every day but we are certainly getting our fill this year. I shoveled all the walkways/decks yesterday & now it looks like I didn’t do anything! I got all my dinner prep done early knowing that I would be outside for the afternoon and then some friends came over for a “birthday eve” drink. We had a great visit and I was super happy everything was ready to go when they left ?
What we ate on Jan 16
Brunch: I had a little scoop of steel cut oats/apple butter early & then my smoothie before I ventured outside. T had yogurt & a cottage roll sandwich and took a banana along for the drive to hockey.
Dinner: I made house favourite mini meatloaves with a tangy glaze, roasted garlic mashed potatoes & frozen peas. As planned, there is 1 meatloaf leftover to split for lunch today + some potatoes & peas for each of us.
Jessica Fisher
Happy birthday!
Allie from Ontario
And…Tasty!! I grew up in Bell’s Corners (off Moodie Drive) 🙂
Tasty
We used to live in Manotick, and I worked on Carling Ave from almost 25 years.
I’m sure you’ve probably had snow off and on all day as we have. Thankfully, not much accumulation and it is a lot milder today. Hope you’re enjoying your birthday – hugs!
Kathy in Denmark
I wrote happy birthday yesterday, but there’s no harm in doing it twice, so:
Happy birthday, Allie!
Karen J
Happy birthday, Allie!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Happy birthday! Sounds like the snow is making it a “memorable” day. They are actually calling for snow or a wintry mix in parts of NC this weekend, so all the roads were slagged when we were traveling. We will see what happens I guess!
Heather M
Happiest of Birthdays, Allie!!! Hope today has been wonderful!
Stephanie M
Happy birthday Allie. I just saw this. Hope your day was nice!!
Diinaus
Happy Birthday
Christine
Happy birthday. It was my birthday too! Hope your day was great.
Stephanie M
Friday, January 16, 2026
B – cereal, fruit, and nuts
L – meatloaf in whole wheat
Snack – blackberries and nuts
S – Paul came home and whenever he gets home from a business trip or we get home from vacation I always make a pot of sauce. Probably because that’s not something we get on vacation. We eat mostly seafood on vacation. So I made a large pot of meat sauce and whole wheat macaroni. Now that he’s back, my challenge will get back on track with more food being eaten.
Heather M
Yay for Paul being home!!! I bet he wishes he could have brought the weather with him. Southern CA has been absolutely glorious all week!
Stephanie M
He told me the weather was beautiful when I mentioned to him that you said that. Hopefully it will start warming up soon. Living in Virginia is quite different than New Jersey. I remember last year we turned our air conditioner on in April.
Tasty
Jan 15
B- the usual combo of fruit, yogurt and granola Ola for hubby. I had a banana, cheese and toast and jam
L- hubby had more fruit,I had a toasted bagel – the last one- and cream cheese
S – a planned meal out with friends – all 6 of us chose the special of the day – fish and chips – so good!
Kathryn M
1/16/2026 Friday
B – last of the cranberry scones
Lunch – chili with cheese and some broken bottom of the bag tortilla chips, Halo orange
D – walking tacos (small dorito bags filled with taco meat and fixings). I needed to get rid of those little bags of chips anyway….
I made a cinnamon crumb cake from a Krusteaze mix. I am going to sample a bit for a snack tonight. The rest will be breakfast for a couple of days,
The fidge is looking better, but I only have 3 more days before leaving on my trip. I need to get busy on the spinach and other veggies that are still in there. I need to finish the milk and eggs up too.
Janet
B: Coffee and toast
L: Sandwiches, grapefruit halves, and tossed salad
D: I always save some of the family favorites until we are deep into the pantry challenge to keep me motivated and everyone else on board. Tonight, we had a peppered roast beef, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
That sounds like a good strategy!
Karen J
Day 16
B-toast and coffee
L-gift card from Panera (a perfect soup day)
D-fend for yourself-I have assorted leftovers, now they are gone 🙂
It was my grandkid volunteer in the classroom morning, after which I stopped at nearby Winco and bought croissants, a bottle of wine and cat litter (an interesting combo). My grocery spending on food is still under $10. I must make cookies or something as we are out of snacks.
Lynn from NC Outer
You’ve done amazingly well in keeping your food purchases so low this month. Good for you!
I think I’ve said it before, but I know it’s such a blessing to the teacher when you volunteer in your grandchild’s classroom. I did that for my children and it was always appreciated. Maybe (God willing!) I’ll get to do something similar for my little granddaughter.
Karen J
Thanks Lynn! As a retired teacher myself (38 years) this is a way I can help kids without all the teaching pressures-and I love it. I appreciate my grandkids’ teachers so much! It’s such a challenging job. The kids in my younger grandkid’s class call me Grandma 🙂
Kim from Colorado
Between working, having two growing boys, and starting back to classes for my masters (almost done- just have to make it to May!), my pantry challenge has had to evolve. My focus is now not to have free space but to use up those things that get hidden in the back or I have to figure out how to use…looking to you Dulce de Leche can, the cubed zucchini in the freezer from the garden last summer, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch taco shells we were gifted at Christmas (what?!). So far this January I have used every bit of meat, chicken, shrimp etc that we had in the freezers, finished all those partial jars of salsa and queso in the fridge and found new recipes for some of the odds and ends. But the egg prices- ahh! I need toilet paper so may go to Costco (in a challenge month that feels crazy) and see if they have better egg prices. Here’s a sampling of the last week I have missed posting.
B- cereal, yogurt with fruit and granola, eggs and avocado toast, waffles, biscuits and eggs
L- leftovers, sandwiches, adult lunchables (aka mini charcuterie)
D- pulled pork on buns and nachos, BBQ stew with lo pork (and some pork back to freezer, those shoulders make so much), HM ramen, meatloaf cupcakes (I add chopped carrots to the meatloaf and top with mashed potatoes)
My husband just got a lab result he wasn’t happy with at his annual so we are planning to add in more fish and healthy sides (growing up close to water, I have a tough time with frozen fish so hoping for the best)
Karen J
You are doing great! I have the same issue with things on my top pantry shelf that aren’t my “normal” groceries. I’m thinking of bringing down four or four of those items and keeping them on my counter so I will figure out how to use them somehow.
We almost always have a Costco pack of frozen salmon burgers in our freezer and they are a once a week or so dinner. Sometimes with buns and often just on top salad greens. They are super convenient.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Those are great PC accomplishments, totally separate from your ultra busy schedule. Even more remarkable with so many balls in the air. Yay for being in the home stretch for grad school!
You are right about the pork making so much. I’m still working my way through some of my lo pork.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Kim, could you use the Cinnamon Toast Crunch shells to make something like a cannoli? With a sweetened cream cheese type filling? My adult son would probably eat them from the box!
Heather M
Kim, I’m so impressed with all you’ve accomplished. I very much understand about lab results. My husband got some he (and his dr) didn’t like in August. He chose to “put me in charge” of his food. I have always fed him healthy dinners, but it was all the choices at work that were causing trouble, it would see. Plus the questionable snacks he would eat too much of in one sitting, etc. In two months we were able to turn things around really well. He’s still paying attention to my guidance and it’s definitely paid off. If you want someone to chat with about this, I’d be happy to. You could ask Jessica to give you my email.