Spring Pantry Challenge - Page 5

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by HydeParkB

I am prepping tonight for making Sesame Chicken tomorrow night.

I did need to get green onions. However, I was able to use up 1/2 a yellow onion in the fridge, some congealed honey, sesame seeds (how did we get so many?), green peppers from the fridge. All the other ingredients were on hand, and I even made my own teriaki sauce.

And for this evening's dinner, we had Polish sausage from the freeze, a bag of frozen broccoli, homemade bread and home-canned spiced Red Hot apples. The sausage is one of our 'cheater' meals, but at least it was a well rounded meal.

However, there are still SO MANY TOMATOES in the freezer. Soup? Tomato Juice? I don't know!

Too bad you're not local to me, I would trade you fresh roasted coffee beans to feed your addiction for tomatoes to make into my sauce. It would be a "fair trade"

[ewp11100]

Originally Posted by ewp11100

I'm in! We are oving at the end of April and I reeally need to clear some of this food out! We won't be having our freezer for 6 moths so that's a big priporty as well as all this colds cereal I have gotten from WIC or .25 a box. I just opened a 20lb of rice and I have a 10lb bag of dries pintos that will be a challenge. Oh well I guess we'll have tons for burritos, lol.
I guess my biggest goal is not to shop I usually only buy lost leaders/WIC/fresh, I have a hard time passing up a good deal. Must be why there is so much canned soup in here (good for hubby lunches, evil cackel!)

OK Update!
We have 15 days till we move!
SO today I combined my freezers, getting ready to clean the fridge freezer combo. Then I will move all the food back into it and clean the big one for storage. I complied a list of everything in the freezer (which i have no time to actually post lol). I filled my little yeast jar in the fridge emptying the bulk bag we had in the freezer. I pulled the "banana pieces" bag and will make banana bread today or tomm. I had one extra banana, some frozen berries (hand full) and frozen oj so I'm sipping on a yummy smoothie for am snackin I actually had to stop my self form stocking up on ground beef I only got 12lbs when I went shopping. I made 4lbs in to burgers and froze the rest into 1lb sections. We'll have to move it but ground beef doesn't get CHEAP here but 2 or 3 times a year. Since we haven't been stocking up what we have is not well rounded. I have a TON of chicken! including 2 whole birds. I already baked one on wed and will try to bake the other two in the next 2 weeks but that's a lot of chicken and not even touching the split breast we have in there, lol. We have used up our bulk flour so I will be buying bread and trying not to use too much till we move. The rice and beans will have to be moved but we did eat a ton of it. My husband has been reminding me to get the canned soup out of the way so we have eatten about 6 or so of those.

[HydeParkB]

Using up: SQUASH from the freezer.

I just made some squash muffins with some frozen 2006 butternut squash. They are really yummy. Probably because of all the sugar/molasses.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,194,...252204,00.html
I chose this recipe because it used simple techniques (found some rather complicated recipes when googling), and I had plenty of all the ingredients (except I couldn't find the pecans and just used walnuts.). We've also got some cushaw squash in the freezer. And I might substitute other nuts or sunflower seeds.

Tonight's dinner is Reubens. I had to get swiss cheese from the store yesterday, but we had the corned beef and bread in the freezer, and the dressing and saurkraut leftover from last month.

[HydeParkB]

Anybody have ideas for frozen green pepper strips? The problem is, I'm not a huge fan of green peppers.

So far my only ideas are to include them in chili and make some mushroom pepper cheese omelettes.

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by HydeParkB

Anybody have ideas for frozen green pepper strips? The problem is, I'm not a huge fan of green peppers.

So far my only ideas are to include them in chili and make some mushroom pepper cheese omelettes.

Well you already have my two suggestions. I also put them on kabobs. Oh now I want to make these!

So since the holidays are approaching this week w Passover and Easter all the stores are having huge sales. I stocked my pantry with tons of dried stuff, canned etc. And I only went to one of my favorite places to do this. The other local place with all types of ethnic stuff etc I am going next week after the crowds of this weekend since the sales are thru Tuesday.

[HydeParkB]

I am not able to resist the sales at the stores right now. I was really trying to clear out the freezer - and we are making some progress. But there are some great sales going on. Ground beef/chuck hasn't been below $1.99 in some time, and I'm seeing it for $1.47 or $1.77 depending. And there are some good $10/10 items that will be cheaper with coupons.

Oh well, I am trying to shop wisely. I guess I just have to promise myself to make some spaghetti sauce from our tomato bounty in the freezer. We are continuing to work on using our home-canned goods, and DD is trying more things that she refused to eat last year.

And I did find a couple recipes online today that may help use up more freezer veggies.

[katheek77]

Is this still going?

I need in. I just figured out we have a glut of food (a lot of stuff I ordered came in all at once), so, I want to use up some of the older items. Plus, our CSA starts the first week of June.

Until June 1, I want to buy only milk, eggs, cheese, and some fresh produce (we have tons of frozen, dried, home-canned, etc). My goal is to spend $25 or less per week.

Tonight, I made taco meat with frozen ground venison on homemade cornbread. I'm making a flan for dessert.

Tomorrow: Breakfast will be leftover pasta or already made waffles. Snacks will be yogurts, dried/frozen fruits, or nuts. Lunch will be homemade bagels w/homemade hummus and homemade sun-dried tomatoes. Dinner will be leftover taco meat w/rice and a veggie.

[HydeParkB]

I'd love to keep this going! I'm still focused on the freezer and the 'random' items in the pantry that I don't normally use.

Tonight, I made some crab dip with a can of baby crabs and cream cheese that needed to be used up. Quite tasty!

I'm defrosting some greens (not labeled, probably spinach or kale) and chickpeas. I'll probably combine it with pasta somehow tomorrow.

[celestialdreamer]

I'm in I need to rotate through some of my bulk supplies and clear out the meat in the freezer to make room for a bulk order of beef in July. I'll give myself $30/wk at the store to supplement what we already have and make sure we don't deplete any important stuff.

[HydeParkB]

Is it still Spring? Should we start a summer challenge?

Today I've got brown rice and spicy sausage in the crockpot. I'm using some home-canned tomatoes and jalapenos, peppers from the freezer, brown rice from the pantry. The sausage was bought to try out this dish, but it's letting me use up other things.

I also made squash muffins with frozen butternut squash. DELISH. I added chocolate chips this time - great call on my part.

I think I'm going to make a spinach and feta quiche soon. I'll either have to make or buy a pie crust, but we have everything else on hand.

Not only do I need to make progress on the freezer, now I need to really get moving on the canned goods so we have jars available. We are able to move a few things around in the freezer, so that is good. I'm also trying to clear out a draw that currently stores food, and use it to store some appliances that are now on the counter.

We have just decided to switch preschools, which is going to cost us more per month. This meal-planning and using what's available is going to be even more important than ever.

[Amys1st]

Should we start another one?

[Hollysmom]

I so need this so I think a new thread is a good idea