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 2 of the Pantry Challenge, our first day back to real life after the holiday break.
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Bryan and the boys were all back to work today. The girls are still on vacation. I’m trying to get work in as I can while they’re still off.
What We Ate
Here’s how we ate on Day 2 of the Pantry Challenge:
Breakfast – After several months off my regular breakfast of yogurt and muesli, I’m back to it. I’ve been getting Skyr from Trader Joe’s so that I can get some extra protein. Unfortunately, blueberries are having a bag year. I’m not sure why, but I haven’t seen decent prices in a very long time. The girls had a leftovers, smoothie, and leftover pancakes. I have no idea what the guys had.
Lunch – Bryan had a freezer burrito. The girls and I made egg and cheese sandwiches with the sourdough bread I made yesterday.
Dinner – I had originally planned on shooting several recipes for the blog today for dinner, but I woke up with sinus issues (an ongoing problem for the last month or so), so no photos happened today. Instead I made this Poorman’s Chicken Caesar Salad Recipe, no croutons and I made skillet chicken bites instead of grilled chicken.
How did the day go for you?
Tasty
Tuesday 2nd
B: fruit, yogurt and a muffin
L: Chicken fingers??
S: Corn chowder and h/m buns
Kathryn M
Tuesday I work at a food pantry so I brought home an egg salad sandwich and apple slices that were left at the end. Quick lunch after a busy morning.
Dinner: Clean out the produce keeper salad. I basically grabbed whatever I could get rid of on top of some Romaine lettuce because I really needed to get the fridge cleaned up a bit this week.
Nancy
B. 2 fried eggs
L. leftover Ragu Casserole
D. Ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy. This is Christmas leftovers from the freezer.
Sarah T
Day 2:
B: avocado toast w/ fried egg
L: pb & j with potato chips & chocolate pretzels (my apple was mushy!)
S: veggie tray w/ dip
D: crockpot chicken & stuffing w/ green peas, cranberry sauce, pickles, & biscuits
I cheaped out in store brand biscuits and they definitively aren’t as good as the name brand ones. Lesson learned for less than a dollar difference it’s worth the spend!
Julie
I’m definitely joining again this year, but will probably be irregular in posting. Yesterday – breakfast bagels or eggs , lunch salad, pasta with marinara sauce that was in the fridge and my meatballs I made last week , dinner – variety of leftovers and such , sandwiches, yogurt parfait, tater tots. Snacks – dried apples I made in my dehydrator Sunday, no bake cookies I made Sunday.
Feeding my husband, myself, and children 14, 10 yr old twin boys, and 7 yr old. My fridge can be packed then empty pretty quickly.
Linda B
B—strawberries, milk, cereal (we emptied a box!)
L—(inspired by a GCE recipe) grilled turkey, havarti, and pesto on sourdough bread
D—LO hamburgers and an old can of Spaghetti Os I have no idea why we have it, but it didn’t kill us and had a best by date of 2022. There’s still one more can left and since my goal is to clear things out, we’ll be eating that before the end of the month. ?
Also, I’m attempting to revive my LONG neglected sourdough starter. It’s been in the back of the fridge for over 10 weeks while my DH was in the hospital and rehab center. Fingers crossed it comes back.
Heather M
Best wishes with the starter. And yeah, I get the needing to use up and get random things out of the pantry. Throwback to childhood, enjoying spaghettios 🙂
Karen J
Monday January 3
Breakfast-oatmeal with dried cherries and almonds
Lunch-leftover bean soup and the last of the NYE lemon tart (sad, it was SO good!)
Dinner-chicken breast filled with cream cheese/mushrooms/garlic (leftover from NYE stuffed mushrooms), rice, green beans
I picked up the grandkids from daycare and took them out to Dairy Queen for a back to school /new year treat. Most likely ruined their dinner. Sorry Mom.
Heather M
Love your mushroom appetizer repurpose! And, yeah, sorry mom. Grandma for the win 🙂
Danielle Zecher
Sorry about your sinus issues. I hope you feel better soon.
Breakfast: Drive-thru on the way to work.
Lunch: Leftover curry lentil soup and pita bread.
Dinner: Eggs and toast. (We’re pet-sitting for our neighbors and had fresh eggs from their chickens, which was really nice.)
Heather M
Ooooo fresh eggs from your neighbors- how awesome!
Jennifer
There are 4 of us living here now. My 2 adult sons (25 and 21) and dh and myself. My ds 25 will eat all day long. The pasta I made on the 1st had 3 things of leftovers. He ate 2 within 12 hours. I can’t keep up with all he eats and my ds21 is not here often as he is in paramedic school and working.
B – leftover muffins with homemade turkey sausage or eggs and yogurt
L – I had yogurt, grapes, candy and dh had clementines and leftovers
D – roasted sweet potatoes and breakfast burritos
Snacks were coffee out and fancy popcorn bought on clearance at Target after Christmas
Heather M
Target Christmas clearance! Awesome! I know a few people who did really well there. I wasn’t out anywhere at all until Dec 30, so decided it probably wasn’t worth stopping in by then.
