Our pantry is getting full. Which is such a great problem to have – but I’m worried now about wasting food – so I’ve decided that in an effort to go through our food properly, I’ll be doing a clean-out. This also coincides with coming home from vacation and trying to make up for the money spent there, as well as working towards creating better and cheaper meals to come closer to meeting our 300$ monthly food challenge.
First of all, I want to say that I think having a stocked pantry is very important. What I am also hoping to do is see what parts of my pantry are the most used and if I can change any of these items out for dried goods that might be cheaper (i.e. beans!) or anything that I can make myself for cheaper (i.e. pasta sauce).
Foods I’ve made so far:
Serious Eats – Vegetarian Chili – I made a huge batch of this. What can you eat this with?
- Rice and Chili (my favourite way)
- Tamale Pie – chili with cornbread baked on top
- Cheat Navajo Taco – quick fry bread with chili and toppings
- Loaded Fries – I tend to pick up Alexia brand fries or tater tots when they’re on sale, so we have two bags of fries or tater tots in the freezer currently
- Chili Dogs – Let me just say I LOVE this with the Field Roast Frankfurters. Unfortunately we have eaten all of the ones in the freezer and I am out, so this iteration will not make it into our monthly plan
What’s nice about chili is that I am getting plenty of protein from the beans! It’s a cheap option and easy to make a large batch of.
Half Baked Harvest – Butter Chicken Meatballs – this was the first time I made this, and these are great! We ate this with rice, and 4 chicken thighs ground up made about 15-18 meatballs.
Salted Mackarel – This is a fish I keep in my freezer. My local Korean market sells packages of these with individually packed mackarel pieces fairly cheap. I really enjoy this and it’s a quick dinner!
Vegetarian Bok Choy Kare Kare – I was able to pick up a few bags of bok choy earlier in the summer and froze them. I thawed them and cooked them quickly with a little bit of water to steam, and then tossed them in the (inauthentic) kare kare sauce.
Zucchini Bread and Peach Bread – great quick breakfasts!
Serious Eats – Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce
Pan de Sal – So good! This is great as buns, great as a sweet bread for breakfast, or just a quick snack.
Barbecue Jackfruit – Sauteed with onions, peppers and garlic, barbecue jackfruit can be a topping for baked potatoes, fries, or just as part of a sandwich!
What I’ve found out:
I’ve been relying pretty heavily on rice so far, but I will be moving over to pasta soon. I find that we don’t tend to eat as much pasta for leftovers when I cook it, so I will probably be buying that less often and cooking only enough for one meal rather than for leftovers.
Laughter and Cooking 