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 20 of the Pantry Challenge!
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Can you believe the month is already ⅔ over? Crazy how fast it has gone!
I’m trying to invest more time in my writing business so today was a full day at my desk even though most of the fam had the day off.
What We Ate
Breakfast – I made my old school favorite: Greek Yogurt With Muesli and Blueberries. I am trying to go back to my 2BMindset ways as I’ve gained a little too much weight in my perimenopausal years.
Lunch – It was a fend-for-yourself day. There was a lot of Lawnmower Taco leftover from last night as well as pizza from Sunday. The kids had that while Bryan grabbed a burrito from the freezer. I had a salad and a couple turkey patties from the freezer.
Dinner – I made two soups tonight: Instant Pot Potato Soup as well as an experimental curried vegetable soup. Unfortunately, I didn’t measure the spices and made the curry way too hot. Yikes! I am freezing the leftovers in ½- and 1-cup portions to stretch with other soup stuff in the future.
How did Day 20 go for you?
ZC from MA
Great idea for lunar New Year Jessica! Happy year of the rabbit!
For 1/20
B: slice of toast with almond butter, cherries, coffee
L: bought at work
D: carrot soup and grilled cheese sandwich
S: an apple
Stephanie M.
Friday, January 20, 2023
B – I had a yogurt parfait.
L – Paul had pizza. I had a ham sandwich and an apple.
D – we had friends over for dinner. I made a big pot of sauce with meatballs and sausage. So we had macaroni with meatballs and sausage, garlic bread, and salad. I also made an apple coffee cake for dessert and put ice cream on the side.
Heather M
Yay for friends over! Bet is was super fun, and food sounds like it was delicious!
Stephanie M.
Thanks Heather!! It was so nice after an entire month of doing literally nothing to have friends over and to make a nice dinner by myself without any help and to enjoy such a nice evening.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Stephanie, I’m sure that was a good dinner for your guests. I remember what a hostess you were from previous years with your food and decor! 🙂
Stephanie M.
Hi Lynn!! Thank you so much!!! Because Valentine’s Day is approaching and because it was an Italian dinner, I used a red and white Buffalo check tablecloth with white dinner dishes and red salad dishes. And because there was only four of us, we ate in the kitchen which made the whole thing very cozy. Thanks for remembering!!
Emily
B- I bought a gf pancake mix last year and hated it so I used it up making some waffles, made a sauce with some sad looking strawberries and squirted on some whip cream, they ended up pretty good.
L- I cooked up some gf pasta and put some butter and Parmesan on it and added some cucumbers and a Mandarin on the side.
Snack- gf crackers and some Boursin I got on sale last week for $1.99.
D- I had a bunch of leftover French fries from kids meals this week and I always make a scramble when I have them. I threw in onions, peppers, the fries, jalapeños, eggs, cheese and avocado.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Good save with pancakes with the addition of strawberries and whipped cream. Sounds delish!
Tasty
Friday January 20th
B – hubby made porridge, I had fruit, yogurt, granola and a slice of toast
L – hubby had a curlers lunch of “soup, sandwich and a square”,, I had a ham omelette
S – Chilli
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Tasty, you’ll have to educate me-what is the “square” that is part of a curler’s lunch?
Tasty
Lynn, a square is a dessert/something sweet – could be a pan of brownies or some similar dessert cut literally into squares. Something that can be picked up, not something that needs a fork or spoon.
Krista Matheson
I’ve been doing the challenge but first time posting
B out for subway
L made squash leek soup, using up squash from freezer, 3 leeks on the way out, a splash of lemon juice I saved thinking I would use it for ginger tea since I wasn’t feeling well but I never ended up using it, and a carton of cream hanging out in the fridge. Oh, and the last 2 cups of homemade turkey stock leftover from the holidays. Very pleased!
D dh and dd and boyfriend had steak and broccoli, I had a huge bag from costco, still half left, and twice baked potatoes starting to sprout. I don’t like beef so only had the potato.
S popcorn, hot chocolate, and peanut butter crackers.
Took out pork hocks to unthaw.
Jessica Fisher
Glad you’re jumping in, Krista!
Maureen
Hubby and I love Raclette. The kids can’t get over the smell…more for me!
Janie from WA
I will summarize by Posting here what we did for dinner. Breakfast and lunch seems to be about the same every day, except I have not been meal prepping my lunches for work because I’ve been using up leftovers I have in the freezer. I freeze single servings of things like soup or lasagna that I can easily take to work and it’s a lifesaver!
