Author Topic: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2  (Read 1183511 times)

SisterX

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Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« on: September 02, 2014, 12:33:35 PM »
I'm going to revive this challenge because my husband and I are [almost certainly] moving out of state next May.  Since life in our state encourages more of a subsistence lifestyle, we have a freezer full of fruits and veggies, a chest freezer full of moose meat and fish, cellared root veggies, and canned goods.  We do a pretty good job of eating through our stores of food each year but we've never quite gotten to the bottom of the chest freezer.  Well, we don't want to move this food (and when it comes to frozen food, how could we keep it cold through a multi-state and even multi-country--we'll have to drive through Canada--adventure?) so we need to really get to work eating it.  The good news is, it's yummy!  And healthy!  I try to tell myself that when I'm like, "Ugh, we have to eat salmon yet again."
Probably the worst part is that it's the tail end of summer so I'm still filling up our stores of food.  Still canning things, still freezing things, but always things we like to eat.  We just need to buckle down and eat them.  My plan of attack is to make at least one fish meal and 1-2 moose meals per week.  Since those always lead to leftovers, that will take up most of a week's meals right there.  We'll be forced to reduce the amount of bought meat (chicken and pork) that we bring home (monetary savings!).
I suspect that we'll find some badly freezer-burned salmon fillets in the bottom of the freezer, but those won't get wasted either.  They'll go to the dog.

Join me, or not, on this less-than-9-month culinary adventure!  I just wanted to have an external way to be accountable when I get sick of eating the same two base proteins over and over again, and to set a goal which I can update once in a while so that it stays in my mind.

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2014, 04:26:25 PM »
I will absolutely join you!  We have a freezer that keeps filling up (A lot of it is homebaked items or produce from the reduced rack that is about to expire and I buy it dirt cheap and turn it into a casserole or soup or other meal) and a decent pantry. I'd like to work through the inventory we have and force myself to get a bit more creative with meals.

We won't be moving in 9 months but we'll have baby #3 crawling and at that point I'd like to fill the freezer with part of a cow to save on supermarket shopping with 3 in tow....

My goal is also to limit spending to let's say $10 a week for milk and yogurt starter and some fresh produce as we have an abundance of every other staple already in the house.

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2014, 04:33:17 PM »
I'm still in!  I never completed it the last time around.  We have so many random food items in our cabinets from our impulse shopping. 

Wolf_Stache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2014, 04:36:52 PM »
I'm in. I never finished everything in my cupboards during the last challenge, although I can see the back of them now!

I'm still trying to figure out what to make with a bag of Quinoa and a can of Squash Bisk, for example.

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2014, 04:44:23 PM »
I will interestingly watch from the side lines. I'm so busy feeding the freezer and the pantry this time of year and my garden is still producing more than we can it that it would serve no purpose to start eating what I've made.  I will, however, endeavour to eat whatever I've bought that's in my pantry.

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2014, 04:47:30 PM »
I'm in. I never finished everything in my cupboards during the last challenge, although I can see the back of them now!

I'm still trying to figure out what to make with a bag of Quinoa and a can of Squash Bisk, for example.
Quinoa is the best!  I use quinoa in place of rice.  It's SO good!

I would eat the squash bisque plain...or with a good roll.  I've been meaning to try this recipe for a while now: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/04/focaccia-rolls/

LisaCO

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #6 on: September 11, 2014, 09:23:48 PM »
Count me in.  I also never finished the last challenge.  I've got a bunch of quinoa to work through too. :-) 

SisterX

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2014, 11:26:26 AM »
Our anniversary derailed some of my good intentions for the first week.  :(  It was my husband's turn to make a fancy dinner and he bought a bunch of items which I didn't want to go bad, so those were the first priority.  On the plus side, we've managed to eat pretty much all of it now, so no food waste!  The last we have is a big bunch of fresh basil, so I'll turn that into pesto and freeze it.  Turns out, our baby loves pesto as much as I do.
I did pull out a salmon fillet for tonight, though, and I've figured out our meals for next week, which will include halibut (I was going to try making curried halibut--we'll see how that goes) and one meal using moose meat (stuffed red peppers).

