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 15 of the Pantry Challenge!
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Since it was a holiday for most of the crew, it was a bit of a haphazard day of comings and goings.
What We Ate
Breakfast – a variety of yogurt, popovers, toast, and egg bake.
Lunch – A mostly fend-for-yourself kind of deal with leftovers, etc.
Dinner – The boys were all gone. I made a big pot of rice. The girls and I had it with curry from the freezer; Bryan had a burrito bowl with chicken I cooked over the weekend.
How did your Day 15 go?
Diinaus
Can’t exactly remember but think
We skiped breakfast.
L: kids made rice bowls for lunch
D: veg chilli o. Rice using up the cabbage and some pumpkin.
Kathryn M
Lunch: grabbed a healthy choice frozen dinner out of my freezer that I bought back in early November – honey glazed turkey with greenbeans, sweet and russet potatoes.
Dinner: leftover Shrimp Carbonara
Snacks – misc candy, bbq chips
Danielle Zecher
I finally started getting back on track after spending most of the weekend wallowing in anxiety and self-pity and also buying groceries and takeout we definitely didn’t need. Our heat is still out, but the crawlspace was dry enough for them to get to the furnace on Friday. A panel was fried from all of the water, so they ordered a new one. Because of the holiday, it’s taking a little longer to come in. Hopefully, it will arrive today, and we’ll have a working furnace sometime tomorrow. Our house is small, and we’ve been using space heaters, so it hasn’t been too bad. We’re dropping down to 10 degrees today/tonight, though, so we’ll see how that goes. I made up a snack bag for the HVAC people on Friday (they’ve gone above and beyond and even helped us get the sump pump working again), so that used up several individual packages of nuts, granola bars, candy, etc.
Dinner last night was meatballs (from the freezer) with jarred sauce and penne.
My workload for the next six weeks suddenly tripled on Friday, so I think there will be a lot of crock pot meals as we work our way through the pantry challenge. I’m determined to keep going, even if it’s a modified version.
Heather M
Oh gosh I hope you can get proper heat going again soon. What a rough patch for you and now with work…. Glad you have a plan for slow cooker meals at least. Best wishes with all of it!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Oh Danielle, I can understand your anxiety and worry. I’m glad some progress has been made, though it’s slow. And then to have your work mushroom like that. Good for you for hanging in there for the challenge and being resilient and determined with all the obstacles thrown your way. Crock pot meals sound like a good plan.
Kathy in Denmark
Wow – you’ve got a lot going on, so worry and anxiety is to be expected.
I think you are handling it like a champ, though!
Sending positive thoughts.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/15
B: I typically like yogurt and keep it on hand. But of late, I’ve kind of lost my taste for it. But I had the remainder of a quart staring at me whenever I opened the refrigerator. So I fixed some and added walnuts and Pom arils. It was so good, I ate a second helping! DH was still feeling a bit under the weather so ate dry toast.
L: dh had turkey/rice soup that I made in the morning. I had a bit too, along with a sandwich.
D: had a scaled down breakfast for dinner since DH still not eating much. He had grits, scrambled eggs and toast. I added a slice of bacon from the freezer to my dinner.
I hadn’t updated my freezer inventory like I should have, so I went diving in the freezer. I found a small pork roast and an even smaller pork tenderloin. I’m relieved there are some options smaller than the ham and pork butt in the freezer. So I guess we’ll be segueing from poultry to pork! I think we ate all the beef over the holidays. I’m continuing to see more space, which is great!
Heather M
Jan 15: in which it snowed lightly all day and night and by late evening everyone around the DC area was freaking out since we hadn’t had even an inch of measurable snowfall since January 16, 2022(2 years!) and they closed everything for the 16th. Schools, even the federal government. By this morning (16), we probably have about 4-5 inches total at our house in Arlington(across the river from DC). Anyways. Glad we have so much food stored so i can put off errands another day. However tomorrow I will likely stock up on some salad fixings and fruit, as we are getting super low on fresh.
L did have to do some work, despite being off, but it didn’t ruin the whole day. I did a lot of reading and we watched Killers of the Flower Moon and started the series Beef, also checked in on playoff games.
Brunch: L finished the leftover pancakes from Saturday, topped with blackberries and kiwi, and had breakfast turkey sausage; I made a yogurt bowl with the rest of the blackberries and some kiwi(one left!) and granola a friend made/gifted us
Snack: I made olive oil popped popcorn to munch on during the movie
Dinner: soup! Made a delicious soup out of 2 hot Italian turkey sausage links from the freezer, the last celery, carrots, onions, garlic, seasonings, broth, a small bag of leftover canned garbanzos from the freezer, and a can of French cut green beans. We had toasted sourdough garlic bread on the side. Made just enough soup for no leftovers!! It was so good.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, I didn’t realize Arlington got that much snow. That’s where DD lives. Somehow I’d forgotten you were there too. That’s definitely soup weather! Although we aren’t expecting snow, the cold weather is rolling in tonight for us too, so soup making is in the agenda for tomorrow. Enjoy the “white stuff”.
