Pantry Challenge - Page 3

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by justmama

any ideas for potatoes?

Shepard's pie? That's a dish that pretty much uses whatever you have anyway. I make mine with lentils, corn, peas, carrots, etc, topped with mashed potatoes.

[honeybunmom]

Originally Posted by Keeta

Oh and a TON of frozen shredded zucchini from last summer's garden! Really need to get through some of that and make way in the freezer.

I use zucchini regularly in a meatless lasagna.

1. Mix the shredded zucchini with garden vegetable pasta sauce.
2. cover bottom of baking dish with mixture
3. layer with lasagne noodles
4. cover with mixture of ricotta cheese (I usually use 1/2 to 3/4 of an 8 oz pkg), 1/4 cup parmesan cheese and oregano
5. add another layer of sauce mixture
6. layer with lasagne noodles
7. add another layer of sauce mixture
8. Then, I usually cook at 350 degree for 30 minutes and add mozzarella chese for the last 15 since I don't like my cheese burnt.

[Fruitful4Him]

Originally Posted by frugalmama

Anyone have any ideas for what to do with flavored coffee creamers? I have a TON I got on clearance a while back that I stuck in my freezer, and now I can't drink coffee thanks to my gallbladder.


Tomorrow will probably be chicken breasts poached with mashed potatoes from mix, chicken gravy, veggies, and cake for dessert.

could you use the coffee creamer on oatmeal?

[honeybunmom]

Originally Posted by justmama

any ideas for potatoes? making eggs and fresh picked blackberries and hashbrown potatoes for breakfast tomorrow. leftover pasta primavera for lunch and need some potato ideas for dinner.

by the way, i'm already a big fan of this thread. i love all the creative healthy ideas everyone is coming up with to use up pantry ingredients! very inspiring.

There's always potato salad! I've also made a dish with sauted green beans and potatoes. Best done with potatoes that hold their constitution well when cooked. Flavored with olive oil and garlic.

[frugalmama]

Originally Posted by Fruitful4Him

could you use the coffee creamer on oatmeal?

we can't do oats do to allergies - think it would work on cream of wheat or maltomeal hot cereal? We put milk and sugar on ours.


I've got several flavors too - chocolate buttercream, pumpkin spice, vanilla, mocha, and Dulce de leche.

[Pariah]

I made veggie stir fry over the weekend and we still have some left over rice. Tonight, I think I'm going to make fried rice out of that and crack an egg into it and add some frozen peas.

I made a double batch of blueberry mini muffins over the weekend and we've been snacking on those and baby carrots.

We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for the next three days. My boyfriend's dad randomly sent me a Facebook message and wants to take me grocery shopping on Sunday! It was so nice of him to offer and what perfect timing.

Any pasta ideas? We have a lot of pasta, but no sauce. I have a tomato, olive oil, and herbs/spices like basil, oregano, etc etc...I was thinking of chopping up the tomato in chunks and tossing that with pasta, and adding some olive oil and the spices. Does that sound okay? Any other ideas?

Also, I have a lot of baking stuff, but I'm not sure what I can make...I have flours, sugar, baking powder/soda, yeast...but not really anything to add in, like raisens or chocolate chips for cookies, or berries for more muffins. I may be able to get some store brand oatmeal and raisens and make a healthy/low sugar batch of cookies with them...hm. We need oatmeal anyway, it kills me not to have it!

[Lil'M]

Originally Posted by frugalmama

we can't do oats do to allergies - think it would work on cream of wheat or maltomeal hot cereal? We put milk and sugar on ours.


I've got several flavors too - chocolate buttercream, pumpkin spice, vanilla, mocha, and Dulce de leche.

How about rice pudding? The creamer would give it interesting flavors.

[honeybunmom]

Originally Posted by Pariah

I made veggie stir fry over the weekend and we still have some left over rice. Tonight, I think I'm going to make fried rice out of that and crack an egg into it and add some frozen peas.

I made a double batch of blueberry mini muffins over the weekend and we've been snacking on those and baby carrots.

We're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for the next three days. My boyfriend's dad randomly sent me a Facebook message and wants to take me grocery shopping on Sunday! It was so nice of him to offer and what perfect timing.

Any pasta ideas? We have a lot of pasta, but no sauce. I have a tomato, olive oil, and herbs/spices like basil, oregano, etc etc...I was thinking of chopping up the tomato in chunks and tossing that with pasta, and adding some olive oil and the spices. Does that sound okay? Any other ideas?