KateH, I'm still putting up food for the winter too!  This weekend or next will probably be the last for our farmer's market so I'll be buying things it's ridiculous to buy here during the winter, such as celery, and putting it in the freezer.

Good luck everyone!  Let us know when you've made some progress.

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2014, 11:49:57 AM »
We're moving in a month, so I'm going to concentrate on the freezer and refrigerator.  Yesterday I used two defrosted chicken breasts, a pound of frozen corn, and three cans of black beans to make a double recipe of my favorite easy recipe (Chicken Taco Bowls from Budget Bytes).  Two days ago, I made fried rice using a spice pack from our pantry, frozen peas, canola oil, a few onions near the end of their lifespan, and rice we bought when our dog was having stomach issues.  I also recently made a smoothie with frozen strawberries, a too ripe banana, and milk. 

Last night, I was craving something sweet.  I made two chocolate chip cookies using this recipe (http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/perfect-single-serving-size-chocolate-chip-cookies.html).  I didn't have chocolate chips, so I chopped up part of a candy bar that's been in the cabinet since July. 

On my priority list of items to finish:
frozen basil cubes (http://www.dorot.co.il/_uploads/extraimg/Dorot-Basil-tray.jpg) purchased from Trader Joe's
frozen edamame
frozen chicken breasts
cheese - assorted
frozen broccoli, strawberries, and peas


carozy

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2014, 02:19:33 PM »
I'll join in although I will still buy bananas and produce.  I have plenty of beans, rice, barley, quinoa, and pasta to get through though.  This will take a loooong time.

horsepoor

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2014, 10:45:43 PM »
I will interestingly watch from the side lines. I'm so busy feeding the freezer and the pantry this time of year and my garden is still producing more than we can it that it would serve no purpose to start eating what I've made.  I will, however, endeavour to eat whatever I've bought that's in my pantry.

This is us, too.  However, I still find this exercise helpful to focus on using up those random ingredients and reducing excess stores of dry and canned goods, as well as not, say, buying fresh stuff when I have the same thing in the freezer.  It's also a decluttering project for me, and some ingredients sadly get tossed (or preferably composted or fed to the chickens) because we aren't going to eat them and they're clogging the pantry.

I've got some expired canned soups I need to eat for lunches, as well as lots of dry lentils, beans, popcorn, split peas, and yes, quinoa! 

The other day I realized that I had 3 different chile powders, plus a bunch of dried chiles, which I don't cook with as frequently as I used to, so I buzzed all the dried chiles up into powder, mixed them with the other three chile powders to get down to one container, and then stashed the remainder in the freezer, so I shouldn't need to buy any more for a year or more.  This challenge also pushed me to allow myself to run out of certain things, and then reevaluate whether I want to keep them in the house on a regular basis.  For instance, I decided I don't miss red wine vinegar, but I did miss having rice wine vinegar, so I bought some more after being out of it for about a month. 
« Last Edit: September 13, 2014, 10:48:05 PM by horsepoor »

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #11 on: September 16, 2014, 10:09:09 AM »
The challenge is going well. I even invited some friends to do the same and we are having a potluck next week to share our more creative recipes 9I am hoping one man's least favorite concoction is another's favorite!).

So far we've had a lot of filling stews to use up our produce that was about to turn. Lunch today is going to be potato pancakes to use up a bit of applesauce & sour cream we have in the fridge.

I also discovered that we were using less of one or two products and I hadn't realized. So when they went on sale and I bought another 3 containers, we are now at an excess. There's more instant coffee than DH will drink in a year for example. I'm switching as soon as our beans run out and I've been adding it to some more baking for a Mocha flavoring as well.

Zamboni

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #12 on: September 16, 2014, 11:25:52 AM »
I'm in as well.  At a minimum I need to clean out the freezer.  I VOW to buy nothing that needs to go in there until EVERYTHING that is in there now is gone.  Not really knowing what is in there, this should be interesting.

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #13 on: September 16, 2014, 11:53:55 AM »
I'm in as well.  At a minimum I need to clean out the freezer.  I VOW to buy nothing that needs to go in there until EVERYTHING that is in there now is gone.  Not really knowing what is in there, this should be interesting.

Haha!  I had the same problem.  I'm still eating down my freezer, but it's in much better shape. 

