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 30 of the Pantry Challenge!
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Yikes! We’re almost at the end of the challenge. The month went by quickly, didn’t it?!
What We Ate
Breakfast – I cooked up bacon and breakfast sausage from the fridge and fried some eggs for whoever wanted it.
Lunch – I shot two recipes today, so that’s what we ate. One is the pictures beef pot pie. So good!
Dinner – Friday is pizza night, of course!
How did Day 30 go for you?
Tasty
Like everyone else Jessica I’ll say how good your beef pie looks. I’d happily take a piece, thank you. I have definitely acquired some white space in the chest freezer over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the upright. The pantry and the freezer drawer under the fridge have also seen some good improvements, just by picking one item I wanted gone and working around that one thing. However, I can, should, continue doing this for a few more weeks. We will be heading out for a short trip come the middle of February so at least another 2 weeks.
Jan 30
B – hubby had his usual, I had a yogurt and an English muffin.
L – I have lunch (or breakfast sometimes) with a group of friends, the last Friday of each month. What hubby had ???
S – with neither of us being hungry, I pulled some appetisers a friend had made and cooked them. Along with that we had some cheese and crackers
Heather from Sacramento
I have been eating out a lot the last couple of days. I had lunch with work and took my Dad to dinner for his birthday. I also had to take my Mom to a procedure so I went to breakfast while waiting. I feel like I have been eating the same stuff over and over. It takes forever to eat down my stock. I am seeing progress especially in my freezer.
B- coffee and Greek yogurt with peaches and HM granola. I emptied another jar of peaches! Yay.
L- cherry tomatoes, hamburger and rice dish that I had froze
D- I had a smaller portion of the cherry tomatoes, hamburger and rice dish that was still in the refrigerator. I ate that with a salad of spring greens, cheddar cheese, walnuts, avocado and vinaigrette.
I hope to cook a lot this weekend to stock up. I was so busy and tired this week.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Progress is progress!
Heather M
January 30: in which I did not leave the house, again, except to run to/from Metro. Luckily next week will be “warmer” (30s daytime; we haven’t gotten out of the 20s so it is welcome), as have lots on my plate. This week luckily was quieter. Good Challenge day too. Can’t believe we are almost finished! I’ll be working on my ever troublesome cupboards for a while. I keep finding so many random things in them and need to get a better handle on it all.
Brunch: L had a work lunch; I had the 2nd to last (and smallest by a lot) raspberry waffles with some raspberries on top, a hard boiled egg, a roll and pice of cheese.
Dinner: Greek quinoa bowls- used some of that quinoa and tossed it either a little Greek vinaigrette, pan grilled chicken breast from the freezer, setting aside and ver half of it for guys lunches on Monday, canned chickpeas, cucumber, tomatoes, pepperoncini, red onion, homemade tzatziki. Just delicious!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/30/26
Jessica that is a great looking beef pot pie. And such a pretty crust. Mine don’t look like that!
B: ate some more of the yuck instant oatmeal. I’ll be glad when it’s gone. Not sure about DH.
L: I was out running last minute errands. I took a boiled egg to eat while out and about and had soup when I got home. DH had a tuna salad sandwich and soup.
D: I’d thought about making a beef pot pie myself, but didn’t really have quite enough LO beef. So I made it into stroganoff. I didn’t have any mushrooms so I couldn’t make Jessica’s good Cream of x soup. I had to rely on a canned soup instead. I added onions and the LO noodles. Then I made an Asian type slaw with THE LAST of the cabbage. (How many ways can I use cabbage?) I had some LO ramen noodles along with a 1/2 a seasoning pack (I know with lots of not so great stuff in it, but at least now it’s gone). I had a little pack of sunflower seeds left from some take away salad. I added sesame oil and rice vinegar and it actually tasted good, and several small bits used up. I also found some individually packaged applesauce in the pantry. I bought them to make a particular cake and then kept the unused cups on hand in case the granddaughter might eat them. We ate 2 of the remainders.
Wow. We’re down to the last day. It has gone fast.
It’s 10:00 here now, and our snow has begun, 2hours ahead of schedule. It is so windy that it isn’t falling to the ground hardly but it swirling all around. We shall see what totals we get.
Heather M
Ahead of schedule! I will be checking the radar periodically for sure now! Wow. Also, great work on using random things up with dinner! So good!
