Pre-holiday pantry challenge

[Jen117]

Last night I made chicken thighs and rice casserole. I found the thighs in the freezer. Tonight was leftovers as we are gone tomorrow and I have a lot in the fridge to eat up. My pantry supply is dropping quite a bit, but the freezer doesn't look like I even started to make a dent.

 

[momx2]

Finally got to make my potato soup and it was delicious. I used the recipe from the eat at home website. I think a poster here runs it. It was so good! My husband made homemade bread to go with it.

Here's my menu for the weekend and next week:

Saturday - Beef stew with stew meat from the freezer, baby carrots from the fridge that go bad soon, pearl onions and the last of my potatoes.
Sunday - it is supposed to be 70 degrees here. I think we will grill chicken and have rice and peas.
Monday - Meatballs in the crockpot with with onions and brown gravy, served over egg noodles and green beans.
Tuesday - Pork fried rice and egg rolls.
Wednesday - Beef stoganoff, egg noodles and a veggie.
Thursday - Tacos with the fixins.

Let's see if I stick to it!

 

[smiller]

Getting in to the good freezer food now!

Dinner - cheese & crackers for appetizer, then potato pancakes, Nuernburger sausages, apple sauce, sour cream. I suppose I should add something green... maybe roasted mustard greens?

Tomorrow - leftover toppings from the nachos the other night will be transformed into a seven-layer dip for lunch. I discovered two old (and by old I mean last Christmas) strudels in the freezer. I'll bake them up tonight and if they're any good I'll bring them with to work for all of us at morning break. (Side note: I have a small top freezer, of which I share with my roommate, so I have one shelf and the door. It amazes me that within a space that tiny, I can still "discover" food!)

I just wrote out my list of all the meals I have to eat up - how does the list keep growing?!

Went to the grocery store today - picked up items for a party and was tempted to buy other food - but only bought two gravy packets (on sale & coupon!) to help make some of the pantry/freezer meals a little more palatable.

 

[Swimnoid]

The funk DH had last week I have this week so I havent been eating much. Tonight is bland old rice but at least it's from the pantry! All this sickness has kept me away from the store as well. But I'll have to go tomorrow to get milk and some produce and some ground beef. DH has suffered through this pantry clean up so he deserves his spaghetti and meatballs next week.

I'm still not sure what we will have next week but I have lots to choose from still.

 

[charming23]

Tonight was going to be chicken on the grill but my Mom's cousin came to town and took us out for dinner (I had the best Asian Seasame Glazed Ribs at Ruby Tuesday's).

Also our house smells insane right now as we cooked our pork shoulder roast for sunday's get together.

So since we did not use the chicken tonight I am going to cook it in the crockpot tomorrow while we are at the food show.

 

[tinkmom2]

Tonight I made Spanish rice with chicken thighs. Can't wait to fill up my freezer with turkey leftovers when we come back from Disney

 

[tavettava]

Its been another crazy few days here.
Wed- we ate dinner at my dad's so no cooking for me. He did send home leftover with us. Jerk chicken breasts, fried potatoes, and salad.

Thurs.- kids had cereal for breakfast, dd had jerk chicken and fried potaoes, juice, and a small salad for lunch at school. Ds gets free lunch. For dinner we had pork chops, baked potaoes, and corn. All from the freezer or pantry.

Fri.-Cereal for breakfast. Dd took a pork chop, a baked potato, an apple, and juice. Ds get s free. For dinner we cheated and ordered pizza rolls from a place here.

Sat.- we all slept in so no breakfast. For lunch we are having baked potatoes with whatever you want on them, i think they have decided on bacon and cheese, and sour cream. For dinner I have some round steak, onions, and tomtato sauce in the crockpot (swiss steak), we will have mashed potatoes (I have almost 50 lbs of tatoes to eat), and some kind of veggie.

I need to get milk today, I was going to buy just a 1/2 gal. but my cousin who is staying with the dog said she would eat some cereal while we are gone. I am making pico de gallo today to to use up the tomatoes i have. Can you freeze this? We leave Wednesday

 

[disneyfan55]

One thing I try to do as well is actually put all my coupon money saved in a savings account seperate from other savings. I also have been putting in the 'saved' not spent now!! You really see the savings stack up quickly. I have put money not spent on paper products like paper plates and towels as well as liners for the trash!! Only a small amout but by putting in savings you can realize what hasn't been spent! I also never waste the broccoli stems, asparagus stems, celery scraps etc. I chop small and put them in the freezer and add to stews and soups. The potatoes and carrots aren't peeled just scrubbed, even for mashed. No more waste there and quicker to do!

 

[tinkmom2]

Tonight is the old standby hamburgers with mushroom gravy and potatoes. We leave in 2 days I am not shopping!

 

[acename]

last night we had breakfast for dinner because I didn't feel well and DH was cooking. Breakfast is what he does best

Tonight we had baked spaghetti and garlic bread. My freezer is for sure getting thinned out. The pantry on the other hand...not so much. Stockpiling is an obsession I think.