We're moving in a few weeks, so I really need to get on this!  We're eating pasta with marinara (from the freezer) tonight. 

Bob W

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #14 on: September 16, 2014, 12:19:23 PM »
We don't have a big freezer, but every now and then we do and "eat down."   Meaning we eat and plan our meals around whatever is in the pantry of freezer until it is all gone but the sugar and flour.    Seems like it is time to do so again as I noticed last night we still had two boxes of last years Thanksgiving stuffing!

swick

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #15 on: September 16, 2014, 08:09:42 PM »
In for this round as well....still chipping away at everything - but looks like we may be moving within the next couple of months.  The bright side is we would be moving south and having a well stocked pantry and freezer is much less of an issue since we will have access to pretty much everything we may desire - including all the things we tend to buy and store :)

Today I crock-potted a couple of slightly freezer burned cornish game hens. Fried the meat up with some Korean Pepper paste and various bits of sauce from the fridge and served with some garlic fried Quinoa (yep we got lots to use up too!)

Bones from the hens are in the crock-pot for some bone stock. Pulled a chicken from the freezer for some sort of dish later in the week. Probably a cornbread topped pot pie using some of the cornmeal we have stashed away.

I made some Anzac brownies using up some of our supply of oats, shredded coconut, and dark chocolate bars my mom foisted upon me.

I buzzed up some three berry syrup I had canned and am using it to flavor some fizzy water made in our soda stream. Adding the leftover dribs and drabs of alcohol we have kicking around have made some great cocktails.

In anyone has some good ideas for stoneground (pretty fine) cornmeal, or pot barley I have a TON of both!

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #16 on: September 17, 2014, 10:38:59 AM »
Quote

In anyone has some good ideas for stoneground (pretty fine) cornmeal, or pot barley I have a TON of both!

I'd use it in mac & cheese/biscuits/as a texture on chicken strips or sweet potato fries,etc/ with a taco pie or some sort of dinner or even breakfast casserole.

You could try cooking it in some water and topping with cheese or egg, a bit like grits. The texture is fine but it could be tasty.

swick

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #17 on: September 18, 2014, 07:58:13 AM »
Quote

In anyone has some good ideas for stoneground (pretty fine) cornmeal, or pot barley I have a TON of both!

I'd use it in mac & cheese/biscuits/as a texture on chicken strips or sweet potato fries,etc/ with a taco pie or some sort of dinner or even breakfast casserole.

You could try cooking it in some water and topping with cheese or egg, a bit like grits. The texture is fine but it could be tasty.

Great ideas :)

I have big plans for using up staples today. I have 3 crockpots going. One with a chai tea concentrate and two for Supper. One a whole chicken and the other Pinto Beans. Dinner tonight: Chicken and Quinoa enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce and refried Pinto beans.

This will use: a chicken from the freezer, the broth from the cornish game hens I just made, tortillas from the freezer, pinto beans from the pantry, a ton of spices, quinoa, that 1/2 can of chipotles in adobo which has been sitting in my fridge forever, several bits and pieces of cheese, home dried peppers from the pantry, the last 1/2 jar of salsa - down from when I started the original challenge with 14 jars of salsa :)

Ascotillion

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #18 on: September 19, 2014, 06:54:32 PM »
I'm in too! I'll be moving before the year is over, and while I don't have a huge amount of stuff, some staples and bulk purchases would be annoying to take with me.

cats

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2014, 08:15:58 AM »
I'm in.  We are not (that we know of) moving, but I was reviewing our grocery spending to date earlier this month and it really shot up this year, to about $450/month on average (from about $250/month in 2013).  Partly b/c my husband quit his job (where he got 2 meals each day) and then took up long distance backpacking (where he needed to eat 4-5000 cal/day), so our caloric needs doubled (and then some...), and of course some things have just gotten more expensive (almonds are now almost a dollar more per pound, waaaaaaah).  I made a LOT of bulk purchases of stuff like beans, rice, oatmeal, protein powder, canned tomatoes, and dried fruit, we have gone through a lot of it, but there is also lots of it still taking up space in our apartment! Since the beginning of month wake-up call, I have already been focusing more on using up what we have, and our "food and dining" expenses to date for September are under $100, phew.  I would like to see if we can get down to <$200/month for the rest of the year by shopping the pantry/freezer more aggressively.

