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 22 of the Pantry Challenge!
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Such a rainy day! And again everyone is fend-for-yourself except for dinner.
What We Ate
Breakfast – I had fruit and cottage cheese as well as a protein bar. I’m not sure what the kids had.
Lunch – I sautéed a bunch of veg, reheated rice, and fried a couple eggs.
Dinner – I made Tuna Casserole and a big salad. The boys were all out, so it was just Bryan and the girls and me. There’s none left!
How was your day 22?
Heather M
Day 22:
Fun day mostly staring at screens, lol. We had morning church stuff and staggered arrivals home. And then I had dueling screens the rest of the day/evening. Football playoffs on the tv (2 of my brothers and I went to HS with the general manager of the SF 49ers- 1 brother played little league with him and HS sports with him too but the GM ended up a star in 2 sports at stanford and major nfl player; my bros not so much lol). And the computer on for hours and hours with the most elite and special surf contest invitational called the Eddie Aikau, which has only been run 10 times since its inception in the early 19802. It takes place at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu and is heavily dependent on huge waves. They only call it 36-48 hours before it actually happens, based on ocean swells and currents in the mighty Pacific. And, they also call it off last minute, too. This was the 3rd try this season. This year the Pacific is pumping with huge surf due to the all those storms we’ve all heard about or experienced this past month. Anyways, it was doubly exciting for my family as my brother(the 3rd bro) who lives on the north shore and is a teacher and a freelance camera operator and director of big surf contests was given the honor (stress, too?) of directing the live coverage of the contest. Which was 8 solid hours of surfing, etc. It was pretty exciting and fun to watch. Here it was drizzly and cold, so a perfect day to stay in and watch all the sports. Plus, tons of leftovers so no cooking except reheating! Late that evening I broke down the value pack of chicken and froze three portions, setting aside one in the fridge for Monday dinner. I also finally cut the pineapple I bought Monday.
B: we both skipped
L: I had cheese and crackers and a piece of the stollen from christmas (back to finishing that off, lol); L had the leftover arugula white bean potato salad with the bit of salmon I never ate.
D: I finished off the cream cheese pasta(lots of spinach and tomatoes in the last serving, lol) and crispy parma ham; L ate a repeat of Saturday’s white chicken chili burrito bowls.
snacks: L had more nuts and pretzels, and pineapple later after I cut it. I had a Toblerone bar and that’s it.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, lots of sports watching here at our house too. We were pulling for the 49ers, since they acquired our former Panther star Christian McCaffrey. That’s neat about your family’s tie in with SF GM. We missed the surf competition. That sounds nerve wracking for your brother for sure. We like to attend our local surf contests. We’re not Hawaii, but the waves here on our beaches are some of the better ones on the east coast, so they say. Dreary here as well.
Heather M
McCraffrey had a fantastic game, too! We’ll see how they fare against the seemingly unstoppable Eagles. 🙂 Also, the New York Times has an article about this weekend’s Eddie Aikau and the winner of it. If you can access it, it’s a great read.
Kathryn M
Worked this weekend so just took leftovers with me. I work long hours so have both lunch and dinner there.
Kathryn M
I did spent a bunch of grocery money on snack foods for work so that I don’t hit up the expensive vending machine there. I bought a box of individual variety chips, 40 oz smokehouse almonds, and a 40 oz bag of trail mix. I was able to use my employee discount for 10% off and got free delivery to the house so win-win on that. $40 all together, but it will last a few weeks. I have a bunch of small containers that I can put the trial mix and nuts in ahead of time to just grab and go. Don’t even have to waste ziplocks!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Yay for using reusable containers and not wasting zip locks. I do the same as much as possible!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Kathryn, smart to take food to work. Over my entire work career, that’s what I did. Once I semi tried to figure out how much I saved over the decades. Even conservatively, it was a lot! Plus, I always knew what was in it and how it was prepared. Hopefully, having some of your home cooked comfort foods can help you get through those long workdays.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jan 22
B: DH had the last pieces of quiche. I toasted a random half bagel from the freezer for me.
L: HM pimento cheese sandwiches and corn chowder
D: Red beans and rice and/or snacks (below)
S: So, DH was worried about snacks, or lack thereof, with the NFL playoff games today. And last night he was saying that he wanted something “chocolate”. I took out the Chex cereals I hadn’t gotten to over Christmas and made a batch of the original Chex Mix and then a batch of chocolatey Muddy Buddies. I also pulled out chicken wings from the freezer and fixed those as well, along with carrot and celery sticks. When I buy whole chickens to roast, usually 2 at a time, I cut off the wings and save them in the freezer. Then when I have accumulated some, I fix them. Today I fixed 16. We had sweet, savory, protein and veggies. I think I did okay in the snack department (though I had too much chocolate!)
