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 26 of the Pantry Challenge!
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I woke up in the night with either food poisoning or norovirus, so I’ve been in my room all day. No idea what the fam did because I worked on sleeping and keeping my cooties to myself.
The internet says you’re contagious for many days after symptoms, so this might be end of my kitchen challenge? I’ll still post every day so y’all can chat.
How did Day 26 go for you?
Heather from Sacramento
Oh no! I hope you feel better soon. There is some nasty stuff out there going around.
B- coffee and scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese
L- hamburger, rice and roasted tomatoes
D- salad with spring greens, cheese, walnuts and vinaigrette with pork tri tip
S- Greek yogurt with HM granola and peaches
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
I’m quite low on vegetables and your salad sounds great. I’m looking forward to adding salads back into our rotation now that we’ve eaten almost all of the fresh, frozen and canned veggies available. I have missed them!
Heather M
Jessica, I hope you are already feeling better! Stomach things are so not fun and I hope the rest of your household stays healthy. Thanks for continuing on for us 🙂
Jan 26: In which I stayed in the house because this snow isn’t even fun to walk on, covered in icy sleet. Clearing the roads, sidewalks, driveways, cars on the street has been quite a feat here- it’s required chipping away huge chunks/blocks of iced up snow and moving them into massive piles. Straight snow is so much easier. Everything stayed closed Monday and Tuesday(incl fed govt) since it’s so hard for people to get out of their neighborhoods or even their driveways. We only got “freed” midday today (we live in a community that has it taken care of, luckily); typically we can get out by the day after a snowstorm. And we live right by a big firehouse and our main road is their drive home so it’s always cleared first. Still, way worse than usual. I just drove our son to the metro(it’s 2:30pm Tuesday; both airports nearby are on metro) since walking with luggage would be a trick, and those roads at least had one lane cleared, but not many had enough for two way traffic yet- just the really big ones. He is off to the airport and Sundance Film Festival. L trudged to the metro to go to the bureau. Others they wanted at the office were ferried in via SUV if they weren’t easily accessible via metro. Anyways, a peek at how we deal with a big snowy sleety below freezing mess in the DC area.
Brunch: C had a toasted turkey and cheddar sandwich on sourdough and chex mix; L had leftover tuscan pasta and side salad; I made myself a nice egg salad on a piece of sourdough toast and had sunchips with it
Dinner: made what I am calling Creamy Chicken Enchilada Soup. SO GOOD. Chicken (freezer), chopped tomato(cupboard), black beans(cupboard), zucchini, onion, garlic, light cream cheese(in there for months!), lots of seasonings, topped with shredded colby jack(also in there for months!): made a quick guacamole from a large ripe avo in the fridge, split it 3 ways and had it with blue corn tortilla chips on the side. we all LOVED this dinner. Perfect on a very cold night.
Tasty
I love what can be used up in a soup! So many odds & ends and no-one else needs to be any the wiser!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, that does sound like a mess in the DC area. Snow covered by sleet/ice can be so dangerous. And your temps have been brutal. But your dinner sounded like the perfect cold weather and PC meal. I love any food with “creamy” in the title!
Allie from Ontario
So fun to read about all the “final week” dinners…Tuscan pasta, torn Hawaiian pizza and “uh oh..no wings” loaded nachos all sounded delicious!
AND Jessica….I’ve had norovirus before (it has ripped through the schools here more than once). I hope you recover soon!
Yesterday we roasted a chicken that I had pulled out of the freezer a few days ago. These days I prefer roasting a spatchcocked chicken for dinner but this (regular?upright?) chicken had been in the freezer for a while (!!). The plan is to use the meat for lots of different things and I currently have stock simmering away in the slow cooker that is destined for the freezer in 1 cup portions.
What we ate on Jan 26
Brunch: We split the rest of the “Mexican tortilla lasagna” stuff.
Dinner: Plan 1 for the chicken was a Buffalo chicken salad. I made a blue cheese dressing (blue cheese & sour cream = gone), croutons from a ciabatta bun from the freezer & a couple of hard boiled eggs. I heated Frank’s Red Hot sauce in a small pan (bottle now empty) and then tossed in chunks of the chicken. With a mix of greens ( romaine + the end of the iceberg), grated carrot & sliced celery, it was a tasty & filling dinner salad.