My personal version of the challenge will be:

-not to buy new bulk foods if we still have something that is functionally equivalent available.  Like, if I want to make split pea soup but we are out of split peas, too bad, because we still have 15 lbs of pinto beans hanging out in the pantry.

-completely empty out the freezer before our next round of batch cooking.  I have actually been working on this for the past month and there is a pretty big dent already.

-Reinforce the 1 in, 1 out rule we used to have about condiments.  I would like to get some fancy different vinegars, but first I must figure out a use for the 3/4 full bottle of barbecue sauce that has been hanging out in the fridge since May!

One thing I've started doing again is estimating how much the items on my grocery list will cost before I go to the store (used to do this fanatically in grad school when I needed to, but have gotten lax), and if the number seems high, go through and figure out a few things to ax.  Like, this week I was thinking of trying out a new recipe that called for a tahini dressing, but we are out of tahini.  I decided to just make a yogurt dressing (since we already have some yogurt in the fridge), and will pick up tahini some other time (it is pretty cheap per calorie, after all!) when I don't have too many other purchases to make.  I was also thinking we might need to buy some chicken at Costco, but then I did an inventory of things and realized we have ground beef, stew beef, half a duck (????), and fish in the freezer, plus several cans of tuna and sardines: more than enough to last us for a while.  So the chicken can wait also. Then I decided there were a few too many high end vegetables on the list (i.e., ones that cost more than $1/lb), so I swapped one of the recipes in our meal plan for something that is a little more pedestrian and uses up existing supplies more.  Nothing extreme and we will still have plenty of tasty food to eat this coming week, but overall around $50 less on the grocery bill.


Zamboni

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #20 on: September 20, 2014, 10:59:18 AM »
started working through the bags of frozen fruit today.  Used up some pineapple and sliced peaches.

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #21 on: September 20, 2014, 12:04:57 PM »
I'm in. I'd like to use up the cupboard items.

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2014, 01:29:48 PM »
Big Score today.... I was digging through the freezer because I was knew I had a cut of pork that I wanted to make and then I discovered three bags of meals left over from the last time I did "Once a month cooking". One of the meals was my favorite and the Asian Chicken recipe really broke up the monotony of pork/beef we've been eating.

I think this afternoon I may go back in there and inventory everything. I did before the summer but clearly added a few things into the freezer but not on the inventory. It makes me feel a bit nerdy but like an organized nerd who is slowly growing the 'stash by not buying food when there is plenty to be had already.

LisaCO

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #23 on: September 20, 2014, 06:40:27 PM »
We finally made it through all of the bags of frozen fruit - lots of yummy fruit smoothies during the warm weather.  There's still a long way to go, but we did manage to empty one bottle of salad dressing and I finished up one of three boxes of soba noodles.  Next week, I'm starting on the quinoa. :-)

cats

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #24 on: September 20, 2014, 09:07:49 PM »
Whoo!  I did what felt like a huge amount of cooking today, making good use of the freezer/pantry.  I made:

-Black bean soup (using frozen black beans and canned tomatoes)
-Vegetable frittata (using up some random ends of feta cheese from the freezer, frozen spinach, and the remains of some random olives in the fridge)
-falafel (using chickpeas from the freezer)
-a chickpea, tomato, and eggplant stew (using the rest of the huge can of tomatoes, and the remaining chickpeas in the freezer).

About half the black bean soup is going to be frozen, but overall there is a net increase of empty space in the freezer.  More to the point, grocery expenses for this month are on great track to stay under my $200/month goal (currently hanging out around $120, so I might even manage to stay under $150 as I think next week we will perhaps be able to get away with just purchasing produce--this week I got a few things like 4 dozen eggs and a container of cottage cheese, which drove the bill up a bit).

Write Thyme

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #25 on: September 22, 2014, 11:09:10 AM »
Over the weekend I made some pancakes using gluten free flour and chocolate chips that have been hanging out for a long time.

I bought some asian barbequed pork to use up some rice and the sweet chili sauce that's been in the fridge awhile.