Dinner-
-frozen pizza
-cold pasta salad with odds and ends from the fridge- end of the bottle of salad dressing, Sun-dried tomatoes from the garden, bell peppers, Parmesan cheese.
-Spinach salad with homemade canned pickled beets and olives.
-Dessert, homemade chocolate mousse. I tried out a recipe using an 80% cocoa bar that I had from Christmas. It turned out so so, but it was better than running out to get ice cream when we wanted a treat.
Pretty good night for having a very long work week! No take out!
Molly
I freeze single servings of soups and lasagnas, too! They make great lunches. My husband did tell me that he also needs savory muffins in case he only has time to eat a small amount at a time, so I’ve been adding those in to my meal prep.
Jennifer
Yesterday seems far away but I think I remember.
B – finished off the leftover muffins – I swear I am the only one that eats them anymore – we used to never have leftovers when I made muffins. Daughter had a bowl of cereal.
L – snacky lunch for me with randomness from the fridge. I think hubby took soup, fruit, yogurt.
D – We ordered pizza. I get home from work at 4, my 21 yr old daughter was home for 1 night before heading to DC for spring semester AND we had a gymnastics meet out of town and had to leave by 5:30. I did put a plate of fresh veggies out though.
Bedtime snack – wine
Lily R.
B: Bostock with flat whites. I’m getting a lot better at the homemade coffee!
L: Tarteletter and mansaka.
D: Didn’t I say we would end up at a steakhouse? Everything was delicious and there was something on the menu for everyone.
Dessert was later on at home. We were celebrating our last night with our house guests and I had made bienenstich (bee sting cake) earlier in the day. German desserts are so underrated!
Kathy in Denmark
I think your menus sound so delicious and very international every day!
I am thrilled to see tarteletter on there, what did you fill them with?
I am puzzled by the mansaka… I tried googling it, and I found someone claiming it was a traditional Danish casserole. I think I can safely say that it’s not. It’s probably someone’s take on moussaka and it sounds delicious, it’s just not a Danish dish 🙂
Maybe it is something entirely different than what I found, I’m really curious now 😀
Lily R.
Hi Kathy,
I filled the tarteletter with a creamy asparagus and chicken mixture. They are always so yummy! The mansaka recipe came from a mom’s friend a very long time ago. They are Finnish but lived in Denmark for a few years while studying/before having kids. I have no idea where the recipe originated but all I care about is it’s 100% delicious! She also gave me her pullah recipe which is so tasty. My kitchen is my passport which is why I love to try all these international dishes 🙂
Tasty
We make our own rules Kathy!!
Kathy in Denmark
You’re right!
Thanks for the reminder 🙂
Kathy in Denmark
Day 20
B: The usual
L: DH eats at work, packed lunch for the girls, open sandwich for me
S: Hot cocoa, bread and butter and a few cookies for the girls after school
D: Minestrone soup with bread
I am pretty pleased with this day. I have been using up some mandarin oranges in the girls’ lunches and have gotten creative with what I pack. So far they haven’t complained 😀
I topped my sandwich bread with shrimp from the freezer and some different veggies from the fridge. It was really tasty and I used up an open pack of shrimp.
I alway save rinds from parmesan cheese in the freezer and add it to minestrone. Since I make it vegetarian, the parmesan helps with the umami flavour and it isn’t wasted, so it’s a double win! We eat a lot of parmesan, so I still have quite a few rinds in the freezer 😉
We just got the circular for next week, and pretty much all the things I like to stock up on are on sale. Sigh… This seems to happen every January, so I really should do the pantry challenge another month, but then I don’t get to “hang out” with all of you lovely people. I am just going to get the things I know we will need and use and be at peace with it.
Lily R.
Everything is on sale here in January too. I also take the opportunity to stock up! Don’t beat yourself up over it 🙂
Kathy in Denmark
I’m glad it’s not just here. Some times the deals are just too good to miss. For instance, butter is on sale and it is 50% off! I would kick myself if I had to pay full price for it in a little while, when I could have gotten it now.
Heather M
Like everyone else is saying, we all make our own challenge rules. Perhaps just buying the things you use all the time that are now on sale is the right move for you. And still use up all the other things you want to get rid of by keeping those things you stocked up on for future use only? Hmm. It is tricky.
