New Year Grocery and Pantry Challenge, how did you do? - Page 2

[Aeress]

This month needs to be very frugal, I have other bills I want to pay off and there are many birthdays.

So, I am eating out of the freezer, we put away a lot over the summer and the pantry is pretty stocked.

I am thinking of making some homemade sauce for pasta and pizza, chilli and various pesto based dishes.

I need more flour in order to make stuff from scratch but otherwise we just need eggs, milk, and some fresh fruits/veggies each week. I am hoping to stay under $5o a week.

[SaraCate]

We're moving (confirmed an hour ago!) for 1 Feb., so we're officially in 'eating down the pantry' mode now!

In particular, we have an (over)abundance of tinned salmon and tinned beans to eat up. Lots of other odds and ends.

While I'll miss having DH at home (his parental leave ends on 8 Jan), after baby in Jan 09 and an eventful year, I look forward - by mid-Feb, at least - to getting back into a little bit of 'routine' and re-establishing good habits, both in terms of cooking and spending!

~Sara

[Amys1st]

We have a larger walk in pantry. One side is food and the other is storage for different kitchen things we dont need to use everyday-larger stockpot, roasting pan etc. Over the year the storage side gets a bit hap hazard with pulling stuff out to use etc. Now that all the holiday cooking is done, its time to organize it again.

On the food side, I had a can of coconut milk so I made coconut risotto last night. Very yummy. I need to make up a tomato sauce to use up some of the tomato as well.

I should also put fresh baking sodas in the fridge, freezer and large freezer.

[meandk0610]

i wanna try this. i'd like to sell the house and think a paired down pantry will look better and help is save money for expenses.

[applecider]

I'm in. We also got a 1/4 beef and about 1/4 pork or so. I have a bunch of stuff in the freezer, fish, some chicken, some produce. I need to be much better at actually using the stuff I have!! Right now I have figured for about $350 a month in groceries, but I wonder if I don't spend more than that on average? I didn't totally factor in the beef and pork plus I spend $50-$100 in a bulk order about once a month. So I really think I need to be more realistic when it comes to groceries. I'd like to be honest with how much money I'm spending. I'll tally up the meat purchases and come back to report.

[EnglishRose]

I am so in! We are a family of 11 (9 children and two - very outnumbered! - parents)

My plan for tonight (New Year's Eve) is to completely empty and scrub my refridgerator, and throw out all the "science projects" currently lurking in it. Then I will invenotory all of our food, make a meal plan for the month and write my grocery list from my meal plan.

Thanks for starting this challenge, Amy!

[MyLittleWarrior]

I'm in for January. I just had a baby two weeks ago (yay for the tax deduction) and I won't be working for the month of Jan, so our income is down by a third for the month. I'm pretty much doing away with the eating out budget, and the "lunch at work" budget for DH, so I need to be on top of packing his lunch in the morning and cooking for the evening. I have a lot of freezer meals that I prepared when I was pregnant, and I'll be relying heavily on those. Otherwise I'll be stretching our WIC foods as far as they'll go, and trying to keep our grocery spending down to about $50/week if I can manage it.

[bluebunny]

I'm in. I'm in the process of taking an inventory of our pantry. I just discovered we have SEVEN cans of whole berry cranberry sauce. How did that happen?? What can I make with it??

I also have four cans of green beans, six cans of whole kernel corn, and four cans of cream style corn. Suggestions for recipes welcome.

I have tons of pasta (eleven boxes of various kinds) and 10 lbs of rice.

I'd like to try to make a dent in our pantry surplus. I'm hoping to eat through the pantry so our grocery bill for January will be low.

[Chicky2]

Sweet potatoes are cheap this time of year. Make cranberry sweet potato bread! MMMM!

Or sugar cookies cut out into circles. Then put a tsp of cranberry sauce in the middle and fold over and crimp. Bake til lightly golden.

[Chicky2]

So for lunch we had spaghetti that used up 2 jars of sauce, 1 big can of puree, and a small amount of maple sausage, some smoked ham, and some turkey breast and cheese that needs to be eaten up. That really helped clean out my fridge and the smokey flavor in the sauce was a real hit w/the kids!

