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 7 of the Pantry Challenge! I don’t know about you, but that first week went by pretty quickly! How are we already one week down?
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I am not yet at 100%. As I’ve explained to others, I seem to find myself in a constant state of meh.
This week the girls start back to classes so our daily schedules at home will be mostly back to normal. Hopefully, my sense of wellbeing will follow!
What We Ate
Breakfast – The last of the frozen Chocolate Chip Scones from Christmas.
Lunch – Leftovers and green salads for some, Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for others.
Dinner – Dinners most of this week are recipe development projects. Tonight was a chicken casserole. The recipe will be coming your way in February or March!
How did Day 7 go for you?
Heather M
Day 7:
Plans with friends Sat. night were canceled, since they have sickness in their house. I was sad, but it was for the best, as we don’t want to get sick if we can avoid it.
B: L slept in and skipped; I had a piece of stollen, knowing that starting at dinner, no more: nuts, seeds, corn, vegetables & fruits cooked or raw, skins(like potato) until after my thursday afternoon procedures.
L: L ate popcorn and the rest of an open package of prosciutto; I had the plate of pupusas with their accompanying cabbage slaw and tomato sauce(the traditional way they’re served) that my husband had brought home to me Thursday night. SO GOOD!
D: mexican spiced chicken rice bowls- mine with just the chicken and rice, L also with shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, and salsa.
I forgot to report that ended up buying a few fresh things on Thursday when I went to Target, mainly so L has some healthy stuff while I can’t have it- I spent $10.12 on lettuce, spinach, a salad kit, and tomatoes. First grocery spending of the year.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, you definitely didn’t want to get sick with your procedures coming up. That’s a long haul til Thur afternoon. Know it will be good to have it over with.
The reason you didn’t recognize the restaurant I visited is that I got the name wrong. It was Filomena’s!! That may be more familiar to you. I can’t wait to ask my DD if they have eaten at the sushi place you visited.
Heather M
OK, Filomena’s makes so much more sense! It’s such an institution in DC and everyone loves it. I looked up Josephinas and there was nothing anywhere in the area, so I was a little confused. 🙂 Glad you were able to enjoy your time here! We love living here so much.
Jennifer
B- homemade apple muffins and strawberries
L – leftovers for dh and I, dd made a roll up, cheez-its and a rice krispie treat, ds had mac n cheese with tuna and bacon
D – dh and I went out with friends before a concert, ds at work, dd had leftovers
Easy day!
ZC from MA
B: yogurt, granola and berries, coffee
L & D: beef, tofu and napa cabbage in sukiyaki sauce, rice
–I tried out a few Japanese recipes last year and still have some ingredients left (kombu, dried bonito flakes and mirin). One goal I have for the PC is to use them up. So today I made dashi (Japanese soup stock) with all the remaining kombu and bonito flakes, and improvised a sukiyaki sauce with mirin, sugar and soy sauce. The recipe also calls for sake but I don’t have any, so I just left it out. With these prepared, lunch and dinner were “hot pot” style with a few slices of beef, napa cabbage, tofu and rice. I have extra dashi and sauce frozen/refrigerated, and I’m already thinking about how to use them.
S: red bean mochi cake, half a grapefruit
Emily
B- Cream cheese, avocado and scrambled eggs on toast with a Mandarin.
L- leftover beef dip sandwich with some pop chips, half an orange and the last 3 gf Oreos.
D- tomato soup, grilled cheese with bacon.
S- the last glass of wine from a bottle opened on Christmas and a couple pieces of Christmas candy.
JulieT from MN
B: pumpkin muffin and coffee for me, hubby had toast and orange juice
L: L/O pheasant wild rice soup, crackers, and cheese
D: Out with friends, they bought as we helped them put their car topper on their new car. I had a Rueben and hubby had a cheeseburger.
Stephanie M.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
B – I had overnight oatmeal and peanuts.
L – Paul had a ham and cheese panini. I had a turkey sandwich and an apple.
D – leftover broccoli and macaroni with garlic and olive oil and grilled chicken.
