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 23 of the Pantry Challenge!
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Thanks for your graciousness, as this has been a really off month for me.
What We Ate
Breakfast – 17yo made a batch of Basic Pancakes. I cooked breakfast sausage and hashbrowns as well as some scrams. Full breakfast for those that were home.
Lunch – Fend-for-yourself per usual these days. I had a ham and swiss sandwich as well as veggie dippers.
Dinner – I cooked up two pounds of taco meat, rice, beans, and made some toppings. Everyone made his or her own bowl/quesadilla.
How did Day 23 go for you?
ZC from MA
B: overnight oats with almond butter, flax milk and blueberries, coffee
L: ate at work
D: spicy chicken and potato stew, rice
S: 2 slices of toast, 2 apples
Emily
B- gf rice krispees and a piece of gf toast with cheese on it.
L- leftover burrito in a bowl
D- garlic sausage and stuffed peppers using filling I made in December and froze.
Dessert- ice cream
Danielle Zecher
Breakfast: I had oatmeal with strawberries, blueberries, and almonds. I think Nick went to McDonald’s on the way to work.
Lunch: Leftover chili.
Dinner: Chicken and black bean quesadillas. Cookies for dessert.
I cooked some chicken breast in the crock pot yesterday and shredded it up. Part of it went in the quesadillas and rest will be frozen for quick meals later.
Is there any chance of a comment section for the Pantry Challenge to continue after the 31st? I really need to keep going and I’d love to keep chatting with others who are continuing. 🙂
Tasty
Monday January 23
B – our usual
L – hubby had a ham sandwich, I had a chicken burrito from the freezer
S – Chicken, ham and leek pot pie. Pecan pie for dessert. This was bought at a WI sale before Christmas so it is more than time for it to be gone – we will be eating it all week!!
I knew I wanted to make pot pies for supper so went for a rummage in the freezer and found a few odds and ends to use up. One thing I knew was in there and came across was some ham stock so that came out too. I had some ham in the fridge that needed to be used hence the idea for the pot pies in the first place. Of course there was more than I needed to flavour the pot pies so I ended up making a big pot of corn chowder as well. 3 containers of corn chowder were put into the freezer leaving enough for Tuesday’s supper in the fridge. It’s never-ending.
Danielle Zecher
Those pot pies sound so good! My husband doesn’t like ham, and since it’s the just two of us, I usually only buy a ham at Thanksgiving when we’ll have a crowd. Ham in a pot pie sounds delicious, though!
M in OH
January is my favorite month of the year to read Good Cheap Eats ( including comments) though I don’t post. Some thoughts –
made egg roll in a bowl last night to use up some cabbage my son had bought for a recipe he wanted to make. Pulled ground pork out of the freezer that had been there since December 2020 and it did have some freezer burn flavor that came through. Ugh. That is my reminder to actually USE the food in the freezer.
Have not bought much in the way of proteins lately which is forcing me to use what we have. Salmon patties with canned salmon is another recent example.
Bought some bags of stuffing breadcubes cheap which I thought I would make in the crockpot and then found out my husband won’t eat stuffing without gravy. ( I don’t make gravy. Ever.) My husband makes turkey gravy once or twice a year when we cook a turkey. Suggestions? (I am also feeding 2 hungry teenage boys who don’t have the same gravy stipulation so I may just make it anyway.)
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Hi M. Do you have proteins that you can/would roast, like a beef roast, a whole chicken (even chicken parts for that matter) or a pork roast/chops? If so, after roasting them, save the juices and maybe have your husband make his gravy from those? Or you can do the “cheater” way and pick up an envelope mix and add water for gravy!
You were smart to pick up the stuffing mixes when they were cheap. I couldn’t get over the price on those before Christmas-3.50+ here, I think. I found a cheap box of stuffing at Aldi (.75) and then added some saved dried bread cubes of my own with spices to make a larger amount. It turned out well, doing it that way. I guess at some point I could experiment with doing all saved bread cubes that I fix myself. Maybe next year!
Kathryn M
B – kinda skipped it because I had an appointment for my car windshield to be replaced. I grabbed a handful of nuts and a soda to get me out the door.