I also made a double batch of muffins to use up GF flour, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and peanut butter chips (not in the same muffin!). Not sure what happened because they all had an off taste. Luckily my brother took them.

I also made a box of brownies. I have other boxed mixes to use up. I found some DIY baking mixes that I'm excited to try out, but the boxed stuff needs to go first.

Write Thyme

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #26 on: September 22, 2014, 11:23:15 AM »
Oh, and when I was making my work breakfasts for the week (parfaits) I used up a bag of frozen blueberries, and a little bit of the oatmeal that has been open for awhile. Can't wait till that and the other frozen blueberries are gone.

SisterX

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #27 on: September 22, 2014, 12:31:37 PM »
It's been a good week for us, in terms of using things up.  Last week we ate one salmon fillet and one halibut fillet, which turned out to be ancient and not very tasty.  So the leftovers went to the dog, who was supremely happy about that.  (I will have to check on the fish more thoroughly as I pull it out.  Anything too old/freezer burned will be cooked for the dog, which means saving on pet food so still a win.)
We also made chili using beans from the pantry, home canned tomatoes, corn from the freezer, and a pound of ground moose from the freezer.
I also made some scones and used the last of some cherries I canned two years ago, and used some applesauce from the freezer in oatmeal for my daughter.  Planning to make a giant batch of applesauce muffins once the scones are gone, to use up some applesauce from the pantry (too chunky for my toothless baby to eat).  Makes a nice quick, filling breakfast.
Tonight for dinner, and probably spilling into tomorrow: moose roast.
Next up: another salmon fillet, then clam chowder (clams from the freezer, potatoes and carrots from our garden) and then chicken tortilla soup (found chicken in the freezer!), and moose lasagna.  It's good to know that we can eat so many delicious things with the bulk of it from our own supplies.*

*I am still purchasing a few things as needed, such as milk and veggies, because most of what we have frozen or otherwise stored is protein of one sort or another.  However, all meal planning is still revolving around what we can use up that's already in the house.

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #28 on: September 23, 2014, 01:16:01 PM »
Quote from: WESTOFTHEHUDSON

I think this afternoon I may go back in there and inventory everything.

So glad I made the time to do this. I was able to plan our meals for the next month (and a bit longer but I don't do anymore than that at one time) using what exists in there. I left a pen on the shelf so DH or myself can mark off when we took out one pork shoulder or some frozen juice concentrate. So much better than just guessing if we're out of something or if there is a decent substitute already stored.

Lyngi

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #29 on: September 23, 2014, 09:42:23 PM »
Made a zucchini casserole from free  zucchini from a coworker, hairy carrots (sprouted roots), left over stuffing/dressing bag from thanksgiving--YUM.  Going to make frito salad--canned bean, corn, french dressing

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #30 on: September 30, 2014, 07:32:43 PM »
How's everyone doing?

We did go over our weekly goal for food but the local Hutterites were selling their hormone free turkeys. With holidays approaching (we celebrate voth Canadian & American Thanksgiving in our home), we cut the 19lb'er into quarters and froze separately. With just two of us and pre-schoolers, no way we'd chew through a whole one in one go. We recently started chopping them up so that way, we can roast an amount we're more likely to eat (even after accounting for some leftovers) in one week.

It's great to see our supplies become a bit more manageable. I even found some surprise cookies and homemade sausage a friend gave us awhile back and I just assumed we'd eaten it all.

cats

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #31 on: September 30, 2014, 09:49:59 PM »
Progress report!

-We ate through all the food I made last weekend, except the soup that I froze. Ate some of that for lunch today and expect to make a good dent in it this week.

-Mid-week last week made a meat chili for the husband composed entirely of ingredients from the freezer/pantry.  It's almost gone now.

-Used up the two half-heads of cabbage that had been sitting in the fridge for a while (good thing cabbage keeps forever!).  Slice thin, saute in olive oil with garlic, add a handful of chopped walnuts at the end, and some kale if you want to be trendy-healthy.  Salt and pepper liberally and enjoy.

-Went through the last of my curried walnut stash at work, restocked with the last of the curried walnut stash from home.  Broke out the 3-lb bag of walnuts in the pantry and have them soaking to make another batch.  These are one of my favorite snack foods (yummy, satisfying, not inclined to overeat them).

