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 3 of the Pantry Challenge.
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Today was a pretty chill day around the house. I made my oats for breakfast then puttered awhile, on call for Bryan since he was repairing my 1991 sewing machine.
It was successful so we are thrilled to have saved $200-300 on repairs or replacement. The base service fee to take it into a local shop is $200. I doubt my mom spent that much when she bought it for me originally, but it’s more valuable now seeing as it’s made with all metal parts instead of plastic.
Our Sacramento kids gifted us a Roomba last week. His name is Jarvis. Today I was able to get him to successfully make a sweep of the kitchen.
I also set to cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, etc. I knew I wouldn’t get it all done in one day, so I put post-it notes on each area and removed them once done.
Well, I removed two post-it’s.
But the spice cupboard is looking great!
What We Ate
Breakfast – I had my oatmeal. Bryan ate a protein bar. Kids were on their own. At least one child made an egg and bacon sandwich on pretzel roll which sounds amazing.
Lunch – I cooked chicken in the instant pot and then assembled all the fixings of a salad bar. Everyone could make what they wanted.
Dinner – I had found two family packs of top sirloin steaks on clearance for $5.39/pound. That’s a “good deal” for beef around here, so Bryan grilled them. I also made potatoes and a salad. We opened a ritzy bottle of wine we received for Christmas and it was a lovely dinner.
That was our day 3. How did yours go?
Angela
Cooked up a storm today – getting ready to head back to work (teacher here) so I needed to prep a bunch of food. Everything was on hand.
B – cheese grits and bacon (made a big batch for hubby to eat throughout the week). Also made some breakfast biscuits for me: almond flour with breakfast sausage, cheese, broccoli & mushrooms all baked in. It’s like a cross between a muffin and a biscuit, but everything is in there for a hearty, protein rich breakfast on the go for me!
L – 4 lbs chicken breast cooked in the crockpot became lunches for the week: chicken salad for me (I add chopped pecans, diced celery and carrots, and dressing is half greek yogurt/ half mayo) and packed with rice for my son’s lunches. Hubs fends for himself because he likes to change from day to day.
D – Nachos with leftover taco meat and cheese
Roberta in So Cal
A little late for this comment, but here it is anyway.
B-For 3. Hubs had cereal, toast, OJ, and coffee. I had PB toast and coffee. I think son had cereal once he got up, but I’m really not sure.
L- For 4. Tuna salad sandwiches, veg sticks, apples and oranges (our orange tree produced well this year), cookies (a gift from one of Hub’s students).
D-For 3. LO stew, rice, pitas, apples and oranges. Probably the last of the cookies for dessert, but I didn’t write it down.
Gen
Breakfast – Made a Egg, Bacon & Potato Hash using some of the rest of the potatoes we had bought for Xmas dinner, a pack of bacon I found in our freezer, and a bunch of cut-up veggies that weren’t eaten from our NYE veggie tray. It was nice to get that all of out of there.
Lunch – Using some leftover turkey, I made a Turkey & Rice soup. I usually make it with chicken, but the family still loved it and ate it with gusto. Served it with some leftover buns from the holidays.
Dinner – I was lucky to find an AWESOME sale on grass-fed ground beef before Xmas, so I bought 10lbs worth. LOL So I defrosted 2lbs, used the rest of the leftover potatoes that I didn’t use in the morning, along with the rest of a bag of corn niblets, and we feasted on Shepherd’s Pie.
Snack – Found a bag of frozen berries that I totally forgot that I had, so I made 2 batches of Berry Oatmeal Baked Cups. They’re a bit less sweet than the kids like, but once they warmed them up, added a bit of butter and cinnamon to them, they didn’t complain.
Christine
Breakfast was a yoga bowl with frozen fruit, chia seeds and Catalina Crunch. It was on sale- I don’t love it but I won’t waste it. I think others had bagels. Lunch for me was grilled turkey and cheese and soup. Not sure about others:)
For dinner I needed quick so I made calzones out of store bought pizza dough (it’s a cheat) because we needed a quick meal before a 7:20 hockey game. My happy note is that I have started 2026 cooking. My real goal is avoiding take out.
Kathryn M
I was under the weather and slept in till afternoon.
Brunch – I made a bowl of oatmeal when I got up.
Snack – small bag of doritos and a few cookies.
Dinner – still wasn’t up to much and I just ate some whole wheat crackers. I have a big box from Costco that says 12/22/25 so I need to get busy finishing those up.
Tasty
Hope you feel better soon, Kathryn.
Jessica Fisher
Hope you’re feeling better!
Kathy in Denmark
Hope you feel better soon, Kathryn!
Heather from Sacramento
B- coffee and grilled cheese sandwich. I used up the last of the sliced cheese.