Heather M
Allie, so looking forward to all the chicken dishes! Stock is fantastic (one of many reasons I wish I had space for a deep freezer. Alas.). The buffalo chicken salad sounds delicious (i’ll make a version sometimes), and wow the number of things you finished off just for the salad/dressing is amazing.
Tasty
Heather,before we moved to the condo 3+ years ago we had 2 freezers, which meant we could really take advantage of veggies from the garden.and we did. When we moved, we got rid of the bigger freezer just tomovein and find the previous owner had left her upright freezer. So, in our mid-70s, we still have 2 full freezers. And, if truth be known, I love it. What can I say!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
We typically eat a LOT of chicken. But I was limited in the amount I had for the challenge. One of our stores has whole chickens on sale starting tomorrow. I am looking forward to resuming more of our chicken meals. I have spatchcocked a chicken once and it cooked nicely and was very good. I usually put the regular upright chicken 😉 in a crockpot with seasonings. It’s kind of like a rotisserie chicken. The skin isn’t as good but the meat is tender and the broth is so flavorful. That will be one of our first meals in February with additional meals to follow. May have to do the spatchcock again. I haven’t even thought of that in a long while.
You and Heather are quite clever in naming my oops meals! “Uh oh..no wings loaded nachos” 🙂 LOL!
Maureen
Oh no! I hope you’re feeling better soon and the rest of the fam stays healthy. I’m reporting on a few days because I wasn’t feeling well the last couple…maybe the flu (mostly head congestion, but general funk took me out for about 36 hours).
Sat – leftovers for lunch (even hubby made pasta with a few leftovers from the fridge) and we had dinner plans out with friends.
Sun – leftovers for lunch, then I didn’t feel well so we ordered pizza for dinner.
Mon – I wasn’t feeling well all day, but it turned out to be a good pantry challenge day. For lunch, DD made us mac-n-cheese from a box that was in the pile of pantry items to use up during the challenge. For dinner, DD had leftovers, I had a can of soup from the pantry challenge pile, and hubby made himself tacos from a lone hamburger patty from the freezer. I was glad to have prepped some fruit and veg earlier for everyone to use for meals and snacks.
Hubby is never aware of the challenge, as I learned over the years that he doesn’t consciously participate either way. It works better if I just rearrange things to make the items that I am targeting to get rid of more obvious, front-and-center.
Heather M
I’m so sorry you haven’t been feeling well but also glad it hasn’t lasted super long. And wow how awesome your family kept using things you strategically moved so the challenge kept going n that’s so great! Glad you’re on the mend 🙂
Tasty
Hope you’re feeling better today, Maureen. Don believe I have ever told hubby before that we were doing the pantry challenge but I did this year and he has been just fine with it.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Good strategy to have items front and center. And good for the family in continuing on!
Hope you are feeling better, as well as Jessica. My DH is a bit under the weather too.
Tàsty
Jan 26
B – the usual + a muffin for each of us
L – I made a new-to-me tomato soup which was basically tomatoes, onions and a tin of white beans with some rosemary. Because I had them I also added a little cream cheese and tomato paste and a dash of cream to get rid of 3 more containers!! A good lunch on another chilly day.
S-broccoli stuffed chicken breasts and a Ceasars salad.
So sorry to see you are sick Jessica . Hope you are better soon , without sharing it with the rest of the family. Thanks for keeping this going for the rest of us.
Heather M
A tomato white bean soup sounds delicious! Great work adding those odds and ends that also probably made the soup even tastier 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Those meals sound delicious and good for you in using up your bits. Cream and cream cheese are great in anything!
My husband knows I’m trying to use up food items, but he doesn’t know much more than that about the challenge either. I have made a few compromises like buying coffee when it was low and fixing a few of his requested meals (though I pretty much had what I needed for those requests). Other than that it’s worked out fine and he’s had no complaints.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/26/26
Jessica, I’m so sorry you’re ill. Either diagnosis would be rough. I hope you are feeling better very soon and that no one else will be affected. Rest up. You’re sweet to continue to post for the rest of us. Thank you.
B: toast and coffee for both of us
L: DH had a piece of the Torn Hawaiian pizza, the appropriate name Heather coined. We both had more corn chowder with a bit left. I had an open faced tuna melt with my soup.