-Roasted the half duck that was lurking in the freezer, and then used the fat for roasting vegetables.  Bones went into the freezer for making stock at a later date.

-Have been making inroads on the multiple pounds of shredded mozzarella in the freezer.

-Have gone through almost all of the frozen beans: defrost and add a handful to salads, have some beans in lieu of one of my breakfast eggs, etc.

-made some crackers to keep at work for snacks, and took a container of roasted cashew dip from the home freezer to work to eat on said crackers.

I feel like we're doing pretty well--using up a few things each week, but our pantry is still very well-stocked, so we'll be able to continue shopping it for a while.  I am kind of alarmed at how fast we are going through our stock of frozen cheese, but husband says he's okay with dropping it from our diet once it runs out, in favor of eating other items we already own.  Ditto on meat. Grocery total for this month comes to just under $170, well below my <$200/month goal.  We've been discussing switching from meal planning and grocery shopping in 1-week blocks to doing it in 2-week blocks.  We did this for a while a year or so ago, and while it did reduce expenses (and was nice to not spend as much time shopping), the end of week 2 always involved a lot of cabbage and carrots.  We will see if we can plan it better this go-round, or maybe start alternating 1 and 2 week blocks. 

Next weekend we need to start chipping away at our enormous stock of pinto beans.  Time for some veg. chili (and cornbread to finish off the cornmeal), I think!  Husband has also reminded me that we need to get our Christmas puddings started, which will make a dent in the dried fruit (and booze) supply.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #32 on: September 30, 2014, 10:22:48 PM »
took a container of roasted cashew dip from the home freezer to work to eat

Recipe please? :-)

-Went through the last of my curried walnut stash at work, restocked with the last of the curried walnut stash from home.  Broke out the 3-lb bag of walnuts in the pantry and have them soaking to make another batch.  These are one of my favorite snack foods (yummy, satisfying, not inclined to overeat them).

Recipe please-please? :-) :-)

1967mama

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #33 on: September 30, 2014, 11:11:19 PM »
I am joining to motivate myself to eat out of our freezer for the next 2 weeks. I have a side of beef coming! Took 2 pork loins out for tomorrow nights dinner...progress!

Nancy

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #34 on: October 01, 2014, 07:30:03 AM »
Used my can of light coconut milk that we've had for two years to make delicious muffins.
Used some of the nutritional yeast that we've had for at least a year; we have a long way to go before that's used up though. Anyone have some good recipes?

swick

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #35 on: October 01, 2014, 11:29:40 AM »
I too have some nutritional yeast to use up. I bought it because I wanted to experiment with cashew "cheese" sauce and the like. After quite a few failed attempts I got tired of wasting cashews. Nutritional yeast seems to overpower every other flavor, and not what I'm looking for in a "cheese" sauce.

I have been making lots of progress - can see the bottom of my freezer (this scares me a little)

Last night made a white bean, red lentil and smoked ham hock soup in the crockpot, all from pantry ingredients.

I have also been making this breakfast bread which is super yummy and is allowing me to use up all manner of dried fruits and nuts and seeds.

http://rhubarbandhoney.com/2014/09/09/raincoast-crisps-bread/

1967mama

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #36 on: October 01, 2014, 05:17:14 PM »
Made 2 zucchini loaves with 3 freezer bags of shredded zucchini from last year. Baking 2 pork loins for dinner.  Used up jar of Dijon mustard in the pork loin marinade. Score!

cats

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #37 on: October 01, 2014, 09:50:11 PM »
took a container of roasted cashew dip from the home freezer to work to eat

Recipe please? :-)

-Went through the last of my curried walnut stash at work, restocked with the last of the curried walnut stash from home.  Broke out the 3-lb bag of walnuts in the pantry and have them soaking to make another batch.  These are one of my favorite snack foods (yummy, satisfying, not inclined to overeat them).

Recipe please-please? :-) :-)

Here you go, recipes for my weird snacks:

For the roasted cashew dip:  Roast 2 c. of cashews.  Place in food processor and grind into a butter.  Add in 3/4 c. nutritional yeast, then add water 1/4 c. at a time until you get a consistency you like (mine is about the consistency of a smooth nut butter, IIRC it took about 1 c water total, but the dip has been in the freezer for a while!).  Salt to taste.