L- bowl of leftover chili, small bag of Sunchips
Snack – microwave popcorn
D – Chunky Chicken noodle soup from a can. This can had been floating around in my campervan for about 3 months and looked a little worse for the wear. The soup was good though. I had dinner rolls with it.
I was glad that I had heat and eat stuff that I didn’t have to do much thinking about today. Tired, very tired. I picked up $4 worth of groceries today. I had used the last can of tomato sauce for the chili and that is a pantry staple that I can not do without. I grabbed a tiny sour cream and some bananas while I was in the store. I am up to about $75 out of my $100 budget for January.
Walmart eggs were up to $6/dozen today! Glad that I didn’t need any yet!
Volunteering at the food rescue tomorrow, so I might bring quite a bit home. I think I need another month of pantry challenge to get rid of more of the “stuff” around here.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jan 23
B: Made a breakfast casserole. I’m trying to stretch my eggs, so I fixed one that didn’t call for quite so many eggs. This recipe calls for 4 vs 9 for another recipe I sometimes make. I made half the recipe, so 2 eggs. I also made drop biscuits to go with it. We can eat the remaining biscuits with soup or have them at breakfast tomorrow.
L: LO corn chowder and pimento cheese sandwiches
D: Copied Jessica with Breakfast for Dinner tonight. I received a new waffle iron for Christmas and had been wanting to try it out. My husband had chicken and waffles (ate the LO chicken wings from yesterday with his waffles) and then sausage (from the freezer) and orange slices. I didn’t have chicken so sausage, waffles and orange slices for me.
Bread is getting low. I have ½ loaf left and some pita in the freezer, but that’s about it for bread for sandwiches. I borrowed my mother’s bread machine at Christmas, so it may be time to give it a try this week.
Heather M
How awesome to have a new waffle iron! We still have the same basic one that was a wedding gift almost 28 years ago! It’s cooking them very unevenly these days so I don’t pull it out too often. Maybe time for an upgrade soon. I usually resort to pancakes but waffles are just so great. And, I get the stretching eggs deal. I haven’t bought any since a few days before Christmas when they still cost less than $3/dozen. After last night, I have 11 left. I’m also halving recipes or choosing things that don’t call for as many. But, realistically, the $3.99/dozen at trader joe’s is still a pretty affordable protein. And, I’m ready for some hardboiled eggs, too, lol. So, I have a feeling I’ll be buying some soon!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, I had used the same round waffle iron for decades too until our house fire 18 years ago 🙁 What fire doesn’t get, the water does! It rusted and I had never replaced it, always doing pancakes instead. But I had begun buying frozen waffles at the store and decided it was time to make my own. This one definitely has some upgrades. The plates come out for ease in washing, and it came with an extra plate that has a heart, unicorn, train and owl designs imprinted on it. I figure I can use it in the future for my soon to be arriving little granddaughter! 🙂
I’m down to 9 eggs. These too were some that were purchased a while back. I think they were under $3 also. I just checked and it looks like, interestingly, cage free are the cheapest by the dozen-4.89 here, so that Trader Joe’s price is definitely good. Unfortunately, no TJ’s here. I’m going to check the bigger sizes-18 and 30 to see how they compare. I’m not sure I can make it til February without buying more. We’ll see!
We subscribe to the NYT so I’ll look for that article! Thanks.
lisa s
We fend for ourselves for breakfast and lunch on the weekends often times as some get to sleep in. For dinner we had chicken tot pie (cross between chicken pot pie and tater tot casserole) and for dessert we had blueberry crisp a la non-dairy mode. When baking the thyme chicken for the tot pie, I baked a separate pan of taco spiced chicken at the same time for enchiladas on another night. The smells from the oven were so surprisingly amazing albeit unique.
Lily R.
B: steamed rice, fried eggs, sliced seaweed, kimchi.
L: the rest of the chicken souvlaki with pita and tzatziki.
D: rice pilaf, lemon potatoes, grilled branzino and fattoush.
Snacks were more of the galaktaboureko. My sister came and stole the rest since it’s her favorite Greek dessert.