Interestingly, as I was scrolling down to add my comment, I saw my comment from last year, this date. It reads almost exactly how this day’s does-snacks for games, didn’t get to Chex mix over Christmas (a pattern is developing here), chicken wings, etc. Didn’t realize I’d become so predictable!
Heather M
Lol I love this, Lynn. The predictable snacks and all. I plan on keeping up with the challenge through february, at least as far as I can without restocking much. I will likely have to buy a few things (I have started the running list of things the cupboards are out of, like salsa verde) but I’m going to try to not replace those items until I’ve used up more of the random things (that peach salsa languishing away, etc.) BUT, when it comes to the superbowl, I’ll be buying tortilla chips for sure, so we can have a nice nachos dinner that day. Right now our snack cupboard is fairly full, but virtually no chip types of things, save for a 1/4 bag of pretzels and 1/4 bag of plantain chips. Otherwise it’s piles of crackers and nuts, rice cakes, cookies and candy from the holidays and such. They really need to go, so until they’re seriously thinned out, no other snacky things except for the superbowl!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, I’m definitely continuing on into Feb as well. Still LOTS of food here. Like you, I may do small stockups, but not planning anything big, especially in the proteins department, though I may need some chicken eventually.
We are out of chips now too-tortilla, pita, and potato. Similar to you, we have cheeses, nuts and crackers which we are eating now as well. That’s it for the salty snacks here. I could pop popcorn, but DH isn’t especially fond of that. I staved off purchasing chips this weekend, but like you, I suspect there will be a variety of chips for Super Bowl!
Jessica Fisher
How awesome to see that pattern! Your past self was really just planning for your husband’s pantry challenge cravings. 😉 Go team!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jessica, we’ll say that 😉 I think it also confirms that I’m not very good at making Chex mix at Christmas! So maybe I now continue to buy the cereal at the sale price before Christmas, but just plan to make it in January! And yes, the snacks helped keep him a happy camper 🙂
Danielle Zecher
Breakfast: I slept late and skipped. I think Nick had a bagel and/or cereal.
Lunch: Sandwiches from Panera, along with leftover 3 bean salad and fresh fruit.
Dinner: Chili. I’d prepped several batches of chili meat and stashed them in the freezer, so I pulled one out for crock pot chili. We had chips, cheese, sour cream, and green onions as toppings.
Emily
B- finished the last waffle and the last strawberries
L- leftover pizza from the night before
Snack- apple slices, gf crackers and Boursin cheese
D- steak sandwich’s and cauliflower tots my kids were not a fan of.
Stephanie M.
Sunday, January 22, 2023
B – I had yogurt parfait.
L – Paul had a frittata. I had pasta salad using up some of the macaroni and the leftover salad.
:
D – leftover macaroni and meatballs.
So now the remaining pot of sauce with meatballs and sausage is going in the freezer.
Tasty
Sunday January 22
B – Yogurt, toast and newly made marmalade
L – Cooked the last of the chicken fingers and some asian appys that were left over from the holidays – 2 things GONE!!!
S – used a butter chicken mix that appeared in my stocking at Christmas time. Totally calorie laden with butter and heavy cream but quite yummy. Served with rice and naan bread (also from the freezer). I had the aforementioned dairy in the fridge but not the tomato sauce that was required so that called for a quick trip to the store. Made enough for 6 so 2 containers ended up in the freezer again. Then hubby finished off the one Christmas ice cream so another empty spot in the freezer,
Think that has to count as a successful day.
Heather M
Definitely a successful day. You got several things out! Feeding only two makes this whole exercise to use things up and free up space take longer, especially the way we seem to accumulate food in the cupboards and freezers.
Kathy in Denmark
Day 21
Brunch: Bread, softboiled eggs, jam, cheese, coffee or milk
S: Crackers and cheese, a few chocolate buiscits
D: Dürum bread with either hummus and falafel or refried beans. Lots of veggies and salad. Jalapeño poppers.
Day 22
Brunch: Bread, cheese, jam,coffee and HM smoothies
S: Honeycake hearts
D: Rye bread with cold and warm toppings and veggies on the side
We rarely eat lunch on the weekend, because we always have a late brekfast.
The honeycake hearts are traditional at Christmas, but I was a little late in getting them made this year, so we are enjoying them now in stead.
The falafel, poppers, refried beans and fruit for the smoothies were from the freezer.