 

[disfanRN]

I did the pantry thing from Oct 10th-Nov 10th. I saved around 400 dollars! I would have spent about 200/week on groceries, but only spent 100 with this challenge!
My DH was happy!

I could still keep going there is so much still in my pantry and freezer...I think I will. Plus we leave for WDW on Dec 17th so I don't want to go crazy buying stuff anyway. And, once the holidays start, there are parties and potlucks to go to so I won't be cooking as much anyway leading up to that time.
Good luck everyone...you can do it!!

 

[charming23]

Just got back from the food show where I met Tyler Florence. He is such a sweetie and even cuter in person.

Tonight's dinner is BBQ Apple Bacon Chicken from the crockpot and hasbrowns.

 

[tinkarooni]

Today was easy, we took a little road trip to Amish Country and came back with tons of cheese and 2 bushels of apples. If only we had found a winery. I'm figuring that I'm still within my rules, dairy and produce in season. I'll keep the apples in the fridge and they will last until January at least. They were also such a good deal.

So we ate out for lunch and dinner today. Working on my menu for this week and I will stop at the store tomorrow to pick up a couple of turkeys at the low, low price they're selling them for right now.

 

[momto1]

My kitchen sink is clogged. DH can't get it unclogged. The pipe is leaking. The diswasher is full to capacity. And the water is off due to the leak. So...I bought a pizza to bake and will eat it on paper plates. Bad me...and then I bought 2 discounted meats. Spent $12.70 total.

We ate lunch at a craft show today. $9 for me and ds. Could have been worse.

Tomorrow I go to get some produce, egss and milk. I will try really, really hard to be good.

Hopefully sink is fixed on Monday and can get back to business of cleaning out the pantry!

Lori

 

[tinkmom2]

Well today is my last day of the Pantry Challenge! I leave for vacation tomorrow morning! I unearthed some mystery meats which I am plain throwing out! I need to give the fridge a good scrub down. I did unearth some pork chops that were still good so I may make them tonight or order a pizza. The less dishes I have to do today the better! We will probably have to do fast food when we get back though until I can get to the grocery store the next day. I don't expect to be back in the house until 8pm. Who wants to cook after an tiring day of travel?
When I get back I will have to hurry and buy a turkey and start defrosting it so we can have turkey on Thanksgiving lol

 

[tavettava]

Today the kids had toast for breakfast. I made some enchiladas (meat and cheese from freezer, tortillas from fridge, tomato suace seasoning and olives from pantry) for Thanksgiving day and I am taking it to my sis's for her to freeze for turkey day. We will be coming back from WDW about 5:30 pm and heading straight to her house. For lunch i think we are making canned soup. For dinner i am making fried potatoes, with onions, corn, and kielbasa all in one pan on the stove.

 

[tinkarooni]

We get beef, too. Do you get the odd cut called Boiling Beef? If you do, what do you do with it? The meat processor said to do it like Italian Beef. But, I had to cook if for so long and it was a lot of work to get the meat from the fatty part. I have only cooked it once in the last 3 cows. I hate to throw it away but I just don't know what to do with it.

Lori

I don't get this. It sounds like maybe it needs a treatment like a pulled pork recipe? Probably cook it for 4-5 hours in juice (seasoned beef broth) and than shred for sandwiches. It is a challenge sometimes to use up what they give you. Try Allrecipes.com and put in the cut of beef under the ingredient search to see if you can come up with anything. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

 

[tinkarooni]

Well today is my last day of the Pantry Challenge! I leave for vacation tomorrow morning! I unearthed some mystery meats which I am plain throwing out! I need to give the fridge a good scrub down. I did unearth some pork chops that were still good so I may make them tonight or order a pizza. The less dishes I have to do today the better! We will probably have to do fast food when we get back though until I can get to the grocery store the next day. I don't expect to be back in the house until 8pm. Who wants to cook after an tiring day of travel?
When I get back I will have to hurry and buy a turkey and start defrosting it so we can have turkey on Thanksgiving lol

I'm so jealous......not of vacation but of the fact that you actually got to the bottom of your freezer!

Have a great trip! We'll still be here....eating out of the freezer.

 

[tinkarooni]

OK, so today I went to the store. Picked up one frozen turkey, one turkey breast, 5 cans of cranberry sauce, milk and sour cream.

Turkey and cranberry sauce was obviously on deep discount.

Dinner today will be meatballs and sausage in a big pot of tomato sauce. Found some slightly freezer burned raviolis in the back of the freezer. I think they can be salvaged. We will have this with a salad with greens from the garden, sliced apples, cheese and raisins.

Working on my menu for the week and digging deeper into that freezer.

 

[acename]

We're eating left over baked spaghetti for lunch. I have pork loin in the crockpot with carrots and potatoes and onions (finally finished up a bag of frozen diced onions). My Dh is really on board with this challenge now and said that maybe we could get by with just bread and milk this week. I doubt it but I'm glad he's into it and not complaining