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 1 of the Pantry Challenge. I’ll confess, I did not do any of the prep I might normally do.
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I’m coming into the new year absolutely exhausted, so prepare yourself for less detail than I might normally share
In past years I’ve done a fair amount of pantry challenge planning in advance, but that hasn’t happened yet. I tidied the pantry and cleaned out the fridge. I made a quick meal plan, but I’m not sweating it.
I am so exhausted. I hope to explain later this week. For now, let’s just look at Day 1.
What We Ate Today
Breakfast – My daughter made my Basic Pancake Recipe for everyone. Some kids had eggs. I ate a leftover appetizer quesadilla from NYE.
Lunch – I baked four loaves of sourdough bread today, loosely based on this recipe. Lunch was a Snacky Lunch with veggies, cheese, bread, ham, and hummus.
Dinner – One of our new favorite dinners this fall is Potato Rice Coleslaw Bowls. I know, totally weird but it works. I make rice in the instant pot, roast potatoes, make this coleslaw, and cook some kind of protein, like skillet chicken or taco meat. The textures of the rice, spuds, and cabbage are really amazing together.
What did YOU do for Day 1?
PS If you notice comments from last year below, go ahead and disregard them. I’m basically reusing last year’s urls but rewriting each post as we go along through the month.
Tasty
Here we are on the 8th January – I just found this last night! So glad to see the pantry challenge again. I will up date what we have eaten as best I can and will save any chatter for the ‘uptodate posts’ that will be read. Back at the beginning are unlikely to be seen by many, if any.
Monday 1st
B: Breakfast casserole, using l/os – croissants ham, eggs, a few mushrooms and cranberries
S: Roast pork, stuffing, apple sauce, potatoes and broccoli
Kathryn M
Day 1 of 2024 Lunch was some assorted leftovers for lunch mainly some leftover cream cheese rangoons that I had cooked from frozen a couple of days ago. Dinner was snacky stuff on a short 5 hour work shift, I had cheese and crackers, chips, and sweets.
My goal this year is $80 or less spend on groceries for 2 people. Totally doable because I work at a food bank once a week and end up bringing stuff home that won’t last till the next giveaway. I usually get some produce like berries, bananas, soft tomatoes. They allow volunteers one meat item and I can usually make that last a few meals. Also lots of deli foods are available to take like premade sandwiches and salads. I don’t take many shelf stable items as the food bank clients need those, but a lot of time I load up on bakery items as we get way too much donated.
Nancy
I’m a little late to start commenting but I started the challenge on the first so thought I’d get caught up.
B. L.O. breakfast pizza from the freezer
L. Don’t remember
D. Leftover Ragu casserole from the freezer
I have so many frozen leftovers, this is the month I’m determined to use them up. It may take next month as well.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
So glad you’re doing the challenge again Jessica! It’s one of my traditions, since I always seem to have a bunch (too much) food. But then again, I was able to pull together a breakfast casserole from my inventory to take to a friend who lost her husband. I just need to work on a balance I guess.
Great to see familiar names and looking forward to meeting new ones.
I think the skyrocketing price of food has made me stock up more than usual. So afraid sales won’t come back around.
Hope you can rest some Jessica. I can identify with the exhaustion. It’s been a bit of a nerve wracking and tiring end of the year here as well. Heather, so sorry your traditions were upended by COVID. That happened in our family last year. Here’s to a better 2024 for everyone.
1/1
B: coffee and 1/2 bagel
L: hm taco soup
D: traditional NYD foods: ham, black eyed peas, cornbread and cabbage in for collards, grapes
1/2
B: 1/2 bagel and coffee
L: taco soup
D: lo curried chicken over cauliflower rice, spinach salad with fruit and nuts, lo cabbage
M in OH
Jessica, hope you are able to get some rest soon! I have read your sites for many years and have gotten so many helpful tips from you. In the past few years I have enjoyed reading the pantry challenge posts in January even though I rarely comment – usually some good encouragement and ideas. I am curious about your coleslaw recipe and the bowls you described.
Happy New Year!
Jessica Fisher
Thank you so much! I will update eventually. Glad you’re joining us. I will add the links to the potatoes and coleslaw to this post tonight.
Jennifer
I had surgery at the end of November and did a ton of food shopping to prep for it and the holidays when we had company stay with us. So I have a ton of food to use before it goes bad. Also, I am really hoping to save money not just this month but all year on groceries. I am finally starting to see sales again (one of the reasons I stocked up so much) so hopefully that helps lower our long term grocery bills.