I also love that parmesan rind trick. 🙂
Kathy in Denmark
I know we will use what is on sale and I am pretty good at rotating our stock, so I am just going to get it.
I think I will pull a few of the harder to use things from the pantry and leave on my counter, so I am reminded to use them. If all else fails I’ll just have to eat them myself for lunch 😀
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Kathy, as everyone has said, we each make our rules. I’ve realized that I have some rain checks (from when the store was out of sale items) that are going to expire before the end of the month. I’m going to purchase those items at “stock up” prices even though it will exceed what I had planned to spend for the month. With the overall increases in prices I’m just not sure I’ll see these lower prices again. I like Heather’s suggestion that I could put these away and use in the future while continuing to eat what I already have now.
Kathy in Denmark
We don’t have rain checks in Denmark, but I wish we did!
Prices are rising in Europe as well and I have a feeling that this may be the last time I can get these things at my stock up price for a very long time. Even though there is fierce competition between our grocery chains, there’s also a limit to how low they can price sale items and survive in the long run.
I’m stashing the things I buy in the freezer and pantry so I have them for future use 🙂
Jessica Fisher
I would have hopped into the conversation sooner, but I saw that others already said what I would have done.
1. You get to make your own rules.
2. We’ve never called this a No-Spend Month for a reason. It’s just not realistic. You have to be able to pivot, especially in our current environment.
3. Ultimately, the goal is to be a good steward of your resources. Stocking up on grocery staples when it’s a great price is part of the whole system. 🙂
Molly
Butter for 50% off??!! I would absolutely stock up on that if I had funds and space to freeze it. Just think that you’re saving money by using the other foods in your pantry so that you CAN get the butter and other staples when they’re on sale this month. I think you win. 🙂
Virginia
So, here is how I have decided how to handle sales. If the prices are too good to pass up (especially since most prices seem to be rising) I go ahead and buy it. I keep it in a box or on a shelf away from my current pantry stock. That way I can still judge if I am getting rid of the older items. After the challenge, I can add the new items to the regular stash and save money in February.
Jen in Ohio
Day 20:
B: I think we both skipped? We’re doing a basement remodel and this morning was dumpster delivery day. DF has taken a few days off of work to do demo (lol, when I say “we’re” doing the remodel, that’s not terribly accurate. He’s doing the vast majority).
L: I was out running errands and picked up Panda Express for us.
D: cajun pasta, used up some bell peppers and chicken from the freezer that had been in there a while along with andouille, tomatoes, onion, pasta, etc. We had a salad to go with too
We’ve got a few more small things from the freezer I’d like to use, but mostly I’m happy with how those are looking. The pantry is looking better too.
What’s interesting to me, is that aside from some specific areas (pastas, kid snacks, Costco multipacks), I don’t think our grocery shopping has actually been that out of hand. It seems like so much to me each week, but with 3 kids ages 10-14, plus 2 adults, we really do go through a lot of food. Particularly when the kids are home from school.
So that’s good information to have. I do still want to try to reduce our spending a bit going forward, or maybe just shoot to not increase it in the face of rising food costs. Will have to keep working on how best to do that, while still keeping the masses happy around here lol.
Kathy in Denmark
Good luck un the remodel! It’s no fun while it’s going on, but so lovely when it is done!
I hear you re shopping and cost. We have a very modest grocery budget compared to other families and I have also only found a few things which we have too much of. It will be tricky to keep our budget where it is with the rising prices, but I hope it’s doable if I pretend like we’re doing the pantry challenge for a while 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jen, yes, I think doing the challenge does inform and affirm some of the food purchases we make. (I do NOT need to buy cake mixes) I think I’m going to try to “hold the line” and keep the same budget with rising costs, though I’m not sure that is going to be possible. I guess after a few months, I’ll know and can adjust accordingly.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/20/22
B: me coffee DH: cereal with almond milk
L: DH was going out to pick up a cheese steak sandwich until I reminded him that I could make him one at home. I sauteed some of the onions I’d purchased this week along with mushrooms, added provolone from the fridge, frozen multi-colored peppers (from our garden) and steak from the freezer. The restaurant he was heading to has potato salad as a side, so I used one of the baked potatoes I’d baked the other night to make a quick bit of potato salad. He was pleased and I got a few more items out of the freezer (not to mention we saved a bit of money!) He had one of the last 2 portions of chicken noodle soup to go with it. I have enough meat for one more sandwich.