Went to the hand orthopedist for a check on my broken hand. It’s been four weeks now since my fall and he said I can remove my brace now but I still want to sleep with it on for another two weeks to make sure I don’t injure it while I’m sleeping. I am trying to write but I can’t put much pressure on a pen yet but little by little it’s healing. He said the swelling could take between 6 months and one year! That seems crazy to me. Most of the swelling is gone but when I make a fist I still can’t see the knuckle below my pointer finger. I’m just so happy for the progress. Paul has been a huge help to me but it’s time now for me to start doing what I can myself and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Tasty
Glad to see your hand is improving Stephanie., I`m sure that has to have been very frustrating, not able to do much.
Saturday January 7th
B – fruit, yogurt and granola + a muffin for each of us
L – egg salad on buns – had hardboiled eggs that needed using up, buns from the freezer
S – we were tending bar at the curling club and ate there – steak baked potato and carrots, apple cake for dessert
Stephanie M.
Thank you so much tasty!! I’m feeling much better now that I’m able to do more. Having everything done for me including Paul tying my sneaker laces gets old. It’s good to have some of my independence back. Lol.
Heather M
Great news on your hand Stephanie! Yay! 🙂
Stephanie M.
Thank you so much Heather!!!
Danielle L Zecher
I’m glad your hand is doing better.
Stephanie M.
Thank you very much Danielle!!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Glad your healing is progressing, Stephanie!
Stephanie M.
Thank you very much Lynn!!
Kathryn M
B:cereal
L: Nachos
D: Spaghetti
Danielle L Zecher
Breakfast: McDonald’s. This has become a VERY bad habit!
Lunch: Leftover cottage pie.
Dinner: Hubby had leftover cottage pie. I cooked some frozen potstickers for myself.
Marci
This PC we had very little protein in our freezer, lots of fruit, veggies and starches. My daughter baked bread for about 4 days before she quite on me- lol. So a grocery run was in order today.
B- yogurt, pumpkin bread
L- turkey sandwich
D- enchiladas
Desert- cookies
JulieT
Day 6
B:homemade blueberry muffins and coffee
L: LO Swedish meatballs/ mashed potatoes/ squash
D: pheasant wild rice soup/ crackers
Day 7
B: bacon, eggs, hash browns
L: rest of the LO Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes
D: LO pheasant wild rice soup and salads
Leftovers are cleared out again. I just pulled pheasant brats from the freezer for tomorrow.
Jennifer
I am playing catch up because we went out of town for a gymnastics meet.
Friday – Breakfast – we had fresh tortillas that needed using so I made a breakfast burrito with bacon, eggs and cheese, hubby had oatmeal, daughter had a bagel
Lunch – hubby took leftover lasagna from the freezer, fruit and granola bar, I took a lunchmeat roll up, pirate bootie, and peppers
Dinner – hubby took the boys out to dinner and a movie. My college son has been home 3 weeks and my husband had not seen him because he had covid and then my son went hunting. I headed out of town for gymnastics and daughter and I stopped for 3-D putt putting and a pizza dinner with a teammate.
tasty
Friday January 7th
B grapefruit, pineapple and yogurt for hubby, rhubarb and yogurt for me. We each had a muffin.
L – Hubby made a cheese sandwich when he came home, I had an egg salad sandwich.
S-We had the last of the turducken (from the freezer) we had for Christmas, with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts that needed to be used. We also finished off the jar of cranberry relish from the fridge. In keeping with the Christmas theme, we had Christmas ice cream
Heather M
Yummy dinner!!
Heather M
lol just realized I entered the 2022 comments. oops. 🙂
Anna
I have to say, I enjoy coming here each day to read what others have done!
Day 7 for us included:
B: cereal and fruit
L: kids had leftover turkey burgers and I snacked on things and had a salad
D: the 3 of us finished off the smoked turkey enchiladas with a salad.
My husband was at work and took his normal, snacky food for his shift.
Jen in Ohio
B: leftover quiche for me, I don’t think the boys ate anything
L: bits of leftovers, plus hot dogs in crescent rolls (had hot dogs to be used, but no buns lol, and crescent rolls are always popular around here, even with the adults), pomegranate, plus pickles for my pickle-addicted son
D: homemade stromboli (Pioneer Woman recipe, I made it at NYE but burned it some, so wanted to try again while it was fresh in my head), homemade pizza (using dough from the freezer), salad
I hadn’t made homemade pizza in a while, and it’s because I still can’t get it quite right. It’s too cold here to use our outdoor grill, but I think that would be fun to try in the summer. Homemade is certainly a lot cheaper than our usual Friday takeout or delivery pizza though, so I’d like to get better at it.