M in OH
Oh, I so understand sons who eat a lot! We have one home from college for just a few more days and tonight for dinner we completely wiped out chicken marsala and a pan of roasted white, purple and sweet potatoes, plus chocolate crinkle cookies fresh out of the oven and ice cream for dessert. No leftovers at all!
Sarah t
I have 3 older brothers (6/7/8 years older than me) and as a kid I didn’t know that every family didn’t include an entire loaf of white sandwich bread on the table ? now I know why and I’m in awe that mom kept us all fed somehow. The flip side was I never experienced stale cereal til they all left for college!
Kathy in Denmark
Day 2:
DH is back to work, the kids don’t go back to school until the 4th. However, I seriously doubt that they are going, since they are both still spiking fevers and feeling ill.
B: Oats and milk for DH, toast and coffee for me.
L: DH eats at work and I had rye bread with some of the beef from NYE. It’s a beef tenderloin and oh so good!
D: Falafel in flatbreads with hummus and different salad fixings.
The kids had an assortment of apple slices, toast, pretzels, cucumber slices and whatever they wanted to drink. The youngest still doesn’t have much of an appetite, and since she is a very slender child, I am paying close attention. They both drank more fluids and kept everything down, so I am seeing improvement.
The falafel and hummus were both HM and frozen earlier. The flatbreads were reduced for quick sale, so I grabbed some when I was at the supermarket. I haven’t done a big shop, since we have a reasonable amount of food and I don’t want to have a lot of food hanging around if I get sick.
Heather M
Here’s hoping your girls are on the road to recovery. And I really hope you manage to stay healthy. That beef tenderloin must be such a wonderful treat for you 🙂
Kathy in Denmark
Thank you, Heather!
I really hope you are on the mend too, it seems like it’s one thing after another.
I am really enjoying the beef tenderloin! We always have some sort of beef roast at NYE, and the tenderloin is probably my favourite. When you don’t have meat very often you tend to enjoy it more, I guess 🙂
Karen J
I’ve never made falafel, but it’s on my list to learn. That and making a sourdough starter.
Kathy in Denmark
Falafel isn’t difficult to make, just a little time consuming. That’s why I always make a big batch and freeze some for later. I hope you try it out; it really is delicious!
I have started to bake sourdough wheat bread this summer. I’ve baked rye bread with sourdough for many years, but the wheat bread is a very different technique. Totally worth the effort, though!
If you have trouble with your starter, maybe you can get some from another baker. I think most would be happy to share 🙂
Jessica Fisher
We have a favorite kabob shop that makes amazing falafel. I’d love to figure it out!
Heather M
Sorry about your ongoing sinus issues. That’s no fun. And thanks everyone who wished us well with the Covid. None of us got terribly sick luckily, but it did its other damage. Was hoping Jan 2 would be better than it was. I woke up and immediately had a bad bout of vertigo, something I’m not used to at all. I’ve had a few short little ones that resolved basically right away over the past few years but this was different. It came with nausea and the like. A few hours after getting up, it settled into a weird head thing all day, and if I move it quickly lean to the right too hard, I spin again. Ugh. Anyways. Today we were doing takeout burgers and fries from a favorite local place since our son leaves in a few days. That was the only real meal they ate late afternoon and otherwise I think they snacked on all kinds of things. I didn’t pay attention. I finally felt like eating early afternoon and started with mashed potatoes and a roll. Later I had a slice of turkey, cheese, and crackers. And then in the evening I snacked on some fancy Christmas popcorn and Hershey kisses. And that’s a wrap for Day 2. Really hoping for better tomorrow (and 2024).
Brenda Fuentes
B: cereal/oatmeal
L: leftovers/find your own
D: grilled cheese, veggies, grapes
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jan 3
Because we were out of town for NYD, we missed all the traditional foods, so had them tonight instead, except for black eyed peas, which I totally forgot to fix!
B: I skipped, DH protein shake
L: LO minestrone soup, ½ HM pimento cheese sandwich. DH had the same.
D: pork (freezer), collards, cornbread (pantry), Waldorf salad
S: LO chocolate pecan pie
I spent 9.14 to purchase 2 loaves of wide pan bread for DH as we were out, plus collards and cabbage. The vegetables were at a stock up price through today. They should be long lasting and add variety to meals later in the month. I borrowed my mother’s bread machine to see how it might work for me to bake bread.
Karen J
I got carried away a while back and bought a 12 pk of Betty Crocker cornbread mixes on a very good sale. And then discovered we don’t care for them . So now I am trying to doctor them up to more of our liking. I wish pantry challenge would teach me not to over buy. Fingers crossed.
Erin in Ontario
My mother used to make a meal we called Meaty Cheesy Thing with those cornbread packets. Basically it’s a thing layer of the cornbread mix in a casserole dish, a layer of ground beef, shredded cheese, a sauce (ketchup, marinara, bbq, whatever), then a final layer of cornbread mix and some more shredded cheese. Bake it until the cornbread is set.
Not haute cuisine but it used them up and kept us all fed.
Jennifer
Monday was our last day off work for break.
Breakfast was leftover scones or oatmeal with blackberries
Lunch – leftovers for most, I had yogurt and a peanut butter oat ball
Snack – out for coffee
Dinner – Chicken sausages from the freezer over cous cous made with homemade chicken broth, sauteed kale and a cucumber