For the curried walnuts, I soak 3 lbs of walnuts in water for 8 hours or overnight.  Drain off the water, then combine 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander, 1/2 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of cloves with 1-2 tsp salt.  You can also add a bit of cayenne if you want some kick.   Coat the walnuts with the spice mixture.  I then pop the nuts in the dehydrator and dry them out that way, but I imagine if you don't have a dehydrator they could also be toasted.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #38 on: October 02, 2014, 04:46:45 AM »
Yum, thanks for those! I can see myself cooking those soon :-)

tracylayton

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #39 on: October 02, 2014, 07:31:47 AM »
I don't have a big freezer but every time I go on vacation, I try to eat up everything that is in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. It's a great time to clean all the shelves and use up food.

Nancy

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #40 on: October 02, 2014, 08:45:37 AM »
took a container of roasted cashew dip from the home freezer to work to eat

Recipe please? :-)

-Went through the last of my curried walnut stash at work, restocked with the last of the curried walnut stash from home.  Broke out the 3-lb bag of walnuts in the pantry and have them soaking to make another batch.  These are one of my favorite snack foods (yummy, satisfying, not inclined to overeat them).

Recipe please-please? :-) :-)

Here you go, recipes for my weird snacks:

For the roasted cashew dip:  Roast 2 c. of cashews.  Place in food processor and grind into a butter.  Add in 3/4 c. nutritional yeast, then add water 1/4 c. at a time until you get a consistency you like (mine is about the consistency of a smooth nut butter, IIRC it took about 1 c water total, but the dip has been in the freezer for a while!).  Salt to taste.

For the curried walnuts, I soak 3 lbs of walnuts in water for 8 hours or overnight.  Drain off the water, then combine 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander, 1/2 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of cloves with 1-2 tsp salt.  You can also add a bit of cayenne if you want some kick.   Coat the walnuts with the spice mixture.  I then pop the nuts in the dehydrator and dry them out that way, but I imagine if you don't have a dehydrator they could also be toasted.

Deeelish! Thanks!

SisterX

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #41 on: October 02, 2014, 01:05:14 PM »
Used my can of light coconut milk that we've had for two years to make delicious muffins.
Used some of the nutritional yeast that we've had for at least a year; we have a long way to go before that's used up though. Anyone have some good recipes?

So, um, I'm currently breastfeeding and nutritional yeast + flax is supposed to be really good for that.  And it has been, I totally notice a boost when I've been eating those.*  So I've been adding them to a lot of stuff.  The best recipes so far have been adding a bit to banana bread (here's my recipe: http://sisterx83.blogspot.com/2014/03/blueberry-oatmeal-banana-bread.html -- the modified version with the nutritional yeast is at the bottom) and in this baked cranberry applesauce oatmeal (http://www.budgetbytes.com/2013/10/cranberry-apple-baked-oatmeal/).  For the oatmeal, I just add a Tbsp of nutritional yeast and I'm a tiny bit generous with the applesauce and it's worked very well.  You can't taste the yeast in either of these.

*Don't worry, you won't spontaneously start lactating if you follow these recipes.  :D

LisaCO

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #42 on: October 02, 2014, 06:12:11 PM »
I'm making progress, slowly but surely.

I used a can of beans, some of the brown rice and spices in black bean burgers.

I work from home, so this challenge has really helped with menu planning.  One box of quinoa down and only 2 to go.  I sautéed some spinach with garlic and pepper, and then threw in the quinoa.  I put an egg cooked over easy on top.

One box or crackers and one box of green tea are also gone.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2014, 06:17:38 PM by LisaCO »

WESTOFTHEHUDSON

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #43 on: October 04, 2014, 04:39:41 PM »
Any suggestions on Lima beans? I have a bag of dried ones. I partially used them but didn't seem to rehydrate as well as my other dried beans. Chewy and too soft in the same bean....

Maybe in a spread or in a chili?

I'm getting excited as due to inlaws visiting (they brought a few meals) and two potlucks we were invited to t, we may be able to stretch our inventory out another week.