Tonight I'm making pan fried whole perch, blue gill, and crappie that my dd caught back in May. I'll use up the rest of my cornmeal for spoonbread, the rest of the yummy pinto beans we had yesterday, and some spinach in the freezer and more cheese for a spinach souffle thing. I can probably whip up a berry crisp quickly, too. That'll use up some of the bazillion pounds of various berries that I have (loganberries, boysenberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, dark sweet cherries, brazosberries, and strawberries!!), and some of the 8,000 pounds of oats I have, plus some of the 20 pounds of butter I bought on sale last month, lol.

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by Chicky2

So for lunch we had spaghetti that used up 2 jars of sauce, 1 big can of puree, and a small amount of maple sausage, some smoked ham, and some turkey breast and cheese that needs to be eaten up. That really helped clean out my fridge and the smokey flavor in the sauce was a real hit w/the kids!

Tonight I'm making pan fried whole perch, blue gill, and crappie that my dd caught back in May. I'll use up the rest of my cornmeal for spoonbread, the rest of the yummy pinto beans we had yesterday, and some spinach in the freezer and more cheese for a spinach souffle thing. I can probably whip up a berry crisp quickly, too. That'll use up some of the bazillion pounds of various berries that I have (loganberries, boysenberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, dark sweet cherries, brazosberries, and strawberries!!), and some of the 8,000 pounds of oats I have, plus some of the 20 pounds of butter I bought on sale last month, lol.

Oh why oh why cant I have this problem? my kids eat up berries like there is no tomorrow. We managed to hid a few lbs of blueberries from picking this summer but dd2 found them in the freezer and has been snacking on them for weeks LOL. Since it just rolls out, she would go in and get some for herself. I guess there are worse things to sneak for snacks.

[Chicky2]

Frozen blueberries ROCK!!!!!! That's my ice cream, man!

The dark sweet cherries are awesome frozen, too.

I have a friend who is a member of a co-op. Best of the Blessed, I think the name is....Anyway, I get in on it for the raw local honey ($93/12 quarts!), and the berries. The berries are IQF Bithell Farms and come in 14 lb boxes. They are organic, but not certified. They spray only w/natural sprays, and only when there are no fruits on the plants yet. Anyway, these huge honkin' boxes of berries average $36/box!

We also pick black and brazos berries and sand plums. And grapes. And prickly pears, lol. (My oldest dd is in the midst of obtaining her Master Naturalist certification, so this is very helpful, and she finds great picking places).

I agree it's just a horrible problem to have, and am extremely thankful for the opportunity to have it!

[akwifeandmomma]

Joining! I need to go through my freezers and pantries and get organized!

[Camile Rynd]

Excellent, I'm in. I keep a fairly clean/organized pantry/freezer but this year we are really trying to cut back on the spending and this looks like a good way to utilize what we have.

My (still nursing) DS and I went gluten free about 4 months ago but we still have a ton of wheat noodles left that are being used in lunches for daddy. We also stocked up on bean thread noodles at the Asian market and I have no idea what to do with them. Our grocery bill is about $475-$500 a month, but that includes any of the cleaning supplies, tp, pt, and diapers, so, I'm not positive what the "actual" food costs are.



Our family consists of my DH, me, and my 21 month old son.

[akwifeandmomma]

Not getting off to a very good start. I decided to clean out my fridge and shattered the glass shelf above the crisper drawers in the process. Glass in both sides of my sink, all over the kitchen floor, dining room, even the living room... ARGH! We missed the NYE fireworks because it took me almost 45 minutes to sweep, vacuum, and pluck glass shards out of the drains.

BUT. My fridge is spotless. And it can't hold as much now -- there is a bright side to that!

[janasmama]

I'm in!

I just wrote my first budget and made a budget box so we can track spending. We are doing the envelope method. I'm breaking my grocery budget (only food) into 10 day increments since that is how I menu plan.