Also, I have a lot of baking stuff, but I'm not sure what I can make...I have flours, sugar, baking powder/soda, yeast...but not really anything to add in, like raisens or chocolate chips for cookies, or berries for more muffins. I may be able to get some store brand oatmeal and raisens and make a healthy/low sugar batch of cookies with them...hm. We need oatmeal anyway, it kills me not to have it!

If you have butter and milk you can make a cream sauce instead of a tomato sauce. But your suggestion does sound yummy!

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by Pariah

Any pasta ideas? We have a lot of pasta, but no sauce. I have a tomato, olive oil, and herbs/spices like basil, oregano, etc etc...I was thinking of chopping up the tomato in chunks and tossing that with pasta, and adding some olive oil and the spices. Does that sound okay? Any other ideas?

Also, I have a lot of baking stuff, but I'm not sure what I can make...I have flours, sugar, baking powder/soda, yeast...but not really anything to add in, like raisens or chocolate chips for cookies, or berries for more muffins. I may be able to get some store brand oatmeal and raisens and make a healthy/low sugar batch of cookies with them...hm. We need oatmeal anyway, it kills me not to have it!

Pasta- I like to roast tomatoes, onion and garlic, olive oil, in the oven then toss with pasta.. super yummy! If you have fresh basil to throw in that is great too!

Baking- Biscuits are super easy and you don't have to add sweet stuff to them.

[Ruthiegirl]

My pantry is lean! We have eaten all the tasty snack stuff and are down to the rice and beans. But! We are going to eat everything! We have a move planned in January and I want to clean things up as much as possible. I know that sounds like a long time from now, but we have a huge amount of rice and beans and can comfortably eat for 2-3 months (maybe more ).

Our CSA is in full swing and our garden is absolutely laden with wonderful veggies. We have a small amount of meat in the freezer and a weekly milk delivery. So, our diet will be rice, beans, nuts, milk, veggies, fruit and whatever else I can find.

Tonight:

brown rice/veggie salad
pinto beans mashed
squash stir-fry

The kids have a swim meet tonight, so we will probably balance our healthy diet with a couple of snack bar hot dogs.


Picking up our CSA share tonight, so that will set the menu for tomorrow. I will probably have a lot of squash and eggplant to cook up. The tomatoes are just starting to come in and the cukes are prolific. So, some nice salads there.

Oh! Potatoes! We dug our potatoes and have a small mountain to start eating.

I love summer.

[caiesmommy]

I went grocery shopping Wed for bread,eggs, and a couple things for dinner that night.A friend was comnig for dinner and nicely split the grocery with me(seriously the onlyfriend who has ever chipped in for groceries!!!)

Wed we had tofu green curry on rice noodles w fresh cold spring rolls w peanut butter dipping sauce. I still have 1/2 a can of coconut milk left over from this meal in the freezer

Last night-I made pasta w olive oil, that i brought to a simmer with garlic and basil from the garden, then strained it out and added minced garlic and basil and chopped cherry tomatoes. Then arugala frm the garden and sliced black olives that were in the fridge to use up(still have a bit of olives left). THEN to make dh and mine a little spicier I poured the vinegar mixture from the jar of pickled hot peppers in the fridge..seriously that MADE the dish!! And the dc LOVE olive oil based pasta, dd(18m) loves bathing in it...its still throughout her hair

Today I made berry muffins with berries we picked last week that were getting soft, and since i had the oven on I decided to make a "dinner muffin" w herbs from the garden and diced garlic...turned out pretty good NEXT time I would add tomato paste and more herbs. We're having those w dried kidney beans that are cooking, then I'm going to sautee with onion, garlic, tomato paste(THAT NEEDS TO BE USED UP!!!), fresh basil and tarragon frm the garden. W a few green beans from the garden cooked in a little white wine(again needs to be used, I love white wine with cooking HATE to drink it), w garlic,onion, lemon. I've got a salad in the fridge of purple cabbage and grated carrot w sunflower seeds,sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. I'm still trying to decide if I go and get some swiss chard from the garden or leave it for another day.

[caiesmommy]

[QUOTE=frugalmama;15577173]Anyone have any ideas for what to do with flavored coffee creamers? I have a TON I got on clearance a while back that I stuck in my freezer, and now I can't drink coffee thanks to my gallbladder.


Is it liquid or powdered coffee creamer?

Here's a link for things to do with it

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/us...ee-creamer.htm

The pumpkin spice would prob. be wicked in muffins or pancakes!