Jessica Fisher
Let me know how you struggle, Jen. What’s not “quite right”? We can troubleshoot.
Jen in Ohio
Thanks Jessica. The dough never comes out great. It’s hard to get the bottom part of the crust cooked well, and the outer crust kind of dries out, I guess? It doesn’t seem to rise nicely either, I think that might be a big part of it. When we order pizza, the crust is usually nice and airy. Ours is nothing like that lol.
I thought maybe that’s just part of trying to bake pizza in a home oven, rather than a commercial one with higher temps. We do have a pizza stone, but just one, so invariably I have one of the pizzas on a cookie sheet on the regular rack as well.
Carol B.
For gluten free pizza crust we like Baba Louis’ frozen crust from the freezer section in the grocery store.However, it may only be available in the Northeast. For homemade I have used “Gold Ancient Grain Pizza and Baking flour” . I got it from Amazon . King Arthur flour also has a gf recipe, I think.
I wanted to pass this along because it was your pizza making ( and directions) that gave me the inspiration to try homemade again after failures much earlier in my cooking career.
Maureen
We are feeling a little better here, so definitely over the worst of it. We have done a great job this first week at eating up leftovers, but I think part of that was more of us were home a lot. So, I’m hoping to be more mindful about how many leftovers we generate while cooking. This really helps me not have to throw things away each week. I found a stash of sausages and hotdogs in the freezer from grilling season this fall, so that’s what we had for dinner. There’s enough for 2 more dinners, so more later this month…and not on the grill. It’s way too cold here! I’m about to dig through the freezers and fridge a bit to generate a list to focus on using up this week.
Heather M
Skipped posting for the 6th. The 6th was my birthday and full of calls, facetimes, etc with family and friends. Son & I had a joint haircuts/highlights appointment at lunchtime which was a first, and awesome. We grabbed snacks at 7-11 on our way home since it was 3pm and we hadn’t had lunch! We of course had takeout because I don’t cook on my birthday. We got Lebanese from a favorite restaurant, which we haven’t had in ages. It was perfect. The 7th was helping my son pack, etc, midafternoon airport run (it’s just the 2 of us again now :(), then a trip to the store, hoping for more produce options this time. It was better for sure, but not like normal. I was able to get salad fixings, fruit, etc., so I feel less jittery about the empty crispers, lol.
Also, Jessica, your Iron Woman Salad sounds just delicious!
Jan 7:
B and L none of us ate real meals, snacked on baguette, I had a slice of cheese too. It was busy between work at home for my husband and trying to get my son’s stuff packed properly, and wanting a last few hours with him.
D: L and I finished off leftover takeout- chinese food from Wednesday and i still had a little lebanese left over. we ate early, since we weren’t good about eating much before
Now to really dive into the Challenge. I am officially in!
Jen in Ohio
Happy birthday Heather! Definitely agree with you about not cooking on your birthday.
Heather M
Thank you, Jen!
Stephanie M.
Friday, June 7, 2022
B – Paul had cereal. I had a yogurt parfait.
L – Paul had the last two leftover salmon burgers. I had a tuna fish sandwich.
D – brats on pretzel rolls and French fries.
Lara
I am behind on posting, but all of the last three days have been the same (boring, I know – HA)
B – I had a hard-boiled (InstaPot) egg and a slice of toast. Hubs is just about finished with the blueberry baked oatmeal he whipped up a few days ago.
L – Half a turkey & provolone sandwich; chips. Hub had some Christmas crackers and hummus.
D – I took a pasta bake out of the freezer on Wed. and it’s been dinner for Wed, Thur and today (Friday) along with a side salad. That’s all gone now and it freed up a good chunk of space in the freezer. Yay!
Laurie in TX
Sometimes I wonder if this crud will ever go away! Weather was dreary as was my mood.
B – I had 2 Jimmy Dean snack size biscuits with sausage, banana and a blueberry muffin. Hubs had a banana and muffin
L – Hubs had a turkey sandwich, chips and onion dip, I had a piece of string cheese, crackers and cashew clusters.
D – I felt my body craving something homemade and comforting so I made chicken noodle soup in the instant pot. We had yeast rolls from the freezer and/or crackers.