L- I wanted to go get sushi but I made myself some scrambled eggs and ate it with apple cinnamon toast. I was very proud of myself because I opened my new bacon chipotle sea salt and used that in my eggs. I don’t think I used enough but they were also very good so maybe I did. I have a habit of buying stuff like that and not using it. I treat myself to vinegars and jams and other goodies so this challenge will help me use it and not just buy more.
D- I cooked some tri tip for my Dad and took some for my salad. I finished off the container of spring mix. I made it with grapes, blue cheese, walnuts and lemon dressing.
Snacks- almonds, cookies from Christmas boxes and hot apple cider
It’s been storming here so I have been inside procrastinating on all the stuff I should be doing. I did process more lemons from my mom’s tree. 4 more quarts of juice.
Jessica Fisher
bacon chipotle sea salt sounds fascinating!
Kathy in Denmark
Day 3:
B: Chiapudding with yoghurt, topped with blueberries and chopped nuts for DD1 and myself. Rye porridge for DD2, yoghurt with HM granola for DH
S: We were at a funeral (DH’s aunt), so I had a piece of “smørrebrød” (open faced sandwich) and DH and DD2 had some cake. DD1 was home, because she was unwell, so I don’t know what she had.
L: We were home around 3 o’clock and were all hungry, so I pulled out the last toppings from the fridge and everyone had some rye bread. This cleared out the very last of some things from our hosting friends on the 28th, which was good!
D: Because of the late lunch, we weren’t very hungry for dinner, so I pulled out cheese, bread and crackers and we had that. Again, clearing out leftovers from hosting. There is very little left now!
S: We watched another movie and had some Christmas cookies with that.
We are clearing out a lot of things, and I am looking forward to getting back to our normal way of eating. On the other hand, not having to cook very much is quite nice after the holidays. I do get burned out on cooking, so having leftovers is nice 🙂
Heather M
Jan 3: in which the day started at 2am while on vacation: L was awoken after less than an hours sleep to work and continued all day. C and I headed into the city to play- SoHo for an art piece we’ve been curious about “NY Earth Room”, then a few bookstores. He met up with a friend and I went to an organ meditation at Grace Church near in the Village and it was glorious- a last hurrah to Christmas music. Met up with L for an evening stroll up lower 5th avenue which was super fun and involved new places for us (!!) plus a Japanese supermarket where we bought some things to try! Finally made it to Rockefeller(via subway) for the Tree and then headed back to the house/Long Island.
Brunch: I had bread and cheese and a pineapple tart of sorts (my MIL frequents these local bakeries that have so much good stuff and she brings it all home!); the guys ate similar
Snack: after the organ meditation I stopped in at Max Brenner and had a frozen hot chocolate at their “bar”. C was with his friend at this point and they had Banh Mi at a Vietnamese place in SoHo. L ate early dinner before heading to meet us
Dinner: MIL ordered Portuguese mixed grill, veg, rice. L had some before meeting up with us. C and I ate when we got back at 10:15. L snacked on bakery treats Then he crashed. Working all night and day is no fun, especially when you’re supposed to be on vacation.
Ready to go home and eat healthy food (too many carbs and not enough protein or produce! And the protein MIL orders isn’t all great for me so I eat less of it too).
Karen J
Easy day here….
Breakfast out
Lunch-snacked
Dinner-Sheet pan meal with andouille sausage and lots vegetables- peppers, Brussel sprouts, last of the green beans, broccoli, carrots and a potato. (I’m working at using up those fresh veg) I shook it all up in a large ziplock with garlic, Kinder’s caramelized onion butter, and olive oil then roasted. Hardly any dishes!
Heather M
Sheet pan meals ftw! Your seasoning combo sounded delicious!
Karen J
Heather, One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was a twelve pack of different kinds of Kinder seasonings-so many flavor adventures ahead!
Heather M
Ooo Karen that Kinder 12 pack sounds like the best Christmas gift!!! Oh what fun you’ll have with it!! I have yet to even try a kinder seasoning lol. Almost ready to buy myself one- any recommendations for a first one? I have tons of other seasonings that I do love, which is why I haven’t bought any before
Karen J
I had to (happily) rearrange my whole spice area to make room for them, which was a great opportunity to pare down, organize and clean. For everyday I’d recommend “The Blend” which is salt, pepper and garlic. Other favorites (besides the aforementioned caramelized onion butter) are Cowboy Butter and the new to me flavor Woodfire Garlic. I think my son bought the set at Costco?
Heather from Sacramento
I cannot tell you how many times I went looking for that Kinder set. I never found it. I’m so jealous!!
SarahLiz
Officially starting tomorrow since we’ve been on a staycation for the holidays. We did a quick freezer inventory and it’s not as stuffed as I thought until I opened the kitchen cabinets where we keep the pantry stuff. We’re bursting at the seams in there!
