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 21 of the Pantry Challenge!
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It’s been a rainy weekend. I slept poorly and felt ill most of the night. Woke up not feeling amazing.
Made an extra effort to get more fruits and veggies in my meals.
What We Ate
Breakfast – I slept in so I have no idea what the kids had. I just drank tea.
Lunch – Since I slept in, I ended up having two lunches: a big fruit salad and a big green salad with the last of the turkey lunch meat and some garbanzo beans. Bryan had a burrito from the freezer. Kids had leftovers from game night.
Dinner – I made Turkey Meatballs, Roast Carrots and Broccoli, Spaghetti Squash, and big pot of rice in the instant pot.
How did Day 21 go for you?
Danielle Zecher
01/21/24:
Breakfast: I had cereal. Nick slept in.
Lunch: Leftover takeout food.
Dinner: Cheeseburger soup, which used up the last of the celery that really needed to be used, some carrots that definitely weren’t in their prime, and some ground beef from the freezer.
We also did a Wal-Mart pickup order with some odds and ends: some produce, water flavor packets, cream, and coconut milk. I think I may be shifting my focus to just trying to base meals on something from the freezer/pantry, even if it means buying some more groceries. With all of the extra work responsibilities, I’m trying to be realistic but still try to work my way through the black hole the chest freezer has turned into.
Heather M
Sounds like a great plan for you!!
Allie from Ontario
Cheeseburger soup sounds awesome….I love soup for
dinner !!
Linda B
That’s my focus this month—I’m concentrating on using up the protein in my freezer that has been in there for a year or more. Special emphasis on the largest packages—like a 10# pork shoulder. There are only two of us and when I stock up at an exceptional price, the meat at our store is typically already frozen (the day of or the day before the sell by date). Makes it difficult to divide the packages up into more realistic packages for two people, so some things languish in there. I’m doing very well and starting to see space, but have a long way to go! Planning to continue into February.
Danielle Zecher
We’re also a family of two, so it seems to take us a long time to use things up, too. And I’ve gotten in the habit of putting things in the chest freezer to deal with “later,” so there’s a lot in there right now.
Allie from Ontario
Jan 21
Brunch – T finished off his pork chop bake and I finished the chili from the night before. I opened a new jar of pickled peppers from the canning cupboard and we each had some with our leftovers.
Dinner – I had prosciutto, fresh spinach, gruyere + red skinned potatoes to use up and so made mini Italian frittatas (made in a muffin pan) and a pan of skin-on roasted red potatoes with onions and big chunks of red & orange peppers. We added rye toast and homemade chili sauce to our plates. The prosciutto is now gone and there is a plan for the last of the potatoes and the spinach.
We sat down yesterday and mapped out dinners for the next week that would work with the challenge and keep both of us happy. T is going to grab a loaf of our favourite rye bread today (1 slice left), milk (always the issue) and maybe some coffee beans. The only things we’ve bought since Jan 3 (maybe 4th?) are milk, ground beef on sale & a tomato for burger night. I am terrible at going to the grocery store for 1 or 2 things (ie usually arriving home with at least 2 or 3 bags of groceries) but T can go in for 1 tomato and come out with exactly 1 tomato. It amazes me and clearly I need to work on that 🙂
Heather M
You are doing sooooo well with the challenge! Your meals sounds pretty awesome, too, so you clearly have god things stored. 🙂
Danielle Zecher
I’m also amazed at the people who can go into the grocery store for one thing and leave with only that thing. I always get at least one or two extra things.
Karen J
Breakfast-bits of leftovers in scrambled eggs-chopped ham, provolone, cream cheese, onion and peppers, jalapeño
Lunch-skipped
birthday party for youngest grandkid who turned 7-mom brought costco cheesecake and raspberries.
I didn’t have to prepare any food, just provide the house
Dinner was late- we split a cheese sandwich as neither of us were hungry
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jessica, hope you’re feeling better.
Resuming my post. Typing went wonky last time. Posting several days.