Tasty
I didn’t think it was possible to make just enough soup for 2 – well done Heather!
Danielle Zecher
That’s a lot of snow! I hope you’re able to get out safely soon.
Allie from Ontario
Jan 15
Brunch – I had a smoothie and then a little later a roast beef sandwich. T had some leftover shepherd’s pie and then again a little later, a sausage on a bun that he had cooked a day or 2 ago.
Dinner – It was burger night so 2 burgers & buns from the freezer and we did empty a jar of specialty mustard from the fridge. We love mustard and typically have lots to choose from! I also made a small amount of a roasted potato salad with a mustard (!) vinaigrette. As planned, no leftovers.
The current crop of leftovers in the fridge are disappearing so that’s good. I love my roast beef sandwich on a bagel (a “sensible sized” one rather than the monsters some places sell). Anyways, I ate the last one from the freezer yesterday and am resisting the urge to buy more! I am sure I can survive using something else 🙂
Heather M
You’re doing great!! Good luck figuring out the bagel replacement 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Burgers are on the menu for tonight (16th) here as well!
Kathy in Denmark
Reporting from two days again. It seems I am doing it (mostly) this way in this year’s PC!
Day 14:
This was a very special day in Denmark, as the Queen, Margrethe II, was abdicating and her son was proclamed King Frederik X.
Margrethe has been Queen for 52 years and the last abdication in Denmark was around 900 years ago, so this was a historic day for sure!
B: Quick breakfast of bread, juice, coffee
L/S: We gathered around the TV to follow the events and DD1 and I prepared several snacks: Different cheeses, crackers, crudités, olives etc. We also had some HM LO candy from Christmas and I pulled “Kransekage” from NYE from the freezer. Everyone drank from champagne glasses. The girls had apple juice and DH and I had a lovely pink asti. I also decided to serve everything on my grandmother’s china. It is actually from Royal Copenhagen and seemed fitting for the day 🙂
D: We weren’t really hungry, so the girls decided they wanted small portions of oatmeal (DD1) and rye porridge (DD2). DH and I had a few pieces of bread with toppings after the girls were in bed.
Day 15:
B: Oats and milk for DH. Oatmeal for DD1, rye porridge for DD2. Rye bread with jam and coffee for me.
L: DH eats at work, Packed lunch for the girls, more rye with toppings for me
S: Hot cocoa for the girls after school. Some crackers for me and yoghurt for DD1.
D: Pasta with tomato sauce and sautéed broccoli on the side. Parmesan cheese.
Allie from Ontario
Your “day 14” sounds lovely!
Heather M
It’s so interesting to hear about the Royal situation in Denmark! We are avid “pay attention to news around the world” people, to the point that our 22 year old son who is currently 2,000 miles away doing a graduate degree after finishing university earlier this year, immediately texted us when he heard about the abdication. It must have been a really interesting/fun day to watch all the festivities. Thank you for sharing it with us! And, trays of finger food is definitely the way to go on a day in front of the tv watching it all 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
What a lovely way to celebrate the transition of the royals in Denmark! I read quite a few articles about the abdication and coronation. Between Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margrethe, that was over 120 years of rule by queens. Quite the remarkable accomplishment.
Tasty
I’m sure the Queen’s abdication is a day you will all remember Kathy.
Danielle Zecher
That’s so neat to watch history in the making like that, and your food choices sound perfect for the day.
Jessica Fisher
What a fun day!
Kathy in Denmark
Thank you for all the lovely comments 🙂
We had a lovely day and we will no doubt always remember it.
Normally the proclamation of a new sovereign is associated with a lot of grief, because it means the former sovereign has died. Because of the abdication, it was a very joyous and festive day and I feel it was a much better way of doing it. It was still emotional, but in a good way!
Diinaus
Being an Aussie, it was very interesting to read about in the papers at the shops ( we don’t consume news media anymore esp since covid) .
Tasty
January 15
B: hubby yogurt and???, I had the last piece of the quiche I made at the weekend,
L: cheese on toast
S: we finished the turkey pie and salad from the other day.
Some space has opened up in the fridge again – guess that means I’m cooking tomorrow.
Lynn at NC Outer Banks
Tasty, I watched a show on curling. I thought of you and understand it much better now!