B – homemade chocolate chip muffins, strawberries, yogurt for some
L – I had triscuits with cheese and grapes, dh had mac n cheese and an apple.
D – pasta dish with a home canned quart of tomatoes from 2022, johnsonville italian sausages (I bought 10 packs this summer when they were $3 each!), and roasted broccoli, baby cucumbers
Karen J
I’m looking forward to participating! I’ve done a pantry challenge here many times, however the recent few years we have traveled south in January/February (since I’ve retired:) so haven’t been able to fully embrace the awesomeness of this group. This year we are home so I am back!
There are two of us-hub and me. I completed a detailed inventory of pantry and freezer and there is so. much. food. I also developed a month long dinner meal plan of potential meals that’s now on the refrigerator. Can you tell I am ready to be back?
1-1
B- mushroom/red pepper/bacon/cheese omelets with toast
L-leftover lemon tart from NYE
D-Christmas ham bone bean soup with cornbread
One goal is to use the dried milk that I bought during Covid. Should still be good, right?
Danielle Zecher
I’m in for possibly a modified sort of Pantry Challenge. This month through mid-February is one of my busiest times at work, so that will factor in to how creative I get. Things kind of went off the rails the last few months of 2023, so I’m hoping to make some progress on the chest freezer and to curb the ridiculous amount of eating out we’ve been doing.
1/1/24
Breakfast: We both skipped.
L:unch: I had leftover Indian food. Nick had leftover spaghetti and meatballs.
Dinner: Curry lentil soup and pita bread.
It’s nice to see some familiar names.
Kathy in Denmark
I’m in, as usual!
We had a somewhat odd January first, as both kids spiked high fevers and our youngest couldn’t keep anything down most of the day. The oldest had a fever right after midnight and the youngest woke me up at 7.15 AM saying she wasn’t feeling well 🙁
I’m glad they got to enjoy NYE before they became ill, as it is the only night of the year they can stay up until after midnight to watch the fireworks, which they really enjoy!
Afraid I might also catch this crud, I froze a bunch of food, put the house back together and caught up on (a lot of) laundry. The meals reflect the general chaos of the day, but we DID eat, well, some of us did!
Brunch: Toast and coffee for DH and me. The kids didn’t want anything
Dinner: LO scalloped potaoes for DH. I had the same, but also added a few slices of LO roast beef from NYE.
S: crisps and sweets leftover from NYE
Our youngest only had water and a little apple juice that day. The oldest had 2 tiny pieces of toast, some elderberry squash and water throughout the day.
Hope to see some familiar faces and new ones as well. Thanks for doing this again, Jessica!
Jessica Fisher
Always good to have you chime in!
Lynn from NC OuterBanks
Hi Kathy. Our town did something different this year for our New Year’s Eve celebration. They did fireworks at 8 so little ones could enjoy them. Then the party continued til midnight for the older crowd, with the countdown still at midnight. It worked out well!
Heather M
Oh yay!!! Was hoping you were doing the Challenge again this year! I understand the exhausted and doing the best you can with what you’ve got going on. All for reusing things to make life easier. Am looking forward to connecting with all the usual participants and hope to see new people here too 🙂 It’ll trickle out as the challenge goes, but 2023 was not the easiest year at all and it ended with a complete destruction of all our holiday plans as we one after the next came down with Covid, both here and my daughter’s home out of state, and we had all planned to meet in NY for our traditional New year trip to see family and play in NYC. Nope. So, I guess I start the challenge today instead of usually after the 6th. A few caveats: my son is still in town a few more days and we will be getting some takeout he wants to enjoy, plus my birthday the 6th. Otherwise we are in great shape for a challenge with piles of food. Too much.
Jan 1::
B: we all slept in
L: blueberry pancakes, bacon, sausage
D: guys had the last 2 tamales and split the leftover one dish rice/meatball thing I made late last week. I had a salad with tuna on it and the last stuffed mini peppers I made for last night.
We also snacked on some of the zillion snacks we have floating around.
Danielle Zecher
I hope you’re all recovered from COVID.
Karen J
I’m sorry your holiday plans were disrupted by Covid. Here’s to a better 2024!
Kathy in Denmark
So sorry about the Covid 🙁 Hope you can get together at another time!
Jessica Fisher
Dang! You had a rough year. Here’s hoping that 24 treats you better than 23!