Heather from Sacramento
Have you ever tried egg roll in a bowl? I love it and a great way to use cabbage. There are a lot of recipes out there for it.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
I haven’t tried that yet. That’s a great idea when I next buy cabbage! I’ll check it out. Thank you for the suggestion.
Jessica Fisher
The crust is puff pastry that I got BOGO and on sale. 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
That is a great addition! I’ll have to remember that. I actually have 1 or 2 packs of puff pastry in the freezer that I usually use to make palmiers. Maybe I should use them for something a little healthier:)
Allie from Ontario
Jessica – that beef pot pie looks wonderful!
I spent the afternoon in the kitchen making soups for single servings in the freezer. #1 was “roasted 3 tomato soup” where I make/freeze the “starter” with garden tomatoes (Roma’s rst’d with garlic, balsamic & brown sugar). This then gets topped up with more tomatoes (freezer and/or canned), onions, sun dried tomatoes & fresh basil/basil pesto. My personal favourite! #2 put the end of the chicken to good use in a pot of chicken with rice. Both soups used up some of the broth I just made. I also put a pound of black beans in the slow cooker destined for the freezer. Today (among other things) is “save the ricotta day”.
What we ate on Jan 30
Brunch: T picked at the chicken, then finished off his bowl of meatballs/sauce.
I ate the very last of the enchiladas.
Dinner: The plan had been burgers & fries (all from the freezer) but we ultimately skipped the fries and just ate some veggies sticks with a quick yogurt dip I put together. That’s the end of a carton of plain yogurt. We also emptied yet another fridge jar of sweet/hot pickled peppers as one of our burger toppings.
One more official day!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
We may have burgers tonight also. I’m so glad you mentioned the peppers. I’ll add the ones I canned to our burgers as well! Thanks!
Stephanie M
Friday, January 30, 2026
B – Paul had mixed fruit and a whole wheat English muffin. I had cereal, fruit and nuts.
L – Paul had the last of the egg salad on whole wheat and soup from the pantry. I had the most delicious salad. I call it Mediterranean salad. In a bowl, I put chopped marinated artichokes, sliced marinated mushrooms, sliced roasted red peppers, sliced red onion, sliced green and black olives and I mix some red wine vinegar and olive oil in. I put a good amount of spring mix lettuce on a plate and top it with all of the above. I top it all off with some cooked salmon and arrange a quartered Campari tomato in all the corners. So pretty. I also had a whole wheat bagel for carbs. Enough ingredients left to make it tomorrow. In the past I’ve always made this with a can of tuna fish but I saw some cooked salmon in the cooked foods section of Publix and decided to try that and I loved it. I’ve also always used arugula but this time I used the spring mix and liked that better.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Stephanie, your salad sounds AMAZING. So many wonderful ingredients. Yum.
Heather M
Stephanie, what an absolutely delicious salad!! This is right up my alley. Love it!!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jessica, in rereading your post, I checked out your zucchini sweet potato hash. Guess what I found in the freezer? Small package of sliced zucchini. I have plenty of sweet potatoes left so I think this will be in one of my upcoming meals. Used all of my mushrooms in the pasta dish, but think I can still make do. Looking forward to trying it. Thanks for the recipe.
Also, as I rummaged around in my pantry, I came across 2 jars of morello cherries. They were an impulse buy. I was in the Dollar Tree a while back, when items were still a dollar. This gentleman pointed the cherries out and remarked to me that $1 was a good price for them. I had no idea what they cost, but bought 2 jars based on his comment. It’s 24 ounces. They’ve stayed in the pantry as I didn’t know what to fix with them. I have since found a recipe I will try when I next fix a dessert. Out of curiosity, I checked Amazon’s price. I know they are not always the cheapest, but their price for 24 oz of the same brand, was $15!! Oh goodness- that $2 WAS a good price. I’ll make a cobbler or pie with them.
Stephanie M
Hi Lynn. I’ve made this recipe so many times. It’s delicious.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
All the comments agreed! Thanks for an additional thumbs up!
Karen J
Lynn, did you see my sweet potato hash comment from way back in 2015? Lots of Jessica’s recipes are family favorites.
We are back home tomorrow from Arizona so I will be back in pantry challenge mode. Although I will have to do a shop to pick up some basics.
