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!
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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?
Stephanie M
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Good morning everyone. I’m going to continue trying to move on with the pantry challenge but we’ve had a massive scare
I’ve mentioned in my posts that my husband Paul is on a business trip. We live in Virginia and two days ago he had to fly to Savannah for his first stop. Yesterday he was scheduled to fly for the next four days to Ontario California. He had to make a connection in Dallas and most flights were cancelled due to snow. Of all places!! He sat in the airport for 15 hours while his flight was still scheduled to go. It was off and on for all of those hours. Finally they de iced a plane and they were able to leave. They were met with a bad wind storm over Ontario and tried to land three times but had to go back up again. The plane at one point turned on its side because of the wind and people were getting sick and there was screaming and crying. They ended up being diverted to los Angeles where he saw all of the fires burning before they landed. Paul used to have a pilots license and fly small planes so he was well aware of what was happening. It was a horrible day and I’m just grateful that they were able to land this plane safely. I have no idea why it even took off to begin with because we all saw on the news about this wind storm. Anyway I’m shook up today hearing about this and I’m going to continue on with the pantry challenge but I just needed to talk. Thank you for listening.
Allie from Ontario
What a scary day Stephanie…I’m so happy that your husband & the other passengers are safe. I have flown a lot in the winter months, crossing Canada to the west coast and when flights are delayed or cancelled due to weather, so many people are enraged….stories like this clearly show important those calls by the airlines actually are. I hope today can be relaxing day to help clear away the very real physical/emotional effects that anxiety like that produces.
Stephanie M
Thank you so much Allie. You’re absolutely right about understanding why the airlines make the decisions they do in order to keep us all safe. I’m just so shaken by this. Thankfully I have my 11 month old grandson with me to babysit to keep my mind busy with him.
Kathy in Denmark
Oh no, that IS really scary! So glad everything turned out well in the end, but I’m sure this experience will stay with both you and your husband for a long time.
Sending hugs and thoughts across the pond!
Stephanie M
Thank you so much Kathy.
I’m certain you’re right. I’ve always loved flying and I realize that these things are rare but still it gives me pause now. Paul is a much braver person than me and although he will never forget this, it won’t be something that will stop him from flying. He actually has to go back to Savannah a few days after he comes home and back to California in a few weeks. Then I’m happy to say the project he’s been working on is over and this traveling will slow down.
Maureen
Such a scare! I am so glad that everyone is fine and on the ground. My father was an airline pilot, so I always heard stories about the calls they make to cancel flights. I hope you can enjoy your day with the little one. They are amazing at easing our minds sometimes.
Stephanie M
Thank you so much Maureen. What a terrible thing to have happened. And my boy Mason is really keeping my spirits up. Thank you!
Kim from Colorado
Oh my goodness, how scary! Praying he gets back home soon safe and sound!
Stephanie M
Thank you so much Kim. I can’t wait to see him and I can’t wait for this project to be done and a major slowing down of all this traveling.
Karen J
Oh my gosh, Stephanie, lots of hugs for that man when he gets home. So so scary.
Stephanie M
Thank you so much Karen! I can’t wait to wrap my arms around him. Such a terrible scare and he’s so far away. Thank you!
Heather M
OMG Stephanie. How awful. Please feel free to text/call me whenever you need an ear. I’ll be out tonight, but home until 6ish.
Danielle Zecher
OMG, that’s horrible and terrifying. I hope Paul’s flight home is nice and uneventful.
Kathy in Denmark
Day 9:
B: Oats and milk for DH, oatmeal porridge for DD1, rye porridge for DD2, Greek yoghurt with cut up fruit, seeds and nuts for me. Coffee for me later on 🙂
L: DH eats at work, packed lunch for DD1, healthy school lunch fro DD2. I had the last of the LO soup. I skipped bread.
D: Saffron potato pie and Spanish tortilla, mixed salad and bread on the side.
Saffron potato pie sounds very fancy, and it kind of is, but it is a really good dish which is packed with flavour and quite a bit of veg. It is made with puff pastry in top, so is relatively quick to make. Other than potatoes, it is filled with spinach, mushrooms and cheese. I usually use Manchego, but most hard cheeses will do.
DD1 isn’t a big fan of this pie, and frankly I would have to double the recipe to have enough, so I also made a Spanish tortilla with potatoes and onions. I had both in the oven at the same time.
I also heated up the 1/2 loaf of sourdough bread I had left and served that+rye bread for the tortilla.