1/19
D: since DDIL was home for dinner before heading out of town
tomorrow, gave her the choice of pot pie or pork for dinner. She chose the turkey pot pie so we had that with an Asian salad with mandarin oranges. Haven’t gotten to Jessica’s chocolate cookies yet, but made oatmeal choc chip cookies so we had those for dessert.
1/20
B Avocado toast with coffee. I had a very ripe avocado so brought it. Also knew baby liked it. DDIL left for quick overnight trip.
L My Sister in law and family lives nearby so they invited us for lunch which we thoroughly enjoyed. Great food and fellowship.
D: marinated pork loin, baked sweet potato and lo salad, all brought from home. Cookies for dessert.
1/21
B avocado toast and coffee
L corn chowder before we left for Charlottesville VA
D burgers out in C’ville
Dear son texted that when DDIL got home that the 2 of them plus his MIL (and baby) ate the LO pork loin, lo baked sweet potatoes and lo salad dinner. He had also had some of the chowder for lunch and pronounced it all “delicious”! So glad I could help out, and all that food came out of the freezer and pantry!
The drive thru VA was lovely. Reminiscent of Frost’s poem “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” (I think that’s the title? ) Beautiful wintry, snowy woods out the windows. Since we didn’t get snow in our part of NC, it was so pretty to see, as we were driving along a cleared highway! There was still about 4 inches on the ground when we arrived here in Charlottesville.
Sounds like everyone continues to have challenge successes! We’re getting in the short rows now!
Karen J
Grandkid cuddles are the best! I’m glad you got snuggle time in with yours. Mine are older now and I miss those baby years. It sounds like you had a wonderful visit and a bonus providing pantry food!
We studied Stopping by Woods when I was teaching my third grade class. It’s always been a favorite along with The Road Not Taken, another RF poem that we sang in college choir. A long time ago!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Karen J, we are relishing any time spent with her. She’s our only and we’re definitely older first time grandparents! My cousin about the same age as me just had her first grandchild graduate from college! I can feel my age after being with her-holding, getting up/down off the floor, picking her up-but all worth it!
Yes, love both of those pieces from Frost.
Heather M
Oh how wonderful this all sounds!! And how awesome you made delicious food you brought with you and everyone enjoyed! So great! Glad you got your ti VA in time to see the snow before it all melts lol. Definitely started that melt today. 🙂
Lynn at NC Outer Banks
Heather, it has been pretty! Was kind of chilly (below freezing) when we headed out to walk the UVA campus, but warmed up as the day went on. Heading to Arlington tomorrow.
Lynn
Hello all! Had a great weekend with our sweet little granddaughter. Just can’t get enough of those sweet snuggles 🙂
I’ve kind of continued with the challenge by bringing food with us. My DDIL was heading out of town overnight so I knew any food I took could be helpful.
1/19
B: LO grits with shrimp and coffee before we headed out of town
L: corn chowder when we arrived
Maureen
It was a quiet weekend, so everyone slept in and didn’t eat much for breakfast. Lunches were leftovers and a couple of small things from the freezer. Dinners were homemade pizza (we made extra dough for later this week) and pot roast. The roast used an old seasoning packet and was delish! There’s enough leftover for a dinner and probably a lunch, so that went into the freezer for a few weeks from now. This coming week is busy and strange…hubby has a couple of work dinners and the girls have 3 half days for semester exams. It should be a good opportunity to eat up some smaller stuff from the freezer.
Tasty
January 21
B: hubby had a yogurt and a toasted bagel. I had berries, yogurt and granola + a piece of toast
L: we went for a walk while the sun was shining to our local coffee shop – a decent walk. Coffee and a pastry each.
S: spaghetti bolognese with sauce from the freezer. All these little bits and pieces are making some space. Very little shopping done this month – and most of that was for the soup lunch I did on Friday so I’m happy with my savings.
Kathryn M
Had a long workday so took leftovers for both lunch and dinner. Snacked on some random candy and a small bag of chips.
