Pre-holiday pantry challenge

[tina95]

I would love to do this! Someone told me about a website you can plug in 1 or 2 items and it will find a dish to make, anyone know of this?

 

[christyhud]

I would love to do this! Someone told me about a website you can plug in 1 or 2 items and it will find a dish to make, anyone know of this?

There are probably others but I use allrecipes.com. It gives you the option of putting in up to four ingredients you want to use and four that you do not. HTH

 

[annsteere]

Tonight is chicken pot pie. One chicken breast, several partial bags of frozen veggies, home made "cream of chicken" soup substitute (white sauce made with a chicken boullion cube and poultry seasoning), and topped with biscuits of some Bisquick that has been in the closet a L-O-N-G time.

 

[WDWHo]

Grrrrrrr the kids begged and begged for pizza. Luckily dominos had a special $5.99 large one topping pick up deal.

 

[SnowandMittens]

Totally in... $25 a week for food for 2 20 somethings... I think I can do it.

The hard part is figuring out what to do with all of these Ramen noodles...

 

[momto1]

Tonight is Chili Mac and Cheese. So, I will be using up some leftover chili and a box of mac and cheese. So far this week, I have only bought milk.
Lori

 

[chocovrdmicears]

DH is out of town with work until tomorrow so it's been easy.
Last night DD7, DS6 and I had a bag of frozen tortellini and used 1/2 jar of sauce. Made rolls using my bread machine. Cut up cukes with ranch dressing for dipping sauce.
Tonight we had salad, and english muffin pizzas ( my favorite) using the rest of the sauce.

Tomorrow I am making American Chop Suey with a package of frozen ground turkey from the freezer, 1/2 box of elbow macaroni from the pantry, the little bit of sauce left and a can of Sloppy Joe sauce from the pantry. I have a loaf of Pepperidge Farm garlic bread in the freezer and I bought some fresh green beans that I will steam.

 

[lattemomof3]

Fun! I'm in - this helped me use up a lot last time I did this. I will try to shop in the pantry and freezer 1st and plan our meals around what I already have. I'll definately need to get fruits and veg's, dairy and bread, possibly some chicken. We have 1/4 beef in our garage freezer, and quite a bit of fish too. Maybe I'll try to do 1 or two beef meals/week, 1 fish, 1 vegetarian, we usually do 1 night that is breakfast for dinner (which is tomorrow night, we are having Mickey & Minnie pancakes w/ eggs & fruit, as we have gone past the 30 day mark for vacation), and I'll see how the rest of the week plays out. This should help save a bit of $ and help empty the fridge before we leave.

 

[mykidsand_i]

This is an awesome challenge, I'm in! I kind of started last week. On Sunday I made a 'mexican roast' in the slow cooker, tonight I took veggies out of the freezer, used my some of my stockpile of broth and made a tortilla beef soup. YUMMMMM. I only used part of the roast, so I'll freeze the rest of it and use it for taco pizza next week.

I just bought a huge stockpile of soups, rices and things and i've definatey got enough meat in the freezer to get me through! This is going to be fun.

 

[HLDisney]

Well, I'm not very good at stocking up so I don't think I'll make it until Thanksgiving but I'll see how long I can go. Tonight, I made French toast from a half-eaten loaf of bread that has been in the freezer for a while and getting stale. In the past, I probably would have ended up tossing it after a while but this time, I tried to think outside the box and ended up with breakfast for dinner

Helen

 

[tinkarooni]

OK, so today for dinner I had a little ham in the freezer, I had gotten it free with an order from Omaha Steaks. Than we had baked potatoes, homemade canned applesauce and green beans.

I have about 25 bags of home frozen corn so I got on Allrecipes.com and used the ingredient finder for corn and cornmeal and made corny cornbread to go with it.

I have about 60 lbs of potatoes in the basement from the garden, you'll see us eating potatoes often.

 

[NHWX]

I made it through Costco OK. Bread, bagels, milk, peanuts (those don't count, one kid would nearly starve without them), bananas, grapes.

Trader Joes was the downfall. I got cheese and hummus and then... cookies. I love those mini-meringues because they're only 1 calorie each. And then some how some more cereal made it into my basket.

Tomorrow will be better because I won't be going to a grocery store!

NHWX

 

[neatokimmo]

We had eggs and toast for breakfast. Today is my Birthday so dinner was out.

We are down to 6 oranges, hopefully Friday I'll be able to stick to my shopping rules.

 

[charming23]

So I picked the wrong week to try this. My Grocery Store is having a huge BOGO sale on meat this week and it is all meat that we use. I cleaned out my freezer and got rid of some items that I had no clue what they originally were lol. I will stock up on some stuff tomorrow and then it is freezer and pantry items all the way.

Tonight we did have left over stew from the freezer and I used noodles from the pantry to go with it.

 

[minniebeth]

I made it through Costco OK. Bread, bagels, milk, peanuts (those don't count, one kid would nearly starve without them), bananas, grapes.

Trader Joes was the downfall. I got cheese and hummus and then... cookies. I love those mini-meringues because they're only 1 calorie each. And then some how some more cereal made it into my basket.

Tomorrow will be better because I won't be going to a grocery store!

NHWX

Trader Joe's would be my downfall too! I'm not setting foot in the place until after Thanksgiving!

tinkarooni, thanks for the idea of corny cornbread...I have cornmeal and corn too and will make it as a side for dinner this week. Tonight is Trick or Treat for us and we traditionally always make Sloppy Joes and mac and cheese. I have all the things to prepare it with too!

 

[belle41379]

So far so good here. Tonight is breakfast foods - probably Mickey waffles (we're getting close to vacation!!!!), bacon from the freezer. I might have some frozen juice I can add in. Lunch today will be something from the pantry - maybe mac n cheese or PB & J.

 

[TxRabbit]

OK, so today for dinner I had a little ham in the freezer, I had gotten it free with an order from Omaha Steaks. Than we had baked potatoes, homemade canned applesauce and green beans.

I have about 25 bags of home frozen corn so I got on Allrecipes.com and used the ingredient finder for corn and cornmeal and made corny cornbread to go with it.

I have about 60 lbs of potatoes in the basement from the garden, you'll see us eating potatoes often.

I just have to ask about the potatoes. Did you happen to use the barrel method to grow them? I've always wanted to try that, but still haven't.

 

[tinkarooni]

I just have to ask about the potatoes. Did you happen to use the barrel method to grow them? I've always wanted to try that, but still haven't.

No, we grow them in the ground. I did try once in a black trash can but found it dried out a lot really fast. In my experience you're better off in the ground. If you have a small space just amend the soil right there really good with bags of compost or manure. dig it deep and plant the potatoes pretty deep. Than when the green is about 6 inches high cover them up. Do that one more time and Voila. They really are pretty easy to grow and you can get a pretty good yield from a small space if you treat them right.

 

[momto1]

Tonight will be meatless Rotini - jarred sauce, frozen tomatoes, one sad looking tomatoe on the counter and some canned mushrooms - and frozen garlic bread.

I do have to stop at the store for a few items - pizza on sale for ds for Halloween, Scoops for dh work, and salad. So...that shouldn't be too bad.

Lunches are almost always leftovers. Today is sliced beef, salad, and veggies and dip.

Lori

 

[Deffenm]

I am in. I need to go to the store this week to pick up a few more things and then I should spend less then $50 a week for fruit/veggies, bread, milk, eggs.

Tonight we are having pasta, spagetti sauce, salad, and rolls.