Heather M
That potato pie sounds delicious! I make a potato and spinach torta which sounds similar, but has no crust. I switch out cheeses based on what we have. My son it turns out loves it and we’ve eaten it several times this Fall/Winter so far. Spanish tortillas are also a favorite! You ate well!
Stephanie M
Thursday, January 9, 2025
B – bran cereal with banana and blueberries
L – chicken salad on whole wheat.
D – ate at my daughter’s house since Paul is away on a business trip.
Karen J
Jessica, that pot pie looks so good! I’ve used your cream of whatever recipe many times with celery, mushroom or chicken. Saves me from buying the Campbell’s can from the store and tastes better too.
Breakfast-made at home egg McMuffin with ham, egg and cheese
Lunch-leftover turkey pot pie soup
Dinner-French dips with au jus, air fryer french fries, salad
I had a busy morning volunteering in my youngest grandkid’s first grade class. We planted radishes and lettuce in the outside school garden in the absolutely pouring rain. Kids had a great muddy time-I’m not sure if anything will sprout as we have a cold snap on its way., I just help where I’m asked. We brought the group back in, hung up drippy coats and I bid them good-bye to go home and eat soup.
Kathryn M
Day 9 Lunch: Chicken salad sliders. Deli Potato Salad. I was out of sliced bread so I used some Hawaiian dinner rolls. I put more pickled onion on the sandwiches – it is almost gone.
Dinner: Naan bread pizza. I made two and put one in a container for work lunch on Thursday. Used up the rest of a sad looking bell pepper. Pepperoni, onion, and mushroom were the rest of what I grabbed to add to the pizza with along with a generous amount of mozzarella. There is now only one serving of pizza sauce left in the jar.
No snacks other than a little candy I was gifted for Christmas. I was busy with projects and didn’t slow down to eat between meals.
If you are wondering – with my current work schedule I rarely eat breakfast – just caffeinate on the way out the door. I was off on Tuesday, but still skipped it.
Heather M
Jan 9: I actually got some sleep, which has been tricky since this bout of vertigo (1:30am-6:30am; I didn’t get up but read and fell asleep again at 8 until 11:30!! I’m not a big sleeper so I clearly needed it). And it poured rain all day. Luckily I had planned to make soup. I also inventoried our stuffed full freezer (we only have the one attached to our fridge in the kitchen ñ). I was stunned at just how much food we have in there. Proteins for at least 2 months, probably longer if we aren’t picky. Lots of frozen veg and fruit even. Plus other odds and ends. So I will be focusing on using things up from it- some things have been in over a year and need using up asap. Maybe next week I’ll inventory the cupboards.
B: we both skipped (lol I slept)
L: L ate the salami/lettuce sandwich and apple he never ate on Monday; I had a piece of stollen from the neighbors(they give us a homemade one each Christmas), some crackers and cheese
D: white bean, cauliflower, potato soup(I heavily adapted a NYT recipe which I also cut in half so no leftovers), pan con tomate – was a delicious hearty, plant-based meal. Am also trying to incorporate more plant based dinners, along with vegetarian, though we for sure eat plenty of animal based proteins etc. It just seems like a good idea to have the variety.
Karen J
I’m right there with you in being shocked about how much food we had when I did my freezer and pantry inventory. An example would be the eight bags of dried beans and twenty three cans of beans for the two of us. Good thing that we love beans and rice! So far it’s been no problem at all to do decent meals without any shopping.
I’m glad you had a good sleep night to help get rid of that vertigo.
Heather M
Thanks, Karen! Yeah I’m a little afraid to inventory my cupboards. I may just on in and choose random things that idk why we have and come up with something to make with them. I’m still using things up from the cobo area anyways, so maybe this will be a good strategy to clean them up a bit. It’s those random things that are so pesky and run the risk of being tossed.
Heather M
Ok wow the spelling was a mess in there, “go in and choose” and cobo area should be cupboards….
Jennifer
B – we all had scones and either yogurt, fruit or turkey sausage
L – dh took something from the freezer, I had a fried egg sandwich
D – I made a pasta bake using the last bit of ground sausage, 1/2 block of mozzarella cheese, the last of a box of pasta (plus the start of another one) and a can of tomato sauce, served with peppers
Snacks – I got a mocha at Starbucks and had candy and a fruit leather. We have so much holiday candy still!
Heather M
We also have so many treats from Christmas hanging around! What can we do….
Tasty
You can’t waste the treats . . .
