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 9 of the Pantry Challenge!
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I’ll send you budget recipes and money-saving tips every week!
Today was a busy one since I was gone for most of the day.
What We Ate
Breakfast – I made sourdough crumpets and scrambled eggs.
Lunch – Packed a lunch of chicken legs, banana, and yogurt since I was gone most of the day.
Dinner – The kids made pancakes and bacon for themselves while Bryan and I had date night.
How did Day 9 go for you?
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jessica, those crumpets look delish. One of these years during the challenge, I’m gonna post that I have begun making a portion of our breads! It remains a goal of mine!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Well, Stephanie I’m not sure what happened to my longer reply to your terrifying report of Paul’s plane trip. But I am so thankful for all of you that he landed safely. As I said in that comment, that would probably end this nervous flier’s (me!) adventures. I know you’ll be glad for him to finally get back home to VA.
B: egg casserole, coffee. DH had same.
L: made African peanut soup which we really like. It was perfect on this cold day. It uses as a base, chicken and rice soup for which I always use my hm version. Also ate the hm cornbread and DH had a sandwich and chips along with the soup.
D: for dinner I fixed one of my favorite recipes from Jessica, her jambalaya. It is delicious and we usually eat it over spaghetti squash per the recipe. But since we had lo cauliflower rice and half and half rice, we ate it over that instead to use it up. Added apples and cucumber slices to round out the meal.
I’ve been doing lots of cooking these days. One, to use up the eggs, but also I enjoy cooking when it’s cold. It helps warm up the house.
About the last 3eggs…I read about freezing them for use later, so that’s what I did! They are now in the freezer.
Kathryn M
Brunch- pancakes and blueberry syrup, hot cocoa
Dinner- spaghetti with added cheese.
S – spicy trail mix, danish butter cookies.
Not too exciting because it was a long work day for me.
Tasty
Day 9
B: the usual fruit etc. I had some toast and h/m lemon curd, hubby had a muffin.
L: treated ourselves to lunch out, as we had to go out anyway. Went to a little local place that only serves crepes and they are so good. Hubby had tuna and I had ham and cheese – quite yummy.
S: cheese on toast
This was not a great day for the pantry challenge but that’s life.
Danielle L Zecher
I only slept for a couple of hours Wednesday night. Ever since Helene, I can’t seem to sleep when it’s windy. I can’t wait for that to change!
I had to be in the office, so I went to Starbucks on the way for a caffeine fix. I think Nick also went to a drive-thru.
Lunch: We both had leftover pizza.
Dinner: I didn’t get from work until almost 8:00, and Nick was setting up the new generator and assembling its shed ahead of the snow today (they’ve all but guaranteed power outages since our grid is so fragile post-Helene), so we opted to make dinner easy and got food from Cracker Barrell.
I hope everyone in the path of the fires and winter storm is staying safe!
Heather M
So glad to hear Stephanie M’s husband is ok after quite the flying scare! And hoping they all can feel some calm after it.
Jan 9:
It was my every 8 week biologic infusion thursday which means I’m knocked a bit and mostly am on the couch lying down the rest of the day and night, and today is even a bit iffy, and I need to take it easy. So I prepped a favorite salad I created back in the early pandemic days for food for thursday, then I never ate it, lol. Here’s what I could piece together for the day, person by person instead of by meal:
C(son): toasted turkey and cheese on sourdough; then he was gone the rest of the day/evening(fed govt was given off at least locally for Carter’s funeral) seeing movies all over town and grabbed dinner somewhere.
L(husband): worked from home and ate some of the salad I prepped(quinoa, italian tinned oil packed tuna, garbanzos, celery, red onion, seasonings, red wine vinegar), tortilla chips, cantaloupe, peanuts(they’re gone- he has lots of almonds and pistachios still), not sure what else
Me: a few snacks at the infusions(they provide snacks); a late lunch(i’m gone for hours for the infusion) of tuna w/ sliced cucumber and the leftover half and half rice mixed with leftover sauce from over the holidays when we picked up our favorite peruvian chicken; tortilla chips with street corn dip; ice cream – comfort food all the way on these days.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Heather, I’m glad the fusion is behind you for 8weeks, and hoping you are feeling better. Perfect time for comfort food, especially such delicious sounding comfort food.
Karen J
Day 9
A fun and busy day. I volunteered in both my youngest grandkids’ classrooms (2nd and 4th), then went to the theater to see the musical Legally Blonde with girlfriends, topping the night off with dinner at a favorite waterfront restaurant.
B-scrambled eggs with spinach and rye toast
L-small portion of leftover harissa chicken (as to not ruin my appetite)
D-out with theater friends
Is anyone else enjoying reading the comments from 2024? I find it interesting that we have so many of us that are veteran pantry challengers and I like that we are getting to “know” each other. And welcome to the new friends! For me it’s a tradition-thanks again, Jessica, for hosting!
Heather M
It’s so fun! Love the friendships that we’ve all developed over the years here. Also love that you had a super fun evening out!
Kim from Colorado
B- various people had cereal, bagel, yogurt
It was another work day for me so lunch and dinner were a random mix. Last of the lo chicken parm, cinnamon roll brought in by a co-worker, mandarins, apple, blueberries, something else I think. Didn’t do very good on the veggies today, I need to get some prepped at home to make them easier to bring along.
Rest of family had ribs for dinner, not sure what their sides were, didn’t see any evidence as leftovers.
Hoping for a chance to finish my freezer inventory this weekend! We seem to be low on proteins
Maureen
Leftovers for lunch. I prepped chicken tacos and quesadillas for everyone for dinner because we had a split schedule and everyone could make those easily on their own when they were ready. Well, I was the only one that ate them (when I got home at 10pm). So, I guess they are back on the menu in the next day or two. And I’m not really sure what everyone ate instead.
Allie from Ontario
It was -20 C at 8 this morning and I’m so happy I made a week’s worth of steel cut oats!
What we ate on Jan 9
Brunch: I had my oats early (so good with slivered almonds + a little apple butter stirred in) and then around noon, finished my portion of last night’s Italian wedding soup. T was up and gone early to help his father in town & get a hair cut so he finished his share of the leftovers closer to noon and then had some crackers & laughing cow cheese in the afterrnoon.
Dinner: I marinated a small bavette steak early (lots of fridge jar “damage” to make the marinade) and I also made a very “pickly/assertive” celery salad with home canned pepperoncini peppers, roasted red peppers from the freezer, red wine vinegar, olive oil & some whole smashed garlic cloves. It is meant to sit in the fridge for the day and then before serving you remove the garlic and then I added grated carrots & sliced yellow peppers for some freshness & variety. It was really good beside our grilled/thinly sliced steak + some baby potatoes roasted with garlic, rosemary & thyme.
Maureen
That whole dinner sounds fantastic! And I had never heard of bavette steak, so off to google I went.
Allie from Ontario
Some websites say flank steak but these look different to me and are typically sold in much smaller pieces (ie this was purchached as an 8 oz steak). To me they have the look of a skirt steak more so than a flank.
Heather M
Ok YUM! Amazing dinner! Sounds like an ideal side next to steak and potatoes! And, yeah, I’m tired of our cold and we are only getting down to -6C at night, but had windchills yesterday lower. Can’t imagine your cold!
Tasty
Trust me Heather, you don’t want to become acquainted with -20C – it’s not nice!