I started taking a GLP1 over the summer and so I eat much less and I can’t manage some of my previous go-to meals. Containers that were 1 lunch are now 2 lunches so things stretch out endlessly. Also, I discovered I can only eat beans once every few days now and I used to eat them daily. It’s an adjustment, but I’m just glad to be over the hardest part and I can eat real food again!!
B – leftover cake from new years and coffee
L – sushi with friends
D – spicy ramen packet for me; Austin had leftover prime rib from Friday.
Allie from Ontario
In December, I started a container for the freezer to corral “the last 1, the last few, the last handful” etc of things that should be used up. I freeze lots of things as small ice cubes or 1 tbsp squares (I love my set of Souper Cube silicon molds). This container has housed pestos, diced sweet & hot peppers, compound butters, & cubes of chopped fresh herbs. This is working well and means far fewer tiny little packages getting lost/forgotten amongst bigger stuff. I’m also still using Jessica’s tip of a dedicated fridge spot for thawing 3 days worth of meats to keep me on track re dinner planning/prep. The shelf currently holds a package of 4 chicken thighs for tonight, ground pork for sliders and a chunk of ham to be chopped for a frittata.
Anyways, here is what we ate on Jan 3
Brunch: FYI I never type “coffee” because there is no morning in this house without it and it’s why milk (my skim & his 2%) is on the “we WILL buy” list
We both ate leftover pasta mid morning which filled us up
Dinner: We knew that afternoon visitors might disrupt any plans I had, so we agreed on a freezer night. I found a container of chipotle chicken chili and T made himself a fully loaded hot dog with cheese, hot pickled peppers & some chopped tomato.
SarahLiz
I love the basket idea! I found at least 3 ziploc bags each with a tiny nub of cheese rind in it. And my mom gave me homemade pesto I keep forgetting about.
Tàsty
I o the same thing and have 1 basket in the chest freezer for those little bits that get lost otherwise. I will also put stuff in there that I really want to use up. Anything to make life easier!
Karen J
Allie, I love your idea of corralling the little bits in your freezer in a specific container. I’m going to adopt that. I hate searching for my frozen dollops of tomato paste.
Off topic, my husband and I went on our dream vacation this past year touring all of your provinces from Vancouver BC to St Johns, Newfoundland. Thirty eight days of trains, planes, ferries, rental cars, public transportation and lots of walking. I checked off one of my goals and went up the CN Tower in Toronto-which is three times higher than our Space Needle. We met so many lovely people along the way and truly enjoyed seeing your beautiful country!
Heather M
Karen, what a dream trip!!! Would love to do something similar one day!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Karen, what a wonderful trip! I’d love to do the same at some point.
Also off topic, I think I’ve mentioned before to Allie from Ontario and Tasty (and any other of our neighbors to the north) how many of our summer lifeguards are from Canada. Our church feeds them a couple of times during the season. They account for half of our lifeguards. We would have a very difficult time keeping all of our miles of beaches safe without their help. They’re great kids and I always look forward to meeting them all.
Heather M
Love your freezer idea! I need to do this, too….
Tàsty
I hear you on ‘coffee’ Allie! It is essential here too as is tea as we both drink both so I understand them being essentials just like the fruit and veggies.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/3/26
B: I made an eggs Benedict casserole using deli ham from the freezer, English muffins and eggs. The last time I tried to make a sauce it didn’t end well, so I used a pack of store bought Hollandaise.
L: I made vegetable beef soup using a bit of the ground beef and vegetables from the fridge and pantry.
D: We ate a freezer meal, Chicken Divan (chicken , broccoli and rice). I basically use Jessica’s recipe but I mix the rice in with it so it’s ready to heat and eat. I added a mix of fruits including apples, oranges, mandarins, craisins and kiwi for a side salad.
Tàsty
Jan 3 26
B – fruit, yogurt and granola for both of us plus a muffin for me.
L – there was an unopened pack of bacon in the fridge that need to be used so bacon buns made a good lunch!
S – some l/o fresh pineapple from the fridge inspired last night’s Sweet and Sour chicken and rice.. The chicken and stir fry veggies came from the freezer, pineapple and sauce ingredients came from the fridge while rice and some cashews were hiding in the pantry. It probably wasn’t really too much like sweet and sour, but as we had 2 clean plates, it worked for us!
Altho we weren’t out of muffins yet, I made up some oatmeal bars to keep in the freezer. This used up about half of the jar of Nutella so there may be another batch in the near future. It’s been there too long!
Stephanie M
Saturday, January 3, 2026
B – paul made breakfast today. We both had poached eggs on whole wheat English muffins. His was just that. Mine also had arugula and sliced tomato on it. He also made turkey sausage.