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
1/9
B: another toasted English muffin and coffee for me, not sure what DH ate
L: I had an appointment that went long. When I arrived home after lunch, my DH had picked up a sub. (Eye roll). I ate a leftover quesadilla from the fridge and fruit.
D: decided DH needed a break from turkey, so I fixed ribs in the crock pot with broccoli salad, baked sweet potatoes and fruit for sides.
S: corn chips
Allie from Ontario
Jan 9
Brunch = I had a smoothie & Ryvita + peanut butter and T had corn chicken chowder (freezer). I also finished off some homemade Russian dressing (fridge) with some carrots sticks.
Dinner = a 1 pan pasta. I raided the freezer for roasted cherry tomatoes, peas, pancetta & pesto and the last of a brick of cream cheese also went in (fridge). I topped T’s pasta with some garlic sauteed shrimp (I cook them but don’t eat them) which made him happy and also used up an open bag of frozen shrimp which worked for me 🙂
During a pre-dinner “dig around” in the fridge, freezer & pantry I was a chagrined to find 2 more unopened bricks of cream cheese, 2 additional (opened!) bags of shrimp (how?? why??) and 2 bottles of Lea & Perrins (that is a lot of Worcestershire!). Clearly, committing to this challenge was the right move!
Heather M
Yeah isn’t fun to find all those open things there need using?? At least you know you have them now. Good luck with the extra cream cheese. Maybe a dessert is called for here?
Danielle Zecher
I’m in western NC, and we had torrential rain yesterday (six inches in about 12 hours), and our crawl space flooded, which shorted out our sump pump and heat. It can’t be repaired until the water recedes. So, I decided to do some baking last night to help warm up the house. If anyone has any recipes with a long bake time, I’d love to see them, since I’m planning to use the oven as much as possible today. Our house is small and really holds heat, so using the oven makes a huge difference.
Breakfast: I had a muffin and hot tea. I think Nick had drive-thru on the way to work.
Lunch: We both had leftover pizza.
Dinner: Turkey noodle soup (using leftover Thanksgiving turkey from the freezer), carrots, onions, and some celery that needed to be used, as well as one of the many bags of egg noodles we have. I’m not sure how I ended up with so many bags of egg noodles! It ended up being a huge batch, but our neighbors are driving back from Florida today, so I’ll drop some off at their house so they won’t have to worry about figuring out dinner after the long drive.
I also made a batch of apple crisp, which served many purposes: using up some apple pie filling and cake mix, warming up the house, and improving our attitudes over the no heat situation.
Jessica Fisher
Cheesy potatoes bake for two hours and are perfect comfort food!
Lynn from NC OuterBanks
Danielle, I feel you your pain. I remember long ago and our heat went out and another time when our sump pump went out, flooding our basement. Neither were good situations and to have both happen:( And it’s cold today.
Hope you’ll dry out soon so your heat can be restored. Meanwhile, cook on!
We didn’t get as much rain as you, here on the other end of NC, but had heavy winds, gusting to 100 mph! Our power was on and off last night several times but did come back on and remain on about bedtime.
Heather M
Oh gosh Danielle, I’m sorry you guys flooded and are dealing with no heat. We only got about 3 inches in the same storm, which was bad enough. Baking and cooking slow type dishes is a great strategy. Love Jessica’s cheesy potatoes idea. You could also slow braise a protein or a stew. Or bake a cake in a loaf pan instead of 8×8 or 9×9; it’ll take longer.
Jennifer
Instead of muffins make quick bread. Bakes for 45 minutes. Sorry about your weather mess
Kathy in Denmark
I have read through the comments for the last couple of days and loved reading comments from both seasoned and new participants. So much fun!
We are finally properly on the mend, which I can tell by the fact that everyone is eating more! There’s still a few sniffles and coughs, but that’s to be expected.
Here’s what we had on day 8 and 9 🙂
Day 8:
B: Oats and milk for DH, HM bread with honey and LO hot cocoa with whipped cream for the girls. HM bread with jam and coffee for me
L: DH eats at work, Bread and different toppings for the girls and I
D: Naan bread pizzas and oven-baked pasta plus salad
S: Bread, crisps, crackers, tea
Day 9:
B: Oats and milk for DH, Rye porridge for DD2, DD1 slept in. Coffee and toast for me
L: DH eats at work, Packed lunch for DD1, LO over-baked pasta for DD2, Bread topped with tuna mayo for me
Afternoon snack: More rye porridge for DD2
D: Rye bread with choices of fried egg, fish fillet, vegetarian nuggets. Served with cut up veggies.