Heather M
Kathy, we are the same on weekends. We generally eat 2 meals too. It’s just easier for some reason, and the way of life. 🙂
Martha Artyomenko
We had a wedding this weekend, so had to purchase a couple of things that I wouldn’t had to otherwise, but I did a bunch of prepping prior to use of pantry items and share the joy with family members.
I made ham and cheese rolls which consisted of a special soft yeast dough rolled out like crescent shape, and filled with slices of ham and cheese. I had ham in the freezer and everything for the dough in the pantry. I was out of evaporated milk, but chose to use powdered instead and it was great still. I had oodles of fruit cocktail cans, so made a fruit cocktail crumb cake for breakfast over there, bags of frozen winter squash in the freezer and pumpkin in the pantry, so three loaves of pumpkin bread joined the event. I had some boxes of cereal that were not getting eaten here, great cereal, but we just didn’t eat it as well as a gallon can of that fruit cocktail that vanished for breakfast over there. It was great to use up some of the pantry items! Now, I have to decide what to do with marinated artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers.
Julie T
B-omelet and coffee for me, bacon and eggs for hubby. When we buy bacon we split in half and rewrap so we have a half a pound per package. Bit left for hubby breakfast tomorrow
L-L/O pizza for hubby, nachos for me
D-pheasant stir fry with fried rice
Also have the other half of pheasant breast marinating to make eggrolls tomorrow with leftover stir fry and rice.
Tasty
Saturday January 22nd
B – fruit and yogurt for both of us + a slice of toast and marmalade for me
L – pea soup that I made yesterday, with corn muffins. Found mixes in the pantry which were out of date but made them anyway and they were fine.
S – more meatloaf, roast potatoes and cauliflower cheese. One more meal of meatloaf but I will freeze it for a few days. Cauliflower always does us 2 or 3 meals and this was the last of it – yeah! Will make up the other boxes of corn muffins one day this week and freeze them. If I keep them upstairs I know they will not be forgotten – not if hubby knows they are there! That made me go thru the pantry and I have to admit there were a few things that bit the dust. They probably were fine but . . .we can only eat so much.
Heather M
Good save on the corn muffin mixes! I have a few mixes I need to check on. Thanks for the reminder!
Jen in Ohio
B/L: leftovers: pizza, shrimp, pasta, fruit
D: more leftovers for DF, I tried to recreate a dish from a favorite brunch place that sadly closed last year. leftover potatoes with sauteed onion and tomato, chicken strips (I used a frozen one) and fried egg on top. It was pretty good!
Saturday is generally date night for us, either out to eat or takeout. We decided to stay here though, since we’d been out Wednesday, plus DF was really sore from all the basement demo. We used up most of the leftovers, so that’s good. Particularly since I’m planning on at least a couple dinners of takeout the next few days. My birthday is on Tuesday, and I’m going to raid our restaurant gift card stash and give myself a break from planning/ cooking lol.
Jennifer
It was senior night for the HS gymnastics team, yay! My baby is going to be graduating this year.
B – Found a box of Almond Poppyseed muffins and made that along with apple slices
L – Daughter had eggs with veggies scrambled in, I had a breakfast burrito, dh had leftover taco stuff from last weekend, oops. He lived though.
S – I had peppers, grapefruit, cookies, yogurt, dh had grapefruit, triscuits with cheese
D – none as we were at the meet – we had cake at the celebration there and went out for ice cream at 10 pm. Not really dinner but whatever – some days are like that
Sarah
This week has been weird – work is exhausting and all of of veggies seem to have spoiled and we were low on frozen veg, too.
B: coffee at home + iced coffee on the way to my parents. Bacon when we arrived at my parents mid-morning.
L: grilled steak with wedge salad and tomato salad. My dad is also doing some freezer cleaning so he had defrosted steaks for lunch.
D: GF pasta + homemade meatballs.
we made a huge batch of (80!) meatballs and tomato sauce.
We split them up and it was a fun project for a really cold today and now we have meatballs for the nights we don’t want to cook.
We also went grocery shopping on our way home and it was deserted on a Saturday night. We bought a weird assortment of odds and ends but it’s at the point in our pantry challenge where I’m missing stuff for every possible recipe so we need to fill in the gaps.
Plus I learned that when I’m tired and feeling bleh that I depend a lot on frozen veggies so I stocked up!
Lily R.
The weekends have become so busy around here. I am catching up on posting for two days.
B: huevos rancheros and cafe con leche.
L: very veggie burger for me, beef burger for hubby. Side salads for both.