L – Paul has the last of the deli turkey on whole wheat with havarti cheese and ranch dressing. I had the last bratwurst from the other night and I fried the “free” white rice, that you always get from Chinese take out, in butter till crispy and poured some of the leftover brown gravy from the bratwurst over it. All Chinese take out gone now. All bratwursts gone. Just have some gravy left which I’ll use for Paul’s lunch tomorrow.
Snack – I opened the last small container of blackberries and had some of those with peanuts.
D – we had chicken piccata over whole wheat spaghetti. I also made roasted Brussels sprouts.
Virginia
Do you have a live tree? I discovered that I am allergic to real trees. At first, it is just a dull headache. No big deal. I will survive. I later learned that if it stays in the house long (once it is tired of trying to stay green and healthy) it gets worse… full on stuffy nose, etc.
Maybe it is the tree?
Karen J
B-pancakes with sprinkles (grandkids are here), mandarins
L-random leftovers
D-ham and potato chowder, rolls
We went to the trampoline park – those are crazy places. I’d said no treats there or arcade games and kids were okay with that. On the way home we stopped at a favorite bakery and each picked out something special. Then I took them home to mom and told her they’d definitely had a decent supply of sugar!
Laurie in Texas
Came down with either a cold or cedar fever (ykiyk when you live in Texas)
B- hubs had eggs and ham, I had toast
L- hubs had a toasted cheese and ham sandwich, I pulled some turkey noodle soup from the freezer and some extra homemade broth, I also had an orange
D – leftover navy bean and ham soup with the last of the cornbread
Maureen
I’m so glad that I stumbled upon the challenge while cleaning out my e-mail today (slowly prepping to re-join the world on Monday when our household is back to work/school). Somehow, after years of participating, I had forgotten about the challenge…even though I was just telling my girls that I was going to focus on the freezers this month. Good grief! I’m really looking forward to catching up with everyone this month!
My son was home from college for much of the last two weeks (although bouncing back and forth to the girlfriend’s parents’ house, too). I had planned a number of favorite meals while we were all home, but we didn’t get to many of them. Sleeping in and fending for themselves for lunch was one culprit. The other was hosting a large family gathering on the 28th that resulted in lots of leftovers (lesson learned on quantities). We’ve done a great job eating those leftovers (and without complaint), so I’m grateful for that. I even made a casserole with some leftovers to change them up a bit that was a success (the rest of my crew are not big on casseroles). The fridge doesn’t look bad, although we still have dips, cheeses, etc. from the holidays to work on. I did freeze a few things that we’ll have to deal with this month, too.
Yesterday was leftovers for lunch and homemade pizza for dinner. Pizza was one of the favorite meals that we hadn’t gotten to, yet, so everyone enjoyed it. I grated a bunch of mozzarella and cheddar while I was making a mess for the next week. I asked the girls what else we should prep for this coming week and they had no ideas, so I’ll play it by ear with what we have on hand.
Heather M
Hello Maureen! Happy to see you back this year. Nice work on the leftovers. I so get overestimating things. I did that this year, too. Hope you’ve enjoyed having everyone home(like we did)! 🙂
Kathy in Denmark
Sorry you are having sinus issues, Jessica. Hope you feel better soon!
Day 3:
DH called in sick, so he could just relax all day. He really needed it, so I’m glad. I went to the supermarket for a few things which we needed and were on sale.
B: DH and DD1 had yoghurt and HM granola, DD2 had rye porridge and a glass of milk. I had a HM roll with the last of some hard boiled eggs, which needed to get eaten. Coffee for DH and me.
L: DD1 had a HM roll with apple butter. The rest of us skipped.
S: Fruit and crisps
D: Tortillas with HM refried beans, lettuce, salsa, sour cream and a lot of veggies.
S: movie night, so we all had a small piece of brownie LO from NYE. I served the last of the crisps from NYE, some Christmas cookies and DH and I each had a small Kir Royal made with the very last of the champagne from NYE.
Heather M
Ooooo homemade refried beans. One thing I’ve never tried to make, even though we eat plenty of mexican food and love them. I’m impressed!
Kathy in Denmark
I doubt that my recipe is original, but who cares as long as its tasty 😉
I learned how to make chilli beans in my slow cooker in a PC many years ago, so I regularly make that and can it, so we have easy meals in the cupboard. This time I opened up a jar, added some more beans and spices and smashed them in a saucepan (well, DH did). Once they had thickened up a bit, they were ready to eat.
I used to make big batches of “real” refried beans and freeze, but having chilli beans ready to go makes it easier to make different meals. I also don’t have that much freezer space, so I prefer to have some things canned.
It’s really not difficult to make, but it takes a little time to make from scratch. I hope you give it a go sometime 🙂