Danielle Zecher
Glad everyone is finally feeling better!
Heather M
So glad you’re all starting to feel better 🙂
Tasty
Glad you are all starting to feel better..
Tasty
Tuesday 9th
B: hubby had yogurt and a muffin before heading to the gym, I had the rest of the apple sauce with yogurt and granola.
For a mid morning snack during a working meeting with friends I used up a fruit loaf from the freezer and some cookies from Christmas.
L: Chicken sandwiches
S: I read that the 9th was cassoulet day and that reminded me that we had some cassoulet in the freezer. Hey, easy supper with some brussels sprouts. We emptied one ice cream container taking up space in the kitchen freezer and started on another one.
Anyway more space is appearing and I still have not been in a grocery store this year. It does mean we are using up some of the frozen fruit and veggies I stock up on as a fall back but that’s fine. I’m good with that. I know that by the end of the week I will have to buy more yogurt and some fresh fruit and veggies, but it will be limited buying for sure. Love reading how everyone else uses up the odds and ends lurking in the depths! Happy eating and savings to all.
Karen J
One of the very favorite meals of my entire life was the cassoulet we had years ago in a little restuarant in southern France. I’d never had it before and have had dreams about that meal ever since. I think it was the location, atmosphere, ordering totally in French (which we basically don’t speak), and yes, the delicious food. Thanks for reviving a vacation memory!
Kathy in Denmark
Soooo – it’s been a while since I commented, but I am jumping back on the band wagon!
We have been busy with different things, so I gave up writing down our meals. I can tell you that we had HM nachos one night and smørrebrød (google it) at my MIL another day, but I can’t really remember what else we had.
Day 9
B: Oats and milk for DH, oat porridge for DD1, rye porridge for DD2, toast and coffee for me
L: DH eats at work, packed lunch for the kids, rye bread with serrano ham for me
D: Whole chicken thighs, vegetarian nuggets, fish fillet with boiled potatoes, hollandaise, sweetcorn and broccoli.
I had purchased a whole free range chicken and I cut it up as I usually do: The whole thighs are one dinner, the chicken breasts are cut from the bone and the skin is removed. I froze these individually. The rest og the bird is boiled for broth and I pick the meat off the bones afterwards.
Since DH is vegetarian and DD2 likes very little meat (including chicken), I seasoned the chicken thighs and put them in the oven along with the fish fillet and the veggie nuggets and everyone was happy!
I also boiled extra potatoes to have on hand.
We pretty much have the same thing for breakfast every day and lunches don’t change much either. I’m ok with that, I vary what I put in the kids’ lunchboxes and DH gets something different every day at work. The rye with some sort of protein as topping is healthy, easy and tasty. Danes miss rye bread the most when travelling 🙂
Heather M
Day 9:
B: L skipped; I had 2 pieces of toast with Trader Joe’s cinnamon bun spread (this is a fall seasonal thing and so yummy
L: For L, I took the avocado ranch salad kit and added the leftover mexican spiced chicken from saturday, some of the leftover bacon from sunday, and chopped tomato. Split it into two containers and sent him with one of them, plus a piece of sourdough and 2 mandarins. I took two of the smaller leftover baked potatoes and scraped them out of their jackets again(so sad, a few more days) and had a repeat of sunday’s dinner with the rest of the bacon, a little cheese and sour cream.
D: found in the freezer: a little cooked bite sized pork, a small ziploc of cooked sliced mushrooms(I was good a few days this Fall and saved some things instead of letting them go to waste), and a smaller sirloin steak. So i cooked up the steak in a little soy sauce after slicing and set aside some for me; then sauteed the last bell pepper and some red onion, then added the mushrooms and pork and sprinkled it all with some ground ginger. Then a quick asian sauce i made with beef broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce and a dash of sriracha, and added a little cornstarch slurry to thicken. Added the rest of the steak to it, heated up the leftover rice, and dinner. L had the delicious (he raved about the sauce, i don’t measure when I cook like this, alas) stir-fry over rice and I had the steak and rice with a tiny bit of leftover sauce from our favorite peruvian chicken place. At least there was a little flavor.
Dessert: someone dropped off a small baggie of homemade chocolate chip cookies without nuts, luckily.