D: I had seen a recipe that combined somewhat odd ingredients. It was a butternut squash burrito bowl. I didn’t have butternut squash but did have acorn squash. Using the recipe as a “suggestion”, I made a filling with a bit of beef, corn, peppers and onion from the freezer, adding black beans and cheese. I had a small amount of a tomato sauce in the freezer that I doctored up to be somewhat like an enchilada sauce. It actually was quite good! The flavors went together well. Even my husband agreed, after pointing out it wasn’t one of the 20 meals he requested! LOL! I made cornbread using a mix from the pantry and also ambrosia from fresh mandarins, apples, canned pineapple, frozen strawberries, Pom arils, pecans and coconut with Greek yogurt. I had forgotten we had some little apple tarts in the freezer so we had those for dessert.
S: finished up the Chex mix. I have enough to make one more batch I think.
Jessica, take good care.
Heather M
Recipes as suggestions are the best. It’s where I come up with so lay ideas/ take a recipe that looks fine and then mess with it. Unless I’m baking I rarely meet a recipe I don’t mess with likes my daughter sometimes makes a Mediterranean bowl with sweet potatoes as the beast and this dinner sounds like a similar concept, replacing what would typically be rice with a squash or sweet potato. They eat plenty of rice, but do this to change it up. Apparently all the kids are doing that these days? Glad it was good!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Yes, I think many are eating the various bowls since Jessica mentioned hers eating “slop” bowls recently. I’m like you in that I substitute freely when cooking. Now when baking, I adhere to the recipe! That’s chemistry with baking and I don’t want to mess that up. 😉
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/26/25
B: I ate a boiled egg and had coffee before heading out on my trip. DH had oatmeal.
L: I ate a chicken salad sandwich I’d brought for the trip, using what I’d made the day before. DH ate from what I’d left for him. ?
D: ate chili and cornbread I’d brought from home.
S: handful of nuts
Stephanie M
Sunday, January 26, 2025
B – Paul had toast with the bread we baked yesterday and a yogurt with almonds. I had toast and peanuts and a yogurt.
L – we were busy so we skipped
D – burgers and fries. Using up the last of the burgers.
Erin in Ontario
Yesterday morning started out okay, just a little snow. By the time husband and teenager got home from martial arts, the wind was starting to pick up and by suppertime we had (and still have) 80 km/hr (just under 50 mph for my US friends here) winds causing whiteout conditions intermittently. Amazingly, though, we haven’t lost power yet!
Breakfast was pancakes.
Lunch was falafel with hummus and veggies. The guys had also grabbed themselves chicken and fries from the grocery store deli section and eaten it on the way home. After a two hour intensive workout, they had no problem eating both and then making smoothies! At least the chicken filled them up enough that they showered before eating at home 🙂
Supper was leftover tortellini and salad from the other day, and quesadillas with leftover roasted veggies and cheese.
The teenager was, as always, back and forth with various snacks. I definitely saw canned peaches, popcorn and cheese but I’m sure there was more that I missed.
Maureen
I hope you never lost power. It was blowing here in Michigan, too. And hooray for showers! My girls have been known to aboutface out of the kitchen on the weekend when they see DH just got back from a run.
Maureen
Lunch was pizza with girl scouts. Not sure what DH had. And then we ended up grabbing takeout from a place we’d been wanting to try because DH wanted meat lasagna, which the girls don’t eat. So, takeout let everyone get something different. This week I really need to step it up and focus on the challenge.
Erin in Ontario
Maureen, sometimes takeout is what’s needed! Sounds like a good day. The challenge will still be there today.
Tasty
Day 26
Brunch: bacon, egg and fried potatoes. This used the last of the bacon, all the leftover potatoes and has the fridge looking quite bare in spots.
S: After a very unhealthy but enjoyable meal in the morning, I decided that supper had to be much healthier and get some veggies in us. I was originally going to go and buy some salad but it was damp out . Slight change of plan from chicken and salad to a hot casserole, chicken chasseur, which I loaded up with freezer veggies plus a pack of mushrooms that needed to be used. That with some French bread was supper. Hubby finished his Christmas ice cream. More white space!
Kathryn M
1/26/2025
Brunch – pancakes
Dinner – bowl of chili, potato chips
Snack – trail mix, hot cocoa
Work day, so that is about it.
Diinaus
DiinausJanuary 27, 2024 at 3:32 am
Seem to have lost a day.orposted to wrong year??
Any way
B: out for morning tea with friends after a late night
L: brought rotisserie chicken, lettuce and a loaf of gf bread to eat at the park with friends.