Julie
I haven’t shopped since Dec 21. It’s been ok. Family of 6. I haven’t had time to hop on the computer much but I wanted to say I’ve been gluten free for 8 years and don’t spend extra money on gf treats. I buy tortilla chips which are gf without being an expensive gf cracker . I don’t buy gf pasta . I eat spaghetti squash I grew in my garden. So yes I understand how gf can be expensive if you let it be but it does not have to be. Also the America’s test kitchen cookbooks for gf are terrific.
Sandy
Oh my, I know I have been MIA, but I swear I’m still doing the pantry challenge. I finally have the grandkids back in daycare and have a little time to myself. I am glad I can help our children out with childcare when needed, but it’s hard for me to get caught up when I have them day after day. We are a dairy farm, so I also milk twice a day, so when I finally get in the house in the evening and get supper for everyone and straighten up the house, when I go to sit down and I try to read the updates on the challenge I fall asleep before I post mine! Sad but true!! I’ve done great using up lots of things with the kids here and we hosted a friends party Saturday evening and I made all of my snacks and appetizers using up items from the freezer and pantry, so I felt good about that. I did no cooking on Sunday. I rested and we ate all the leftovers from the party the night before. Here’s to hoping I can start regularly posting again!
Heather M
Oh wow you have been busy!! I bet you’re seeing great progress in your pantry/freezer given the kids being around and that friends party! That has to feel good. You definitely deserved a rest day Sunday. Glad there were plenty of leftovers 🙂
Julie
Daidy farmers are especially hard workers! My grandparents were dairy farmers and I appreciate what they did.
Julie
Dairy I mean
Lily R.
I echo your sentiments, Julie. I had an aunt and uncle that were also dairy farmers. I loved visiting the farm and really do appreciate all the work that they undertook.
Sandy
Thank you so much Julie! It feels good to hear appreciation for what we do. We are coming off a very painful year of dairy farming. We had a devastating barn fire in May and lost 250 animals, ranging in age from a few months to ready to calve. We grieved those animals as if they were our family members. All of our heifers were lost and it was such a difficult decision on where to go with the farm in the future. Society in general isn’t overly friendly to farmers it feels, and the future market is so unpredictable. It isn’t the easiest life, but it is what we know and our son is the 4th generation on our farm. It was so hard to think of taking away that legacy for his children. Our milk cows and milk house were spared in the fire so we felt God must be giving that as a sign to continue. I pray everyday we are making the right decision and that consumers will appreciate how lucky we are in this country to have good food sources because farmers work so hard to make it that way.
Jessica Fisher
I’m a granddaughter of farmers. I appreciate what you do! Keep on keeping on!
Julie T
B-pear zucchini bread, coffee and OJ. I made the bread yesterday with 2 packages frozen shredded zucchini and a jar of pear sauce. I made 4 small loaves and gave away 2 at church.
L-Last of the bacon and an egg for hubby. Quesadilla for me.
D- L/O pheasant stir fry and fried rice with pheasant egg rolls. I froze 3 egg rolls for another meal.
I too will be doing pantry/ freezer challenge in February.
So far I have spent $53 and used 28 jars of home canned food.
Julie
Have you noticed anything you want to can more or less of this year based on the challenge? I learned how to can in August and ended up canning about 600 jars of food until now. But I’m planning my garden and wondering what tweaks I should make .
Tasty
That’s a lot of canning, Julie. At this stage of the year, how much of that 600 jars have you used? And how many are you feeding? It’s a wonderful thing to do but only if you really will use it all. I’m part of a group that cans for 9 or 10 months of the year to sell for our local hospital and we can big quantities.
Jen in Ohio
day 23:
B: I ate the rest of my onion/potato/tomato sautee with the last frozen chicken tender and an egg on top. DS slept in, I think DF skipped
L: I was at the high school for 3+ hours working on props for the upcoming play. The boys had the last of the leftover pizza and not sure what else. Probably some fruit and chips
S: DS had hot chocolate after sledding – a big Costco pack of hot chocolate bombs that I bought – they’re fun, but definitely lesson learned that we don’t need this many!