Linda B
I’m all in on participating in this pantry challenge this year. I didn’t do anything to prepare, but I did want to take pictures of my fridge, pantry, freezers for comparison at the end of the month. My goal is to get some things cleaned out and particularly to concentrate on the bulkiest items.
Brunch—cheese blintzes, fresh strawberries, whipped cream left over from a few days ago, and bacon.
D—leftover meatloaf and funeral potatoes
Heather M
Oooo taking pictures is a great idea! I haven’t inventoried or anything and doubt i will. Thanks for the idea!
Danielle Zecher
I love the picture idea! I’m going to take pictures of the freezer today.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
I took “after” pictures of my freezers following the 2020 challenge. I was quite proud of the progress I made and it was motivating! I continued my challenge thru Feb and then covid hit in March. They REALLY got empty then! But, I.still.had.food!
Brenda Fuentes
Hi all! I live near Cincinnati, OH and have been following Jessica and participating in Pantry Challenges for years – and love it!
B: orange chocolate chip cream scones
L: leftovers/find your own
D: homemade pizza
JulieT from MN
Not sure where my original post went so will try again!
B: L/O apple crisp for me (apples and oatmeal). LOL. Hubby had toast
L: hash made from sweet potatoes and potatoes, bacon, and eggs
D: leftover taco dip and chips, leftover cocktail,wieners, leftover shrimp and cocktail sauce and leftover strawberry cheesecake.
I hope to use 40 jars of home canned food this month, unplug my small chest freezer, and only spend $50 on groceries for milk, creamer, and fresh produce.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jan 2, 2023
Hello Jessica and all the other familiar names I recognize from years gone by! I’m so glad to join in again. Thank you, Jessica, for hosting us another year. Like others, I look forward to the PC month every year. Despite the high food prices, I find myself with full freezers and pantries again this year.
I’m a bit off my game thus far. Covid waylaid our Christmas plans, so we waited for my mother to get well to celebrate. We have returned home today after visiting her, along with spending NYE/NYD with dear friends which included lots of party food made and consumed. So, I’ve not yet begun the challenge. I had inventoried my freezers before Christmas, when I was in search of a particular needed item. Were my freezers not so full, I would have been able to find it more easily, so that is one of the reasons I need to eat down all our foodstuffs. I’m hoping to keep my purchases to $50 or less this month. We’ll see how close I can come to that. I always get meal ideas from this group, so I’m looking forward to that as well. I’ll begin posting tomorrow.
Here’s to a successful Panty Challenge for all and a wonderful 2023!
Lynn from the NC Outer Banks
Heather M
Happy New Year everyone! I’ll get to what my plans are re the Challenge tomorrow or the next day, as I’m very late to posting this on the 2nd. We just got home from our annual New Years trip to my in-laws in New York, so will be starting the Challenge tomorrow, the 3rd, and skipping the 6th, since it’s my birthday. In the spirit of things, we ate leftovers from NYE at my in-laws. but first we got up and hurried into Manhattan to spend a few hours in central park and the upper west side before we had to take our daughter and her boyfriend to the airport(our son had left the 30th). It was his first trip ever to NY (and DC, where we live), so we had to take advantage!
Breakfast: we skipped but I ran early to the bagel store to get daughter a GF bagel, by far the best one she’s ever had, one last time before leaving the land of good bagels(she has celiac) and a plain one for her bf.
Lunch: L and I waited to eat, still kind of full from NYE, until post airport. The travelers had leftover tamales.
Dinner: I had a leftover empanada and pupusa. L had both of those plus a tamal. so much good, but rich food.
Kathy in Denmark
Happy New Year everyone!
Day 1:
Brunch: Scrambled eggs, bacon, HM baked beans and toast. Coffee and juice.
L: Everyone skipped
D: Rye bread and a few LO burger buns topped with whatever we had in the fridge.
S: Sweets and crisps leftover from the Holidays
Heather M
Hello Kathy! Happy to see you here again and Happy New Year to you and your family! I hope you all had a good 2022. 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Hi Kathy. Great to hear from you again this year. Happy New Year!
Kathy in Denmark
Hi Heather and Lynn!
Great to “see” you too.
We’ve had a good 2022, but it’s been interesting for sure! I’ll write a bit more about it when I have time, because the events in Europe have definitely had an effect on our overall budget and the way I shop and cook.
ZC
Hi Jessica! This is my 1st year joining the challenge and excited to get started! I cook only for myself and mainly dinners / weekend meals (I eat lunch and occasionally breakfast at our cafeteria on workdays).