Starting to see a bit of room in the freezer, from its prior stuffed silly status. Not much, but a little space. And, we aren’t wasting anything. Yay! Also, stopped by the store when I realized I needed an item to prep for Thursday and it was surprisingly cheapest at Harris Teeter (over CVS and Target). I found a pound of deli turkey on clearance for $3.99 (from 7.99) and the sell by date not until Friday. Both will be helpful for L the rest of the week. Also grabbed a loaf of bread on sale. Spent on food: $6.54 (we are a state that has taxed food for ages but they just dropped it to 1% in 2023… I hope it’s gone one day. Regressive tax for sure). Total so far this month: $16.66. This will definitely go way up once I can indulge in fresh produce again. L is eating up the produce I did buy and it should be gone by the weekend.
Maureen
Your little trip sounds fantastic. I hope you are enjoying yourself! I did a 9 hour drive in a day last year to grab my son from college and it reminded me that I like traveling by car by myself. I also enjoyed the 9 hour return trip the next day with him in the car, although neither trip gave us much time for stops.
Kathy
I wanted to make tacos tonight but had no tortillas in the house. I made my first batch of homemade. Lots of lessons learned. I will need keep working on these. They ended up quite crunchy so we broke them up into bowls and put our taco toppings on top. Yum. I do the pantry challenge every January and love reading your posts. There are two of us and my inventory suggested I can make at least 30 meals for the month, which also provides us a lot of leftovers for lunch.
JulieT from MN
B-I had homemade granola with milk. Hubby had an orange and cinnamon toast.
L-last of the pheasant sausage chopped up and friend with onions and peppers. Added to scrambles eggs with cheese and toast and homemade strawberry jam. We had an afternoon appointment so we needed a quick meal.
D-Invited to a friends house. I brought a quart of pickled asparagus. They made the meal, very yummy! Taco tator tot hot dish, coleslaw, and fresh rolls. I have to get the recipe for the hot dish it was yummy!
For Lynn-we took some pheasant meat into our local meat market and they made pheasant brats for us. We eat them whole in buns or I like to dice them up and add them to things. They packaged them 4 to a package, so for the two of us it makes 3 meals usually. My husband loves to hunt and we have pheasant in Minnesota, plus he makes at least 2 trips to SD and will be going to Kansas this next week to hunt pheasant. He also got a deer (young buck-so very tender) this fall so we will be having some venison in the next few weeks.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Juliet T, I am so intrigued by the pheasant! I’m not sure why except I guess that’s not something (typically) available around here and something I’ve never tasted. From what I’ve read, it sounds really good. We don’t hunt, but we have friends who do. My BIL goes north, into Canada, to hunt grouse. We were given venison sausage balls at Christmas that were tasty. We were also given a wild boar roast recently. At first, I was unsure about eating it (our friend prepared it for us and he’s a great cook). Then I thought that it was basically “free range” pork and it was quite good once I got up the nerve to try it! Silly I know. This same friend also gave us some bear ribs awhile back though I wasn’t a fan of that-too chewy and gamey for my palate! I had to talk myself into that also.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Jan 9
B: coffee
L: soup and a steak sandwich with peppers and onions (all from freezer) for DH and me
D: spaghetti using rescued LO sauce and meat and veggies from freezer/ fridge as add ins, Asian salad
S: HM hummus and raw veggies
I can actually see a bit of white space in my freezer, after removing a few items that I needed for some meal prep. Excited!
ZC from MA
B: yogurt, granola and half a grapefruit
L: bought at work
D: beef stew with potatoes and tomatoes, brown rice
S: strawberries, a cup of hemp milk
Kathryn M
Still on the road travelling. Long story is that I am transporting a vehicle that I left at a friends house a few weeks ago. Instead of a one day marathon drive, I decided to make it a fun road trip by only travelling 3 hours a day and sightseeing on the way. I will be on the road today and tomorrow. I am off work all week so a mini vacation was in order. Got to stop at sights that I have driven by a lot but never had a chance to see.
Breakfast – Hotel had pancakes! I also ate fruit, a bowl of cereal, and lots of hot chocolate and juice.
Lunch – stopped at rest area and finished off a couple of ham and cheese sliders from the cooler and a tiny hotel yogurt.
Dinner – finished of the rest of the leftovers from my mini-cooler. There was some of the restaurant food from Friday and bread pudding.
My leftovers are completely gone now. I will either do fast food or stop to grab something portable at a grocery. Filling up on hotel breakfast is helpful as I only need a light lunch.
I was so busy yesterday that I didn’t even snack other than to drink some soda…..
Lynn from NC Outer Banks
Your trip sounds like great fun! Enjoy.