I had a smaller version of the sandwich and the end of the soup-finally.
D: A friend brought us a potato, sausage and cabbage dish. I was still full from lunch, but had a small portion since I love those 3 things together!
We, like many others, are under a winter storm advisory here. We also have flood and wind advisories through Sunday. My husband is used to me going to the grocery store at least once a week, sometimes twice. Of course, I haven’t been doing that this month. He asked me today if I was going to the grocery store. When I answered no, he asked if we “have enough food?” for the predicted storm. I laughed and said we had PLENTY of food, for him not to worry. And of course, WE DO since our freezer and pantry remain stubbornly full! Plus, we have staples to make many additional items we might need.
Stephanie M.
Kudos to the win for lunch with the cheese steak and potato salad!!! Don’t you love when things just work out?
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Yes, I was pretty pleased I could whip that up! And it was met with major approval 🙂
Heather M
Love your lunch win!!! And also your reaction to your husband asking about going to the store before the storm. What a good feeling to know you can come up with plenty of meals without having to go to the store. It’ll be helpful in your challenge, being home and unable to shop or get food out. Hope you all fare well in this nasty-seeming storm that has stayed just south of us (we got lucky, but it sure is cold!).
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
After weather predictions being all over the place for here, this morning (Sat) we’ve got less than an inch of snow. It’s pretty and melting fast, so nothing big here. Inland got more.
Kathryn M
B: cereal
L: leftover pasta and garlic bread from last night
D:Chicken stirfry. I pulled thigh meat out of the freezer. Used some sad looking snow peas up and emptied a bottled sauce from the fridge.
I made chocolate chip muffins from a mix for snacking. I have 6 more muffin mixes to get rid of in the pantry that are expiring soon. I need to stop buying so many of those mixes.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Kathryn, I’m the same with cake mixes that I need to use. I’m not sure why I have so many. I really don’t make cakes-scratch or otherwise-that often, so I just need not to buy them. I guess that is one of my lessons from the pantry challenge. One year for me it was shredded cheese, which I have done much better with of late. Now I need to reform my cake mix buying.
JulieT
Make these into muffins or cookies
Kimberly
1/19
Usual breakfast cereal and sandwich lunches
Dinner: “eat the fridge” night. These happen when I have cooked several days in a row and there is no more room in the fridge because of all the leftovers. My family isn’t usually thrilled, but when they realized we had really good leftovers this week, the complaints ended 🙂 It was a variety of lo curry, ramen noodles and rice, roast beef with an jus, salad, beef and broccoli, and I don’t even remember what else.
1/20
I worked today so I assume they had the usual breakfast, looks like hubby had a lunch meeting with Thai food. I brought some quick oatmeal packs that we have had for several months for breakfast and salad with random toppings from fridge for lunch with a lo biscuit.
Dinner was weekly dinner out with friends. I arrived late after work so just finished off my family’s plates, that saved some money!
Julie T
B-I had an English muffin with peanut butter and home made pear jam and coffee. Hubby had whole wheat toast with cinnamon sugar and a glass of milk
L-Chili with buns from the freezer.
D-Spaghetti with meat sauce, salads, and garlic toast from the freezer.
Pheasant will wait until tonight.
Danielle L Zecher
Thank you to everyone who asked about our dog yesterday. He’s our baby, so the concern is much appreciated.
Breakfast: McDonald’s. I know, I should be embarrassed. And I am. I’m planning to prep some weekday breakfasts over the weekend, assuming we don’t lose power due to ice.
Lunch: Leftover vegetable and paneer curry.
Dinner: Chicken and stuffing casserole, cranberry sauce, and green beans. That was a good pantry challenge meal. The chicken was shredded cooked chicken from the freezer, and the green beans were from when I bought too many cans for green bean casserole at Thanksgiving. I usually keep some boxed stuffing mix and canned cranberry sauce on hand because I LOVE them, but I still have plenty in the stash.
Heather M
Good luck with the storm! It’s staying far enough south from us, all we are is cold. phew! I love stuffing and cranberry sauce too. Just so yummy! And also, no shame in a McD’s breakfast. Sometimes they’re just good, and easy!
