Pre-holiday pantry challenge

[momx2]

Okay, I am starting this today, effective November 1st. I did just go to the grocery this weekend and stock up. I am addicted to my grocery sale flyers. Maybe I should check them out this a.m. before committing! My freezer is full in the garage and so is my pantry. My goal is to only spend $50per week for the rest of the month, including Thanksgiving. Since I just spent about $230 this weekend I should be able to make it. I told my DH just last night no more grocery for a while and said "Good!" We'll see if I can make it.

 

[neatokimmo]

Breakfast was sausage sandwiches from the freezer and pantry. Lunch will be soup from the pantry and peas from the freezer. Snacks will be oranges and grapefruit freezies. Dinner will be leftover peas and lasagna.

I have to go to the store today, we are out of fruit, milk and bread. I plan to keep it to $15 or less.

 

[momto1]

Yesterday, I made soup stock from some frozen veggies pieces and a bone. So I will make soup for lunches for the week adding some frozen carrots, noodles and whatever else I can dig up. I also made banana chocolate chip bread using 3 frozen bananas and half a bag of choc chips. For supper we had a chicken casserole and garlic bread.

Today, ds had banana bread for breakfast. Lunch will be leftovers. Supper will be chicken breast, greek potatoes and probably salad.

I have to get milk and cream at the store but I think that is it.

Lori

 

[keenercam]

breakfast this morning was frozen reduced fat cheese omelettes (Market Day), canadian bacon & cheese on soon to be freezer burned english muffins. Tonight will be shepherd's pie with stuff from the freezer. Am also starting a chili in the crockpot. Both the shepherds pie and the chili will help me use some of the older ground beef from my freezer. All we'll have to buy to cook these is a small can of brown gravy and some kidney beans.

 

[charming23]

Today is not going to be pot roast but a Homestyle Turkey Tenderloin from the freezer with garlic mashed potatoes (free sample from Betty Crocker) and a veggie from the freezer.

I am cooking soups today as well to freeze and I need the crockpot so I have moved Pot roast until tomorrow.

 

[mjantz]

I need to do this. The only big thing I need to buy is an Angel Food order next month & for December. More money for those Christmas expenses that always pop up. I don't think I can do straight perishables only but I can limit myself to $50/week.
My biggest problem is that I started a new job & I'm having trouble adjusting to my new hours. I do use my crockpot but I don't want to do that every night.

I have a ton of chicken & frozen veggies. I have to be careful because DH doesn't like a lot of chicken so I have to spread it out. I think tonight I'll do ham & mac n' cheese and tomorrow sweet n sour chicken.

 

[mjbaby]

I've been mostly a lurker 'round these parts recently, but count me in for this! My husband was recently laid off and my company was just bought (eeek! who knows...I might last 'til Easter, we'll see) - we're doing o.k. but every responsible action, no matter how seemingly small, helps. Right? We just took delivery of a quarter cow and have 100 lbs. of local pork coming, plus a good amount of canned fruit and veg from the summer. We should be in good shape if we're careful and responsible.

Tonight's dinner is meatloaf, confetti couscous, baked cauliflower. If I'm feeling inspired after this afternoon's swim lesson I might also make cornbread (the leftovers of which can be tomorrow's breakfast). Tonight after the kids go to bed I'm planning on making a cheese pizza to go into tomorrow's lunchboxes.

Another "use it up" idea I'm mulling is making some tortillas. I love having tortillas around, but don't at the moment. I could run to grab some - they're pretty cheap - but I've actually got the ingredients on hand. Can't be too hard, right? People have been making them at home for generations so I figure I ought to be able to figure it out.

I recently splurged on the new "Make it Fast, Cook it Slow" cookbook written by Stephanie O'Dea (of the 365Crockpot blog). It is hands down the single best slowcooker cookbook I've seen. I prefer to use foods as non-processed and/or as natural/whole as possible (avoiding, say, cream 'o whatever soups, commercial bbq sauce and the like) so "Fix it and Forget it" wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped. Ms. O'Dea's family has some dietary requirements that influenced her recipes so that they nearly all call for minimally processed ingredients. I've made several things from both the book and the website and found them all excellent.

 

[WDWHo]

Dinner tonight was:

Roasted Chicken Breasts
Bag of Frozen String Beans
Mashed potatoes (leftovers from last nights potato skins)
Garlic Bread (made from leftover hoagies rolls from Sausage Sandwiches last night).

Dessert will be Waffles and Icecream during the World Series.