Kathryn M
Also I finished the chive and onion cream cheese off with some crackers after I got home at Midnight! Burned a lot of calories today and needed something to eat before sleeping…..
Krista
B fried egg sandwich using garlic sourdough
L I found 2 chicken breasts I had taken out to thaw and forgot about, so I found a recipe for asian tortilla flat bread pizza things, sauce made with pantry ingredients, cheese and cilantro. Hubby complimented it, and I got to use the chicken before it went bad.
D DD had roast and packaged mashed potatoes from fridge, I had LO baked beans, HM, and pasta salad. Hubby had LO baked chicken and rice from a few days ago.
S Hagen das , kefir and potstickers
A couple months ago we found 1 lb packs of ground beef, 30 to a box, on sale for 30$$, so we got 3 boxes. I have plenty left, so am slowly working through that. Have some frozen chicken breast, and some packs of back bacon. Also lots of fish, yes my 3 freezers are still very full! There are some misc boxed snacks in there too. We’ve only eaten out a couple of times this month, which is great since we tend to eat out a lot. The other day I saw a bit of white space in out upright freezer, and it’s on my to do list to do a re org of the 2 smaller fridge freezers. Some things I buy with the intention of using it in a specific recipe but then I forget where it was, so the ingredients just sit there. I really must do a better job of keeping track.
Karen J
That is an amazingly great ground beef price!
Heather M
Jan 21: I was gone until 2:15 and L was gone until 5 with various meetings. And then we watched football.
B: we both skipped
L: L skipped(his Sundays are very busy); I finished off the last wedge of frittata from the freezer
D: southwestern chicken corn chowder (this is mostly pantry items- used 4 different cans! And I pulled out the old powdered milk since we don’t have any right now. We don’t drink it often so I’m thinking I will keep using up this powdered milk for cooking and baking since it’s past its date and was I guess emergency food storage. Plus I often buy a quart or half gallon and we rarely use either up before it goes bad); side salad
I also made some guacamole to have with chips since football. And we hadn’t eaten much (or anything) until dinner was ready at 5:30.
Karen J
I also am using up non-fat powdered milk that I bought during the pandemic. Mainly for cooking/baking or hot cocoa for the grandkids. We are not big milk drinkers anyway and at the start of January I had a pint of ultra pasteurized heavy cream and my subscribe & save creamers. It’s just the two of us retired folks and this time of our life is much different than when we were going through gallons with kids.
One another note, Nido brand makes a powdered whole milk that’s not bad at all.
Heather M
Glad I’m not the only one! Thanks for the brand tip. We are for now a 2 person empty nest but in the workforce household. Probably 10 years from retirement still (I don’t work full time but my husband works more than lol- his work is intense).and it’s likely our 22yo grad student son will be back in August after finishing grad school to work here and will like move back in for a bit. 🙂
Danielle Zecher
I’m interested in hearing how your emergency food stash turns out.
Breakfast: We had bagels and cereal before we went to do a cleaning job.
Lunch: We needed a few things from Sam’s Club (and ended up buying more than we had planned to) so had pizza and soda for lunch there. It was nice b/c we don’t like the same kind of pizza and we were both able to have the kind we liked w/o having tons of leftover pizza around.
Dinner: We had grilled cheese sandwiches, leftover three bean salad, and fresh fruit (bought during our Sam’s Club trip).
Heather M
Pizza at costco or sams is always a winner!!
Jennifer
I ended up going to the local grocery store because they had ground turkey for $2.99 a lb. I use this to make homemade breakfast sausage and it hasn’t been on sale in months. I ended up spending about $30 on sale items and needed produce.
B – muffin and sausage from the freezer for me, dh had bagel with cream cheese, ds had a burrito, yogurt
L – I had crackers with brie cheese – I found a tub leftover from the holidays that had never been opened. Dh had leftovers
D – I had thawed pork tenderloins but late afternoon we were invited out to dinner with friends and said yes. Burgers and beer it was. Ds doordashed in Panera (insert eye roll – typical college kid)