Tasty
Danielle, l hadn’t realised it was an emergency trip to the vet, just thought you had a good vet who was quite a distance away. Glad surgery could be rescheduled. Hope everything goes smoothly.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Danielle, I’m glad the surgery could be re-scheduled, but sorry you have to wait. Hoping that all will go well. We went through similar surgeries with our sweet Golden retriever a few years back.
Lily R.
Thanks for the update on your furbaby and I hope that all goes well with the surgery. We are animal lovers so I totally understand when one of the fur babies are not feeling well.
Heather M
Ok, so I just went back to look at comments you made about your pup and whoa. I sure hope it all goes well for your doggie. Glad the rescheduling didn’t make things more complicated, but only more time in getting things done. Fingers crossed he does really well with everything. hugs!
Tasty
Thursday, January 20th
Not a great day as far as the pantry challenge – however,this was planned.
B – usual for hubby, I had the last banana, yogurt and a slice of toast and marmalade
L – a local seniors group do a meal once da month and these days it is takeout, not eat in. The folk who cater it run the place where we would normally eat out on a Sunday, so we ordered from there. Soup, chicken and biscuits with potatoes and carrots followed by apple pie.. After this I had an appointment in town and shopped while I was there anyway. Basically, replaced things that we were out of!
S – not overly hungry, so we had meatloaf sandwiches.
Hopefully, today we will be a better day.
Stephanie M.
January 20
B – Paul had toast and a yogurt parfait. I had a yogurt parfait.
L – Paul had leftover General Tso chicken from the freezer from our last Chinese cheat meal. I made him some rice to go with it. Tomorrow he will have the other bag of General Tso (the last of it) and the leftover rice and then that’s two more bags of leftovers gone from the freezer. I had a turkey sandwich using up the last of the turkey and some grapes.
D – grilled Asian salmon and rice pilaf. With mine I had sautéed baby spinach with garlic and olive oil and some baby carrots and cucumber. Paul had green beans with his. (Not a spinach guy).
Yesterday was a win for me because Paul opened the freezer and said it’s getting empty in here. Lol. It’s not all that empty but in the past three weeks, we’ve gotten rid of a lot.
Heather M
Another good Challenge day here! Tried a new recipe(well, I clipped it several years ago, but…), which of course I modified a bit because never met a recipe I didn’t modify in one way or another (except in baking, but that’s chemistry, so). We’re hardly leaving the house right now, for good reasons, so I imagine we will keep eating up all the good stuff we have and I’m even thinking about more baking, etc. Added a bit to my list of meals/food to make based on what we have already– including some lunch ideas since we don’t have any lunchmeat except tuna(?? it’s not cold cuts, lol) and leftovers are few and far between right now based on how I’m cooking– feeling very good about how things are shaping up.
B: pear honey whole wheat quick bread
L: open-face tuna melts, also using an almost overripe tomato(perfect for a cold day); I also had raw carrot sticks and cucumber slices w/more of that spinach dip; he had the last of the pineapple
D: chile relleno casserole and a side salad; the casserole used the already prepped ground beef and refried bean mixture, some frozen corn, the last two cans of green chiles (these I have to replace when I can, as I use them regularly- even tried to do so during the quick grocery run earlier in the week, but they were out of stock), eggs, cheese, etc. Garnished with chopped green onions, cilantro, and sliced black olives. Really yummy!
Danielle L Zecher
Your meals sound sooooo good! Do you have a recipe for the bread? Or the chile relleno casserole?
I’m the same way with recipes. I save them and then take years sometimes to get around to making them. And I won’t leave a cooked recipe alone, but won’t change a thing when it comes to a baking recipe.
Heather M
Link for the pear bread; I used honey for the sweetener:
https://www.godairyfree.org/recipes/spiced-pear-breakfast-bread
Link for the chile relleno casserole- don’t mind the one rating… they didn’t read the recipe at all; also, I used ground beef since it’s what we had, I added a little enchilada sauce for flavor to the beef-bean mixture and also didn’t use the whole can of beans since I had an open can with only some gone, used chopped green chiles since it’s all we had-on can hot and one standard & mixed them before spreading them, and I forgot about the onions (I know!! I adore them and use them in everything so this was a strange oversight, probably because I did that step the night before while cooking that dinner) and it was good without them, though I imagine it would have been even better with; also think it might be good with cornmeal in place of the flour (or half and half):
https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chiles-rellenos-casserole
Danielle L Zecher
Thanks for the recipe links. They look really good.