Jessica Fisher
Love it! It’s really good in quesadillas!
Heather M
Oh my goodness that price difference is wild! I hope you make a most delicious cherry dessert!! Also, this type of thing–all those truly random things in the cupboards, is what I need to work on. In fact, based on how things are going right now, I don’t know that I’m going to try to really clear things out right now. Maybe grabbing things are really good prices is a better move until we see how things go in the next few months (it’s so all over the place day to day, hour to hour…). But I can still keep with the spirit of this by doing what I need to do–use up those languishing items I don’t what to do with and have no idea why/how I have them.
Kathryn M
Brunch – yogurt, banana bread
Dinner – soup
Snacks – Reese’s candy and a bag of chips from the work vending machine, soda
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/30/25
B:I had whole wheat toast with a tad of peanut butter, coffee and an orange. Not sure what DH ate.
L: dh finished the 1/2 cup of chili as his “starter”. I then made him some pork nachos. I had cooked down the meat with seasonings and put it in the freezer. I used chips, the pork, LO black beans, cheese and then sour cream, avocado and salsa. For me I used the same ingredients minus the chips to make a cauliflower rice bowl. It hit the spot for both of us.
D: I had a great PC meal for dinner. I ran across an interesting ziti recipe from Southern Living that called for spinach. I had some leftover from the soup I made earlier and had the other ingredients as well, so decided to make it. I cooked my usual cauliflower with the noodles. It called for meatballs (I had just a few leftover and used up) which I quartered, pepperoni which I had in the freezer. I had the sauce in the pantry. I used the last of my frozen mushrooms. It didn’t call for ricotta which many recipes for ziti used. I had some, so I put a dollop in there. It was very good! We ate half and the other half will be eaten to close out the month. I added LO cabbage and a handful of cherries to round out the meal.
S: I got a little hungry before dinner so had a cup of ham bone soup from the freezer as an appetizer. I had a couple of chips later.
My DH did say this morning that he felt our breakfast choices were slim pickings. (We still have toast, eggs, oatmeal and pancake options)?? He is requesting that I buy some Greek yogurt, which I have missed this last week too. So that will be on my list when I next shop. I was also delighted to see that the lean, Springer farms chicken burgers are on sale this week. I can get them for $1.50#, which is a stock up price. So that will be on my list come February as well.
Erin in Ontario
Lynn, your cauliflower rice bowl sounds delicious! I also love that you made such a smart pasta meal with all the bits you had.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Both were good. That’s the nice thing about Mexican-so flexible with ingredients, like your Tex Mex rice. Always so good! I would not have thought to add spinach to a meat ziti, but it was perfect to use up that and some other bits.
Your day did sound busy with kids and grandkids! No wonder you needed a nap:)
Erin in Ontario
A belated happy birthday to Bryan and safe travels to Tasty!
Yesterday was a busy one. I got my youngest grandchild off to daycare and my daughter off to work (we’re down to one car at the moment until a large repair is made on the other one), then I took my teenager and a teenage grandchild out for “breakfast” – I had eggs and homefries with toast, they both ate massive burgers and fries. It was a ton of fun. Dropped them off at my oldest son’s house so they could hang out some more since it was a day off school.
By the time I got home, I was so full and sleepy that I ended up reading with my eyes shut for a good two hours, much to my husband’s amusement, so I have no idea what he ate for lunch.
Did a pile of laundry and other housework while husband went to pick up our daughter and grab groceries. They had had plans to pick themselves up a frozen pizza, but apparently there had been a weather related power outage in that town and so they got home empty handed.
I threw together a spicy Tex Mex rice and beans, which we ate with salsa, sour cream, guac and whatever else we found bits of in the fridge. It turned out absolutely delicious, so not a bad way to wrap up our day at all.
Heather M
Love that you got a nap in! And, three cheers for getting that rice and beans dish together! I bet it was so good!
Stephanie M
Thursday, January 30, 2025
B – Paul had scrambled eggs, the last hash brown from the freezer, whole wheat toast, and turkey sausage. I had bran cereal bananas and blueberries and a side of peanuts.
L – Paul had a roast beef sandwich on whole wheat and the last of the chips. I had a Mediterranean salad with a slice of whole wheat toast.
D – Asian salmon, white rice, cucumber salad, using up the last of the salmon from the freezer.