I also just organized my pantry. I spent less than $20 (our pantry also houses our craft supplies) and now I can see everything that I have so much better so I won't buy what I've already got. For $1 at Wal-mart I got some clear DVD organizing baskets to keep snack foods in and then I have some wire shelves and a few other things. I am even using some cardboard cereal boxes that have been cut down to sort of keep some things contained. Like one keeps all of my baking supplies.

So for my budget I went through and wrote down a sample of everything that we eat in a week and what the cost was. Then I came up with our 10-day allowance. The next time I go to the grocery store I am leaving my debit card at home and taking a calculator with me. I will only beable to buy what our budget allows us for that week. I really hope I have an accurate projection what we are spending which I'm sure I do because I estimate about $680 a month for a family of 5. I think it would be great if I can bring that down a bit with shopping a bit more planned out and less hold over time on pantry items.

This is where I could really use some help....making menus that use more of the same ingredients. Do any of you have some sample menus that use up fresh and pantry items so there are fewer items to buy overall during a specific shopping trip?

I've decided to start keeping my weekly menus for a few months so I can go back and link together the foods we tend to repeat and get them into a more organized fashion according to similar ingredients.

[bluebunny]

Or sugar cookies cut out into circles. Then put a tsp of cranberry sauce in the middle and fold over and crimp. Bake til lightly golden.

Good idea!

This is where I could really use some help....making menus that use more of the same ingredients. Do any of you have some sample menus that use up fresh and pantry items so there are fewer items to buy overall during a specific shopping trip?

I'm in the same boat. It is hard for me to think out of the box. I would love for new menu ideas for our pantry staples. Sometimes I go to allrecipes.com and do a search with "ingredients I want to use" and find a new recipe. HTH!

[kings5queens4]

Originally Posted by akwifeandmomma

Not getting off to a very good start. I decided to clean out my fridge and shattered the glass shelf above the crisper drawers in the process. Glass in both sides of my sink, all over the kitchen floor, dining room, even the living room... ARGH! We missed the NYE fireworks because it took me almost 45 minutes to sweep, vacuum, and pluck glass shards out of the drains.

BUT. My fridge is spotless. And it can't hold as much now -- there is a bright side to that!

Oh no Sorry mama!

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

Day one woo hoo! Okay i finally ventured out yesterday and went to wm and a local grocer. My fridge was actually looking a bit bare, ha! I spent about 17.xx at the grocer and 19.xx at walmart on groceries, not too bad and i got some much needed produce and milk. Still need eggs have only 6 atm, so will have to go out for them in a few days...

plan to make something with chicken for dinner tonight, been dethawing some for a couple days, thinking maybe chicken/brocolli stirfry..

Anyway, I too plan to implement the envelope system. I have 62$ in cash and 42.xx left on my walmart g/c and that is all i will be spending for groceries this month! I said previously I am allotting 50$ for eating out as a buffer as dh sometimes eats out at work..

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

i'm a bit reluctant to post some of the recipes i use on a regular basis, b/c we cook primarily indian food here for dinner. which if you don't have the spices already then it would be expensive for you buy them at the grocer and would be kind of counterproductive for the challenge. So do many of you cook indian food and have lots of spices like, tumeric, garam masala, cumin, coriander and the like? Just wondering if anyone is interested...We also cook primarily vegetarian here too...

right now as far as staples go we have about 30lbs of flour, 40 lbs of rice, 10-15 lbs of legumes. 16lbs sugar, all the baking supplies, I also have way too many boxes of cereal, i don't know how i ended up with so many, as i knew my family didn't like cold cereal all that much and now we are trying to get through 12 boxes. I really only need to have 3-4 boxes in my stockpile. My family prefers oatmeal, pancakes, muffins for breakfast, or smoothies...We don't have much pasta about 6 boxes and 5-6 jars of spahghetti sauce, but we have about 8 bags of those pasta sides that i realize my family doesn't like much either. Funny that my family struggles through a lot of processed stuff, except candy/chocolate and chips, but i try not to buy chips too much..

We have a lot canned goods too, what are some good recipes for evaporated milk? I've used in a couple things, but looking for some more, not sweet recipes.