D: pumpkin, eggplant and chicken risotto using up stock made day b4 and some of the chicken from lunch. .more nice cream to finish.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
I lost my post too! Not sure where it went.
Karen J
Lynn, i saw your post in the 2023s. 🙂
Stephanie M
I’m sorry you’re not feeling well Jessica. I hope you feel better soon!!
B – Paul had a cheese danish and cut up fruit with yogurt. I had cereal, fruit and nuts.
L – Paul had the last of the roast beef in whole wheat. I had chicken pea salad and a green salad.
D – roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and carrots and cucumber salad.
This was the last roasting chicken in my freezer and I used up the last of the carrots.
Jessica Fisher
Not the wrong year. I just reuse the same posts from year to year, per Google best practices.
Jennifer
I’ve still been plugging away but I have been terrible about posting. We did end up going over my $100 a week grocery limit when dh decided to make a costco run. I quickly put together a list and he spent $166. This was in addition to my $100 I had already spent for the week. But I’m on track for the rest of the month. So I will call that pretty good as my total for the month is less than half what I normally spend.
We were hit with 2 big expenses this past week. Transmission repair $1550 and tree removal $1700 (1 came partially down in a storm but was hung up on another tree hanging over our house, so it had to come down). I will be continuing my challenge in February as my freezers and pantry are still very full even though I have been using stuff that has been in there forever.
B – dh unearthed a frozen bag of pumpkin spice bagels and we all had that with yogurt or fruit
L – I took crackers (finished off a box) with summer sausage and cheese, peppers and grapes
D – I got home late to the tree guys cleaning up and lots of frustrated men with big stories to tell about how they got the tree down safely and didn’t even hit anything. According to the neighbors it took them all day. I was able to quickly thaw chorizo sausage and diced tomatoes (from my garden in 2022!) and made up a pasta dish. Served with peppers
S – free donut at work
Heather M
Wow two big and unexpected expenses the same week, I’m so sorry. I can relate to feeling like there is so much food still, despite using up so many things, and will be continuing into February with you. Hoping for you it really helps offset these costs.
Danielle Zecher
So sorry about your transmission and tree! I’ll also be continuing into February. Hopefully, we can all cheer each other on in February.
Karen J
Breakfast-tortilla egg/cheese wrap Only two packages of tortillas left in the freezer
Lunch-LO turkey pot pie
Dinner-hummus/carrots and cookies Husband was out with a friend so I didn’t make dinner
I had some Safeway rewards that I usually used for gas, but decided to go for free food instead. My dozen egg online coupon didn’t work so I went to the help counter. Turns out the free dozen was for jumbo, rather than large eggs. No jumbo were in stock so they gave me an 18 pk of large instead. Win!
I reorganized my two top of refrigerator freezers-the house fridge and the “beer ” fridge in the shop and am very happy with the white space. (the pantry is still pretty stuffed)
Heather M
Good win with the eggs!!
Allie from Ontario
I’m a bit behind…
Jan 25
Brunch – I made an English muffin pizza with the last of the sauce I recently made and T had a ham sandwich.
Dinner – I made a small of amount of beef stew (ie scaled to 1lb of boneless short ribs) and included lots of veg (fresh & freezer). I also decided to try something new so I also made a cauliflower puree with aged provolone (well stocked cheese drawer!) and a “cube” of roasted garlic from the freezer. We spooned the stew over top and it was a lovely dinner.
It was a pretty icy day but I did finally get out to the store to prep for Friday’s dinner party….
And then came Jan 26
We got hit again by heavy freezing rain (over night and most of the morning) and while discussing whether to just cancel dinner, we got word that a dear friend suffered a massive medical emergency and had been flown to palliative care in the city. Needless to say, dinner party cancelled immediately and then later in the day we were notified that he passed away at around 1:30. We pretty much ate nothing yesterday and after a rough night, we basically slept in until very close to noon today.
Karen J
I’m so sorry about your friend. Hugs.
Heather M
Oh Allie, I am so sorry for the lost of your dear friend. <3
Tasty
Allie, so sorry to read aboutyour friend
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Allie, So very sorry about the sudden loss of your friend.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Allie, so sorry about the sudden loss of your friend.
Jessica Fisher
I’m so sorry to hear about your friend.
Danielle Zecher
I’m so sorry about your friend.