All we have bought at the store is milk, yogurt, a red onion and a few heads of lettuce and cat food. It took 1/3 less time than usual which was great.  I was tempted to buy some additional items but we could wait to eat them and I had only brought $10 cash with me anyways. I also checked out some new cookbooks from the library and I made a few meals using Asian ingredients I had on had always meaning to prepare. We had great fried rice, wonton soup and pad thai :-)

swick

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #44 on: October 04, 2014, 04:57:17 PM »
Any suggestions on Lima beans? I have a bag of dried ones. I partially used them but didn't seem to rehydrate as well as my other dried beans. Chewy and too soft in the same bean....

I had a bag that I soaked overnight recently, and the next morning they were...oddd...the skins looked like they had split and bubbled. I ended up popping them out of their skins, throwing then in a crockpot with a smoked ham hock and made a soup. if the texture of the beans suck, buzz it up like I did :)

cats

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #45 on: October 04, 2014, 05:30:20 PM »
More progress:

-Ran out of oatmeal at work, so transferred the 5-lb bag in our pantry to the office
-Made a frittata using mushrooms and cheese from the freezer
-have some pinto beans soaking right now to make soup!  Am a little sick of black bean soup every day, so this will be good to mix things up a little.

Nancy

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #46 on: October 04, 2014, 05:34:12 PM »
Sisterx, thanks so much for the blueberry banana bread recipe. It looks delicious!
Progress:
Used up the quinoa, and we're no t buying more (despite wanting to) until we use up the lentils and rice.

Staff Only

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #47 on: October 06, 2014, 06:46:27 PM »
Hubby and I are going to join you for the next 2 weeks with this challenge.  The reason we want to try this is because last week we had the batteries in our escooter ripped out and stolen while it was parked in the supermarket carpark (we live and work in China and petty theft is pretty bad here).  Replacing the batteries set us back 600RMB. 

We spend at least 400RMB per week at the supermarket so the challenge we've set ourselves is to only spend 100RMB per week for the next 2 weeks.  This will include all non-food items we buy from the supermarket as well (shouldn't be too much of a problem as we're pretty well stocked in this area at the moment).  We also have a change bowl which we will be using to buy fresh veggies, eggs etc. from the wet market.

I figure 2 weeks of this will make up for the unexpected loss of 600RMB. 

P.S.  In Australia (where hubby and I are from) there is a pantry challenge known as the "$21 challenge" which means you can only spend $21 in one week on food items at the supermarket and you find the rest of your food from your pantry/fridge/freezer etc.  I've tweaked it a bit for life in China but 100RMB plus some change from the change bowl is roughly A$21.

SisterX

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #48 on: October 07, 2014, 11:40:40 AM »
Well, I looked in the freezer yesterday and actually had to dig deep to find some ground moose.  We still have plenty of moose roasts to eat up, so I guess I should start concentrating on those for weekend meals.
We also have lots and lots of salmon left, but I'd say that the chest freezer is probably about half empty.  Progress!
We also have a 50 lb. bag of flour, which I've been using to make at least 2 loaves of bread each week.
Finally, I made this baked oatmeal (http://www.budgetbytes.com/2013/10/cranberry-apple-baked-oatmeal/) which used both applesauce I canned at least 2 years ago, and some of the frozen cranberries I picked a couple of years ago.  I'll have to keep making that until both of them are gone.  Thankfully, it's delicious and filling!

MayDay

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #49 on: October 08, 2014, 06:36:25 PM »
Loving this thread!

Ideas I need to remember:
Applesauce muffins (I canned about a 3 year supply last fall oops)
Granola with oats
Frozen cranberries in oats


Things I have made lately: 
Fresh local fruit is done for the year so we dug into the dried pears
Dinner was 100% pantry today (noodles, carrot sauce, cheese my MIL gave us which no one likes plain but is ok on pasta)
Roasted 4 of my butternut squash (my garden stash is about 20 now).
Used up the last if my fresh beets

On the docket in the freezer:
More fruit from summer
A quiche that I froze, that only I like, so will eat for breakfast until it's gone
Veggie burgers
Frozen beets, ugh, I posted about them in the last pantry challenge.  I discovered they were tolerable when mixed into mashed potatoes.  Blech.