D: I made hakka noodles with shrimp and chicken. We really like this fusion of Indian/Chinese flavors. It wasn’t until we visited the Caribbean that we were introduced to it. It’s not that popular here yet but I am starting to see a few hakka restaurants open up.
Snacks were cashews and dates
B: dhal and rice with smoked herring.
L: the leftover hakka noodles.
D: chicken souvlaki with Greek salads.
Snacks were galaktaboureko and pistachios today.
Heather M
Yet another item I had to look up— the galaktaboureko. And oh it sounds yummy!!
Lily R.
It is so delicious and very easy to make. Give it a try sometime!
Kathy in Denmark
Day 22
Brunch: Bread, softboiled eggs, coffee, juice, jams and cheeses
S: Cake from the freezer, cocoa, coffee
D: Pork chops/vegetarian schnitzel/fish fillet. Potatoes, corn on the cob and sauce hollandaise (from a box)
We had an appointment at 12.10 40 minutes away, so it’s a good thing we always have brunch on the weekends, since we were skipping lunch! The appointment was in the same city as Ikea, so we picked up the things we forgot last week 😉
When we got home, we spent a few hours assembling furniture and rearranging/cleaning the girls’ rooms. Afterwards we all had some cake and either coffee or cocoa. This used up the last of the cocoa I had made a few days before.
I had marinated two pork chops for DD1 and me. DH had the vegetarian schnitzel and DD2 had the fish fillet.
Thank you, Jessica, for reminding me to use my air fryer. I cooked the vegetarian schnitzel and the fish fillet in it and they turned out really well.
Maureen
We had to run an errand right before lunch and were tempted to eat out, but ended up coming home. We even managed to use up a couple of small things in the pantry and fridge. Dinner was pulled pork sandwiches/hotdogs, frozen fries, various fruits and veg. Not a family favorite, but it fed everyone and reminded me why I don’t usually buy frozen fries. My MIL got us a fancy new air fryer for Christmas, so I think I need to bust it out. I’m betting the fries would have been better in that and if we get it going we’d probably use it for a bunch of things each week. I need to sit down and so some planning for this week, too.
Sarah
Frozen fries in the air fryer are amazing! We eat them at least once a week – I also make salad bowls with a handful of air fried sweet potato fries for lunches a lot.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/22/22
B: coffee DH: egg, grits, sausage
L: LO cabbage, HM bread from neighbor DH: LO chicken, rice/cauli, a biscuit
D: BBQ ribs, sweet potatoes, slaw
Made Chex Mix for an additional snack food. I’d planned to make it Christmas but never got around to it. Am thawing chicken wings from the freezer to fix for tomorrow’s ball games. Whenever I purchase a whole chicken, I remove the wings and put them in the freezer. After a few chickens, I’ll have about a dozen wings and then fix them for snacks.
Julie T
Great idea with saving the wings!
Stephanie M.
January 22
B – Paul has cereal. I had yogurt parfait.
L – Paul skipped. I had an English muffin and peanuts. We didn’t want to eat much because tonight is our once a month Chinese cheat meal. We’ve been doing that for years. We eat healthy low carb meals based on how my dietician taught me to eat several years ago all month long so once a month we allow ourselves a cheat meal and Chinese take out us what we want. Lol.
D – Chinese take out.
Danielle L Zecher
Today was a fairly good Pantry Challenge day.
Breakfast: French Toast made with the strawberry banana bread I made yesterday. We’re running a little low on milk, so I used some coconut milk that’s getting close to its expiration date for the French Toast. It was really good!
Lunch: We ate breakfast fairly late, so we just kind of snacked.
Dinner: I made chili, using the rest of the jar of tomato sauce we opened for the calzones last week. We also have a lot of canned beans within a couple of months of their expiration date, so it was good to use up some of those. And I used up an opened box of macaroni noodles to go with it. I also made a batch of potato soup in the crock pot. The plan is not cooking again for a while.
There were some veggies getting very close to going bad, so I roasted them and will freeze them to use in your roasted vegetable soup later. So stuff is still going in the freezer, but in a form that will be easy to use up.
Just an update on our dog, Duke; he definitely doesn’t seem to be feeling well, but we’re spoiling him with lots of treats and attention and anxiously counting down to his surgery on Wednesday.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Danielle, hoping Duke will hold steady or improve until Wed can get here.
Lily R.
I was hoping for a pup update. Lots of treats and cuddles are in order! I do hope all goes well on Wednesday.
Heather M
You definitely had a productive Challenge day! I hope Duke keeps plugging ok until Wednesday. He’s lucky to have such a loving family.