My main goals are: (1) find ways to use foods I’ve bought on a whim but rarely used; (2) not waste food this month; (3) bonus points if I can eat out less and eat more fruits/veggies/whole grains;
For Jan 1st
B: whole wheat toast with ham, coffee
L: Napa cabbage and ham stir-fry, brown rice
D: Spicy tofu stew, brown rice
Snack: 2 handful grapes
Kathryn M
I actually stopped shopping on Chirstmas Eve so I guess my pantry challenge started then. We got hamburger and a roast that day that we have been eating all last week.
January 1 was strictly a get rid of leftovers day.
B – cereal. I emptied the last of a box.
L- 1/2 a leftover hamburger/mushroom calzone and a side salad for me. SO is taking enchilada casserole to work all week – made purposely for his work lunches Sun to Thurs.
Snacks -finished off an open bag of potato chips and the last of some brownies that I baked last week. Also drank the second half of a smoothie that I didn’t finish the day before (pineapple, mango, banana, OJ) I make a smoothie almost everyday as I get lots of free overripe bananas, berries, fruits, veggies etc from a local food rescue. Great way to get rid of those items that would otherwise end up in a landfill…(I also am swimming in extra day old bakery stuff. Much of it is in my freezer.)
*Wish every town had a food rescue like this – unbelievable what the grocery stores consider unsellable and cull out. Lots of expensive organic stuff ends up in the boxes they give to the rescue. The organization gives the food to anybody that wants it – so no income qualifications – you come get whatever you can use up. They are open 3 days a week with many volunteers.*
Dinner – hot beef sandwiches. Finished up crockpot roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy leftover from last week. Froze some broth with a few meat scraps that will be a soup base later in the month.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Kathryn, that does sound like an amazing food rescue. SO much edible food is thrown away in the US, with so many Americans in food deserts and food insecure. Glad you (and anyone) can avail themselves of that service, especially with such significant food inflation this year.
Tasty
Another year and another much needed pantry challenge. It will be interesting to see how many familiar names show up again this year! We sold our house last year and moved into a condo in town. Along with that , went one of the freezers so I had to work hard to get enough food used so that we could give it away – we managed that by the end of July or so .. Success!!! When we took possession of the condo we found out the previous owner had left her small upright freezer in the utility room – bonus! I have to admit that altho it doesn`t hold as much as my other chest freezer, it is full. There`s a little bit of space in each of them but not much. An ongoing story.
Jan 1st 2023
B – Hubby finished of the Christmas pudding, I had a banana and some yogurt and a blueberry muffin.
L – we had some Asian appetisers I had bought before Christmas but not used. Lots left – another couple of lunches maybe.
S – roast beef, potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts. The last 2 pieces of a cheesecake for dessert – a box gone from the freezer – I call that a plus.
Heather M
Hello Tasty! You’ve had quite a year with that big move. How nice to have a utility room that can fit even a small freezer. Looking forward to seeing you here this month. Happy New Year!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Hey Tasty! So good to hear from you again. Nothing like downsizing and a bit of urgency to force you to empty a freezer, huh? Well done. I’m right there with you though-full AGAIN!
Tasty
Oh, it’s so much quicker to fill a freezer than to empty one, especially as we get older and don’t eat/need as much food.
Just today for example, I took some of the leftover roast beef from last night’s meal and made a pot of vegetable beef soup. I packaged it for the freezer after supper – 4 meals worth! LOL!!
Jennifer
I have been so looking forward to the pantry challenge to help get more organized. With the kids coming home from college for break and family visiting I was in a buy as much as possible phase for awhile. We have a lot of different needs I am filling.
I have a 20 year old living at home and going to CC as well as an 18 year old home right now until her semester starts. Over the past few months I have found myself just buying new stuff, sticking it on top and then eating that first. Who even knows what is in the depths of my freezer at this point lol.
B – pumpkin scones using the remains of a can of pumpkin my dd opened to make cookies, served with raspberries and yogurt
L – I had a salad, dh had leftovers, ds made 2 ramen packs with a can of tuna and dd wasn’t here
snack – dh and I went out mid-afternoon to meet my oldest ds’s girlfriends family. Odd time of day – I had a pretzel and dh had chili.
D – the tik tok pasta recipe from a couple of years ago. with feta and tomatoes. I got this to make early over break but my dd was never around. I finally pinned her down in hopes of making it together. But she was napping. But everyone enjoyed it for dinner along with fresh veggies and hummus