 

[chocovrdmicears]

Dinner tonight is a frozen Bertolli meal I bought on sale with a coupon a few weeks ago. I normally don't love these kind of meals, but I bought it for a quick meal on a night I don't feel like cooking. Tonight is one of those nights. If I can tear DH away from his Fantasy Football he will make a salad.

 

[stahshee]

dinner tonight
chicken nuggest, mac and cheese and can green beans..
lunch was turkey sanwich(left over turkey) and fruit cocktail

 

[Grendalynn]

Dh and I are in!!

I/we have been wanting to do this for some time now... Now this board will be the insentive to stay on track! DMIL and DFIL cleaned their fridge and cupboards out before they headed south and gave it all to us. We have some meat, but mostly pantry items... I will def. have to go to the grocery store during the week, but mostly for items I will have to have: Snacks/juice boxes, pet food, milk, bread, produce....

I will safe $50 is a safe bet - only things being that i will go in with exactly $50 in cash and leave my check book in the car! I always go in for "a few things" and come out $100 later!!

 

[tinkarooni]

Wow, we have had a completely whirlwind weekend. On Friday we had stew in the slow cooker as planned.

Saturday (Halloween) we had a party planned for my kids. In the end we had 23 children ranging in age from 7 - 12 and it rained cats and dogs. We quickly re-evaluated our plans, cleaned out the garage and went on with the show. Party was cheap with hot dogs, lemonade and chips and pretzels. On Saturday Dh made a last minute run to the store for me for candy corn (new game plans) and he picked up some lunch meat for quickie sandwiches and some salad fixins to take a green salad over to my SIL home, we trick or treated at their house and they bought the pizza, we supplied the salad.

Today we stopped at the store and bought milk, yogurt, corned beef for lunch and some fresh fish for dinner. In all the party rearranging I forgot to thaw dinner. I am glad though that we just bought some fish and made dinner at home. We added Annies Mac and cheese from the pantry, salad from leftover fixins and some frozen onion rings from the freezer.

I think that it was a successful shopping trip. It will get me through until next weekend.

Onto a new week and although the party was a great deal of fun I'm glad it's over, and on the sunnier side now I have a clean garage and freshly steam cleaned carpets (somebody came in with muddy feet )

Happy new week everybody!

 

[DawnM]

Well, I am having several get togethers at my place before then so I will spend some extra $$, but I do have quite a bit to eat up too.

Dawn

 

[charming23]

I feel really good. Today using pantry items and freezer items with a few fresh veggies, I made four different soups to freeze in individual portions for lunches and quick dinners.

I made-
Chicken Tortilla
Chicken Noodle
Beef Vegetable with Barley
Baked Potato Soup

 

[mom2npr]

I made chcken stew in the crock pot today for dinner tomorrow night. We had tacos for dinner today. All from the freezer/pantry. I need to do this same sort of challenge except with tolietries/paper products. I have so much of that stuff shoved in closets around the house. I am trying to sort it all out.

 

[lattemomof3]

lattemom - That is just astonishing!! It seems wayyy too early for snow. It makes me want to cook quarts and quarts of soups and chilis.

I know - crazy, isn't it! We made it out of town and back, was a bit exhausted from the weekend but made a quick chicken and frozen veggie stir fry for dinner. I'll have a look in the freezer later for tomorrow - which will be another crazy day - preschool pumpkin party (late, bec. of snow day), help w/ AR in ds's classroom, piano lessons and possibly trick or treating at the businesses downtown (again late bec. of snow on Fri.) - does anyone else feel as though they are in survival mode most days?!

 

[MEM]

In the freezer we have one of those huge bags from Costco of frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts. My family doesn't mind chicken in some variation every night. For the next 3 meals I have planned for the crockpot...

Vegetable and chicken soup made with low-sodium V-8

Chicken-rice soup

Chicken and dumplings

All made from my pantry, freezer and fridge stockpiles

 

[stahshee]

dinner
rice beans and salsa
garlic bread and cucumbers
Im thinking about makeing an apple crisp...hmmm sounds good.

 

[Jen117]

Wow, lots of new posts!!! Saturday night (Halloween), I made homemade pizza all with stuff from the fridge or pantry. Sunday (last night) was DD9's b-day party but I was able to make all the food at 1/2 the price I thought it would be.

Tonight I am making french onion soup as I have a big pile of onions to use before they go moldy. I also have leftover Swiss cheese from the sandwiches last night that I can top the soup with. I will whip up some crusty bread in the bread maker... gotta do that the second I am done here!

 

[WDWHo]

Dinner tonight will be chicken tenders, baked potatoes and a bag a frozen corn.