[frugalmama]

Originally Posted by caiesmommy

Is it liquid or powdered coffee creamer?

Here's a link for things to do with it

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/us...ee-creamer.htm

The pumpkin spice would prob. be wicked in muffins or pancakes!

It's liquid creamer - but I'm thinking I could sub it for milk in things? It's non-dairy so I'm not sure.

[ltlmrs]

I fell off the bandwagon this week (and it's the first week I'm on the challenge, argh! ). Tuesday, Ladybug broke the jar of flour (thankfully, I wash the only one cut by the glass, she miraculously escaped) so I had to go and buy more. Then Thursday, I took some friends out to lunch. I never do this (and we hardly ever eat out) and this is one of the worst months to be generous like that, but these were very old friends and I've owed them lunch for a long time. Anyway, that made a huge dent in my grocery budget so the pantry challenge is even more apropos now. I also got more olive oil, onions & carrots. All in all I spent $122 on food this week. My monthly budget for food is only $250-300 (I get to save the extra money at the end of the month towards a grain mill).

[Ruthiegirl]

Grilled a mountain of squash and had some for dinner with pintos and corn tortillas. Ate one of the avacados too. Ate up the lettuce that was wilting in the fridge.

We have a potluck tomorrow and I think I might make stuffed squash. We have a bunch of little patty pans that would be good stuffed with rice/swiss chard/cheese.

So far, so good.

[Amys1st]

Wow, this is the most appetizing pantry challenge I EVER remember
LOL.

Usually the ones in the winter are all about using up baked goods etc. Now that we are doing one combined with CSAs, gardens etc this is a blast!

So I clean out the freezers and fridge during the pantry challenges. I made a very large vat of beef stock yesterday with soup bones from my side last winter. Also added a few dying pieces of celery, carrots and an onion. Its all in various containers in my fridge. I need to skim off the fat and put them in the freezer.

We had 4 organic sweet potatoes in the crisper. I peeled, cut and made sweet potato french fries last night with our burgers. A cucumber in the back of the fridge became creamy cucumber salad. Our burger toppings were avacado, cucumber, sprouts and lettuce and a bit of mayo. After the kids went to run and play with the neighbor kids, we had a few odds n ends beer left over from a party a few weeks back. Now to clean the shelves in the fridge.

Next assignment, the upstairs freezer. Its easier since I went thru it from the stock making but several little treats etc are in there somehow.

A friend came over yesterday and wanted to make a bannana bread with her rotting bannanas. I made it for her (she and her family LOVE my bread) while making mine. She left 4 more rotting bannanas for me. DD2 said this morning while seeing them- Mommy make more bannana bread with those!
Amazing how a small child knows, but my friend only figured it out after I told her a few weeks back that all my rotten banannas go into bread.

[caiesmommy]

Tonight was :

-miso soup leftover from lunch
-a small lettuce/herb salad from the garden w o/oil, lemon juice, capers and olives frm the fridge
-buckwheat "salad" buckwheat w chives/parsley olive oil and lemon...im trying to get rid of this huge jar of buckwheat but honestly I REALLY dont like it.
-kale chips frm the garden
-sauteed swiss chard in lemon, garlic, white wine
-our last tiny bit of cuke and carrot cut into sticks
-AND chickpea patties using the dried chickpeas in the cupboard and chickpea flour w thai basil and cilantro from the garden, and dried paprika and cumin. Dh liked them the kids wouldnt really try them

AND for dessert I made homemade vegan banana pudding...no idea what it tastes like but it did get rid of 3 bananas that are taking up my freezer...only 7 more to go

[frugalmama]

Tomorrow we're having our family dinner for the 4th. Using everything Already on hand except for the buns for the hot dogs.

We're having:

Sausages with fixings {mustard, relish, etc} on buns
Mac & Cheese
frozen veggies {I might try to repair the corn on the cob that's been in the freezer way too long}
Poke Cake


Any tips on repairing the corn on the cob that's been in the freezer too long? I was thinking stick it in the crockpot with sweetened water and let it cook SLOW to try to rehydrate it.

[MsVyky]

subbing. I'm doing the no-spend challenge, so this coincides nicely.

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by frugalmama

Any tips on repairing the corn on the cob that's been in the freezer too long? I was thinking stick it in the crockpot with sweetened water and let it cook SLOW to try to rehydrate it.

How about cutting it off the cob and using it in chili? Or toss it in muffins? I think mixing it in with something would help the flavor of older corn.