D: Chinese takeout (it’s my birthday week and I’ve been wanting Chinese for ages)
We woke up to snow today – I think it had been forecast, but just a dusting, not the 3 or so inches that we got. Our first real snow this year, so that’s fun! We used to live in Colorado, and definitely miss the huge snowstorms we would get there.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/23/22
B: skipped DH: peanut butter toast
L: both: tuna melt sandwiches DH: soup from pantry
D: chicken, broccoli, rice casserole (all from freezer), mixed fruits, HM bread, chocolate pecan pie (freezer) for dessert
S: chicken wings (freezer)
Three weeks in, I’m starting to see a bit more white space in the freezer, but just several inches. I’ll keep plugging away!
Heather M
My freezer is basically like yours. Not a lot of space yet…
Maureen
We had leftovers for lunch, but grabbed fastfood for dinner. It was planned on the way home from softball. We also popped into Aldi, because my high schooler wanted to check out the Valentine’s Day gnomes, so I grabbed milk, produce, and bacon for our upcoming breakfast for dinner. I straightened up the fridge quickly, too, since some containers had disappeared…and I planned dinners for this week. I think my focus this week (lunches and snacks) will be clearing out some space in the kitchen freezer.
Danielle L Zecher
Breakfast: Hubby had a frozen breakfast sandwich and the rest of the French Toast. I had a toasted bagel; one half was cream cheese and leftover cranberry sauce (inspired by Jessica’s oatmeal with cranberry sauce breakfast) and the other half had cheese slices from a cheeseball leftover from NYE. Both were delicious.
Lunch: Leftover chili (me) and leftover potato soup (hubby).
Dinner: Leftover chili (hubby) and leftover potato soup (me).
I also made a batch of rice crispy treats, which finished off a box of cereal. We have way too many boxes of cereal sitting around right now. And I started a batch of sourdough starter (bread machine recipe). I’m trying to work my way through all of the flour (mostly bread flour) we have.
Duke update: He spent most of the day chilling on his bed with a peanut butter Kong, which he loves. Only two days until surgery!
Heather M
Yay for Duke chilling contentedly with his treat! Also, I love that you’re purposefully working through the bread flour. I have some random flours (not incl the usual AP and white whole wheat I use regularly) that I should do that with. Thanks for the inspiration!
Danielle L Zecher
If you have a bread machine, this one has a lot of recipes that use different flours. The quinoa one is really good, though that bag of flour seems endless.
https://smile.amazon.com/Bread-Machine-Cookbook-Rathmell-German/dp/1558672966/ref=sr_1_26?crid=K05X4JH5UTQR&keywords=bread+machine+cookbooks&qid=1643117594&sprefix=bread+machine+coo%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-26
Lily R.
I’m cheering Duke on from the sidelines!
Danielle L Zecher
Aww, thanks! He really is the sweetest dog.
Tasty
Sunday January 23
B- usual fruit & yogurt for both of us, plus I had a muffin
L – scrambled eggs and cheese on toast
S – made a pot of beef vegetable soup using some of the prime rib left from Christmas and lots of veggies from the freezer. Had a bag of ratatouille in the freezer that I defrosted and put the immersion blender on – a great way to thicken the soup without adding flour or cornstarch! Finished the corn muffins I made yesterday so not a bad day for using ‘stuff’. Enough soup for a lunch one day this week.
Heather M
What a great idea to thicken the soup with pureed ratatouille! Sounds delicious!
Tasty
It was pretty goog!
Jennifer
Another cold gymnastics meet day for us. Up early after a late night. We did hit Costco this weekend for produce – $35 spent on raspberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and cheese
B – I had cinnamon swirl bread because it needed to be used and a piece of homemade sausage, daughter had a bagel, hubby had oatmeal
L – I made a sandwich for daughter, I ate a Larabar on the way home from the meet, and made a salad when I got home. The at home guys I told them to look in the freezer for things that were almost empty and finish them up. I noticed an empty box of fish sticks and mozzarella sticks in the recycling.
S – we split a brownie in a mug
D – I had thawed a pack of ground beef and a pack of ground pork and made a huge batch of mini meatballs – I used 8 heels of bread from the freezer for homemade bread crumbs to mix in the meatballs. We had meatball subs. Used up 2 cans of sauce, the last of the hotdog buns. Unfortunately this did not create freezer space as I made so many meatballs I have another meals worth of plain in the freezer and a huge tub of ones with sauce in the fridge that will be repurposed later this week. Served with fresh veggies.