Jennifer
B – oatmeal and sausage for me
L – leftovers for dh, snacky lunch for me
D – french toast and bacon, sliced peppers
krista
Yes, I will continue as well. My stock is getting down, but could stil go another couple weeks.
B bacon, egg, cheeses on sourdough, I added avacado
L got a major blast from the past. A while ago hubs requested I get one of thoe pizza kit in a box items, we haven’t had that in 20 years, but I made that all the time when we were first married ( 34 years this sept). We were tired of LO’s so I made that! Immediately after opening the box I remembered that smell :). It was good, and still have half left. I don’t recall there being 2 in the box, but a lot has happened in 20 years.
D fish sandwiches using the rest of the Hawaiian buns from freezer
S HM yogurt mixed with powdered peanut butter I found in our stash, and mini frozen fruit bites, hubs had ice cream
krista
I mean the mix made 2 pizzas, but I only made half the package, so still enough left for 1 more pizza.
Kathryn M
I kinda cheated and resupplied at the food rescue yesterday while I volunteered. It was refreshing to get something new into the house though.
Lunch – while volunteering I nibbled on a deli sandwich, pirate booty, and a reeses cup candy.
Dinner I brought home a home chef beef enchilada individual meal and rather than sticking it in the freezer, I just microwaved it for dinner.
Snacks – had to try out some mochi ice cream that I got at the food rescue. ate 2 broken cookies too. (another volunteer wanted to throw a bunch of broken cookies away so I got 2 individual ones and 4 giant gingerbread kid kits. Not moldy just broken so I don’t know why she was so keen on getting rid of them….)
Karen J
One day left-it’s gone fast!
Breakfast-poached eggs, toast, and the last of the breakfast sausage
Lunch-Panera with a gift card-my treat to myself after spending the morning volunteering in both grandkids’ classes. Great fun, but glad I am retired!
Dinner-husband was out with his guy group, I had leftover jambalaya and rice krispie treats. I made a half batch to use up marshmallows and cereal
I looked at the grocery ads for the first time yesterday, getting ready for a small shop on the 1st. Several BOGO offers on meat. We’re down to a few shrimp, a couple of chicken breasts and lots of various sausage so I will take a look at that.
Allie from Ontario
Last day of January! Jessica, I sincerely hope the tests give you answers and that you do start feeling better. And again – huge thanks for “hosting” this. This has made me look closely at my one big shopping issue – what I call my “pandemic shopping hangover” which is the need to do one GIANT shop far less often which leads to overbuy as I don’t want to have to go back for a while. This also leads to “while am I am here” purchases. While I do appreciate being able to cook mostly whatever I want with what is in the house, it does result in overstock/impulse purchases.
Jan 30
Brunch – I had leftover enchiladas (there is still one more serving) and T had chicken soup from the freezer.
Dinner – I made a sausage, onion, apple, cabbage skillet using the last farmer’s sausage & Oktoberfest sausage. We ate it over smashed red potatoes which also finished off the green onions.
Hope to “see” everybody tomorrow and yes – I will plan to continue on into Feb for a while as well.
Karen J
Jessica, we all want you well again! Hopefully soon.
Allie, I am so with you on the “pandemic shopping hangover”. When it was hard to find items, I overbought when they finally arrived back on the shelves (I’m looking at you multiple pounds of dried beans). I also tend to overbuy when it is on a good sale. I don’t really need ten of something when there are just two of us.
Heather M
Your skillet sounds delicious!!! I have really enjoyed reading about your meals. 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jessica, like others, I hope the tests you are undergoing will yield some answers so that you can feel better soon.
Jessica Fisher
Thank you!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/30/24
B: I had oatmeal with blueberries from the freezer. It may be the last bag, frozen from my mother’s bushes last summer. DH had some of the gifted sausage with an egg and grits.
L: last of the pimento cheese in sandwiches
D: we both had pulled pork sandwiches with slaw in hot dog buns. This kinda tears the DH out of his frame that the same tasting buns are not in the “correct” shape. LOL. Hey, it’s a challenge! I offered other options including an English muffin with the right shape but wrong taste or loaf bread-wrong taste and shape! Husbands-they can be funny:)
S: popcorn
I did do a limited shop this afternoon. Picked up coffee, bread, squash and zucchini (for us and for a dish ddil wants me to make for the baby’s first birthday) and cake mixes I’ll doctor up for cupcakes. Ds wanted white cupcakes , which call for egg whites only. I just happened to have frozen egg whites from making egg nog at Christmas, so that works out perfectly. Ddil is making the cake. I also picked up deli ham and cheese for sliders I’m going to make to take. I spent ~$20, but most of it was for the baby’s upcoming party so I’m definitely okay with that. That brings me to $73 for the month, which is a bit higher than I wanted, but if I subtract the items for next month, it puts me at about $50, which was my target.