Heather M
Maybe not more room in the freezer, but you do have a prepped protein that will make another meal easier down the road 🙂
Stephanie M.
January 23
Today we took our breakfast down the shore with us and ate it in the car looking at the very rough ocean. Lots of high waves. We both had yogurt parfaits. Then we took a little walk all bundled up and it was about 25 degrees. We saw a few people with their dogs and it made us feel like we wished we had brought our dogs with us so we drove home and got them and went back. We have three little red long haired dachshunds and they were delighted to run on the beach in their little coats. Lol.
L – we skipped because we were eating an early dinner.
D – chicken Parmesan, mini penne, and garlic roasted green beans.
On Saturday I made 16 slices of chicken Parmesan for my freezer since I find myself with lots of room in there. This doesn’t mean I’m going to start stuffing it. I just like to have a few cooked things in there for when I don’t feel like cooking.
Heather M
Catching up on both Saturday and Sunday. We spent the weekend in, watching amazingly good playoff football, puttering around, etc. Saturday I declared no cooking because I just didn’t have it in me. Luckily we both found plenty to eat. Sunday was a good Challenge day, but I guess both were, since we didn’t get more takeout and only ate what we had.
Saturday 1/22:
B: he skipped(slept in), I had a piece of toast with homemade jam(christmas gift)
L: he had a mango and hardboiled eggs; I had the last of some tuna salad and laughing cow wedges(not together lol) on crackers and my leftover potato salad from Friday night’s bbq
D: he finished my chicken from the bbq takeout(it required a minimum half-chicken order and i cannot eat that much in one meal lol) and had some popcorn; I pulled two uncured hot dogs from the freezer and ate them with a generous serving of sauerkraut and some mustard, no buns. It’s a surprisingly tasty meal, if you like sauerkraut that is.
Sunday 1/23:
Brunch: lemon ricotta waffles with fresh blueberry sauce, chicken maple breakfast sausages (using up that ricotta, one more dish to go; the blueberries were hiding in the fridge since before christmas and were starting to shrivel but NOT moldy in the slightest, so into a pan with a little sugar and lemon juice which makes the most delicious sauce; the sausages bought at costco for christmas- it was a big pack, with more still here)
Dinner: the leftover chile relleno casserole, quick easy guacamole with the two overripe avocados, and since we have no tortilla chips but have a stack of street taco sized corn tortillas, for the first time I used the air fryer function on my christmas present (a fancy Breville smart oven air fryer thing- a toaster oven, small convection oven, air fryer etc- I did not ask for it, was a very welcome surprise) and made little chips. And it was awesome and now I’m excited to see what else I can air fry. I’ve been using the oven practically every day, sometimes multiple times a day- it’s really fantastic for the two of us. And I’ve never had a toaster oven before either and our microwave has been dead almost 2 years and we have yet to replace it. So it’s super awesome. It also forced me to clean out some cupboards and one counter area in our small kitchen and THAT was also great.
Maureen
Those waffles sound amazing. We have a lemon almond ricotta muffin recipe that we typically bake after lasagna night. And you’ve convinced me to carve out some time later this week to try out our air fryer. I may not get it all figured out, but at least enough to try it out for a few things.
Heather M
The waffles were so good, thanks! And I’m like you. I have a lot to figure out with the air fryer function of this oven and I want to use it more. I need to get used to how it works and that it’s there to use! 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Those waffles do sound delicious. I’ve still got some blueberries in the freezer from our bush this summer. I may do something similar to your sauce with them for pancakes instead of putting the berries in the pancakes. Nice to try something a little different. I’ll remember that about the ricotta. Maureen’s muffins sound like a good way to finish up LO ricotta also.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, all the football games were crazy! So close-all of them.
Heather M
Oh my gosh the games were so wild!! Seriously one of the best weekends in football ever. Every single game coming down to the end. Just wild! I was a little exhausted after the last one last night, lol. And, I think that frozen blueberries would do wonderfully as a sauce like I made. I haven’t tried it before just because I haven’t, but I probably will. It’s just so yummy! A great replacement for syrup.