I will be carrying on into February with targeted purchases. I saw in the ads that the lean ground chicken I can get for 1.50/# is on sale this week so I’ll be getting some of that. We didn’t stop at Aldi on our return home from our trip. But we have to make an out of town trip to VA to apply for TSA pre-check (a disadvantage of a small town) and will stop at Aldi then.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Oh, and I added Waldorf salad to dinner using the last small apple, celery, raisins and walnuts. No pineapple but had saved juice so used some of it. I found an old marshmallow (which I don’t typically put in there. I think I bought them for s’mores for young visitors at Labor Day) but I chopped it up and the juice in the dressing softened it up, and that got it out of the pantry.
Karen J
Ha! to your husband. Mine did the same thing when we had chili dogs on hamburger buns instead of hot dog buns. I have to say he’s been a pretty good sport this month, then again we haven’t needed to get into the really creative pantry challenge meals as I was so overstocked the first of the month. I’ve kind of missed putting the super odd ingredients together. 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Mine has been too, actually. I was plenty stocked too, partly due to as you said “buying 10 things when there are just 2 of us”. It’s been the redundancy of meals for us(pork and turkey) since we had big portions of those meats, that has been hard. I’m looking forward to some chicken, seafood and restocked produce. I do have some crabs in the freezer I definitely need to deal with-maybe in February!
Heather M
Jan 30: last minute late dinner out, as L wanted to run a late errand after work and I only had frozen leftovers for him and he’ll get those today.
B: L skipped; I had a piece of white toast with honey
L: L took a chicken salami arugula sandwich(chicken from roast chicken dinner), the rest of the blackberries, and pretzels/peanuts; I had a fried egg with 2 of those 97% fat free beef hot dogs, a few potato chips, and snacked on some of the lemon yogurt cake.
D: we ended up at a local diner chain which serves a lot of locally sourced and really awesome dishes, along with some diner favorites, The Silver Diner. I couldn’t torre muc, and they do such healthy things. So I ordered a cheese omelet and had them replace the home fries(skin on the potatoes so no go) with bacon and it came with a delicious biscuit- I only ate half the omelet and bacon; L ordered a cup of crab chowder and a lamb merguez shaksuka and loved it!
Heather M
Jessica, I can relate to all those blood tests- this time last year (dec-Jan-Feb) I had piles and piles of them, along with other diagnostics. Good luck and I hope you find some answers soon! <3
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
I remember last year when you were having all of your tests. Glad you got some resolution from them with a plan of care. I know you’ll be glad to have your procedure out of the way to go back to eating more varied foods!
Jessica Fisher
Thanks, Heather!
Maureen
I’m not sure how I went so many days without reading or posting, but I’m caught up. I fell off the planning/prepping wagon, but managed to keep our eating on track with the challenge. I made a few dinners using up a few things, but we’ve done a lot of leftovers and snacky meals using up bits from the fridge, etc. Details are a blur. My spending is down quite a bit this month, but what I’m more happy about is the time I’ve saved by not running errands (especially with the bad weather we’ve had). And it always helps to look at the habits (shopping and otherwise) that are really not working for me anymore. We still have a lot left, so I’ll be continuing through February and am glad some others plan to stick around for a bit. Definitely enjoying the white space, but I need to completely wipe out the fridge and inventory more of the freezer, so that I can get back on track with planning.
Heather M
Hi Maureen! It must feel good to know you’ve been using things ups no matter how it’s happened. I’m right there with you continuing into February. I’d really like to clean out the freezer and lower the stash if things in the cupboards, as I know there are things that need using or I’ll feel the need to toss them a year from now And I hate waste. I’d also like to store food we really do use regularly and not all the randomness I keep finding. 🙂
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
That’s great that you were able to stick to the challenge regardless! Well done, and I’ll see you here in February!