Author Topic: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2  (Read 1183504 times)

Noodle

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2350 on: December 07, 2018, 09:04:44 AM »
In the last installment, I hoped to use up:

cauliflower gnocchi (made a skillet dish which was only sort of successful because I forgot how much more delicate cauliflower gnocchi is...but still edible)
mango (mango-coconut bread which also used up the end of a bag of unsweetened coconut that had been around for ages)
Trader Joe's mini samosas
tater tots (ate one serving but still have some left)

Mostly I've been eating up leftovers from the refrigerator: roasted mushrooms and asparagus, roasted pepper spread, risotto, a pasta bake, fruit juice that needed to be finished, soup from Trader Joe's, etc.

For the upcoming week:
Mini samosas (for dinner with more soup)
Tater tots (as a side)
Hot dog chili (in a casserole)
Refrigerator biscuits (also in a casserole)
Apple compote (with ricotta cheese or Greek yogurt)

Nederstash

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2351 on: December 07, 2018, 11:57:48 AM »
Anyone else gearing up to eat down the pantry for the end of the year? I'd love to start January 1st with a big deep clean, or maybe I'll do that in the days after Christmas. I'd also like to join Veganuary, so I need to eat down all meat and dairy from the fridge.

I'm shooting for a big clearout. Only spices, oils and condiments left (no way I'll use those up for another few months). Alright, and probably oats/rice/supplements.

Time to actually be a consumer... not just a buyer :)

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2352 on: December 07, 2018, 12:13:13 PM »
Hiya, @Nederstash!  We live in a rural area, and like to stock up, so I don't think I'd be comfortable having an empty pantry.  :)

The garage freezer is almost empty of everything except the venison DH processed.  This is a good thing, since the butcher called and said our half pig is ready.  :)

The kitchen freezer is at a place where I can actually arrange things neatly again.  Veggies and frozen fruit in the top drawer, proteins in the bottom left, and leftover containers in the right hand side.


MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2353 on: December 07, 2018, 05:12:30 PM »
I used up chicken broth & the tomato sauce that I was hoping for, plus was unexpectedly home this week for lunch, so ate four freezer burritos. Tonight we're having pizza, which will use up a full prepared pizza + leftovers from one night we had delivery a ways back. I also defrosted soup for myself for lunch tomorrow, and a different soup for my husband's lunch.

Nederstash

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2354 on: December 08, 2018, 03:02:40 AM »
Hiya, @Nederstash!  We live in a rural area, and like to stock up, so I don't think I'd be comfortable having an empty pantry.  :)

That might be the only downside to living in the country, lol! I'm in the city, I grow a few herbs, but mostly I get everything from the supermarket. I'd like to be more conscious of what I bring in. This challenge is great for that!

horsepoor

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2355 on: December 08, 2018, 10:46:30 AM »
In the spirit of the thread, I decided that breakfast salad can be a thing.  We are going out tonight for DH's birthday, so the salad wasn't going to get used.  Used up the green onions and a sweet potato that I'd cut the nasty ends off of and stashed in the freezer.  Bonus points for starting out the day by getting my veggie servings in!

halftimer

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2356 on: December 08, 2018, 11:48:19 AM »
We were given a dairy free gluten free cheesecake months ago which has to be freezer stored and then thawed the perfect amount of time before serving and not refrozen. That thing stressed me out since I knew I was the only one in the house willing to try it, and I could never coordinate the thawing time properly for hosting. After months I finally took it to a pot luck this week and it was successfully consumed and was actually pretty tasting - success!   

However, I had a few fridge fails.  My dad stayed with us months ago and left most of a giant salsa and nacho cheese sauce we don't normally use in our fridge. He's coming back in a few weeks so I started focusing on using that up (plan was to use either the salsa or the nacho cheese in a pasta sauce) but when I opened the jars they were both moldy. In the bin they went. I really hate wasting food. Going to pay better attention to our odd items now.

He had also given us some freezer foods when he moved. At least I can report that all the freezer food has been eaten except one package of real juice freezies. Now that have discovered that 2 tropical juice freezies + alcohol = a decent boozy slushy beverage    I know they will not last long now.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2357 on: December 08, 2018, 12:20:14 PM »
Love it @horsepoor ! Breakfast salad sounds great.

I'm on it today:
-Found a package of deli meat that had dropped below the freezer drawers (along with a popsicle that somehow ruptured). Cleaned the super fun sticky/frozen popsicle mess, and making my husband a sandwich for lunch with the scraps of shredded mozzarella that need to be used + the deli meat. He will also be eating the soup I defrosted yesterday.
-For tonight's dinner, I've already defrosted the sauce with meat tips, and will make rice to go with that.
-For tomorrow's dinner, I've put a few items in the fridge as well to defrost.

Now, if I stick to my plans, I'll be crushing the freezer challenge & reducing waste. Woohoo! Yesterday I was so proud for using up the leftovers of a delivery pizza (stashed in the freezer), with a small Costco frozen pizza. Unfortunately, we normally make two pizzas, and I underestimated how much delivery pizza we had. Everyone else but me got to have pizza. I had eggs on a bagel. Still fine, and avoiding dairy is by far the best choice for me, but I was actually craving pizza. Foiled by myself! :-)

lettuceevangelist

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2358 on: December 09, 2018, 05:07:15 PM »
This thread is extremely motivating! We have too much in both our regular freezer and our upright freezer, so I am committing to cooking at least one meal out of the freezer every week. It was around 35F and raining this afternoon, so it was a good time to get busy. I made:
--a big batch of soup in the Instant Pot: turkey from Thanksgiving, kale I grew this spring, white beans, a cube of "hot sauce" I made from our peppers, sauteed bacon ends, onion, garlic, various seasonings. It was delicious, and got rid of two large freezer items.
--beef broth from bones we bought last year that have been languishing in our big freezer;
--roasted pumpkin (the neighbors brought us a bunch);
--split pea soup (chipotle peppers go in this, which had been lurking in the freezer for quite some time);
--turnip greens (okay, these didn't clear anything out of the freezer, but still involved items we already had).
I'd love to experiment with how long we could go without doing a "big shop". We'd still need to buy things like milk, coffee, etc. My spouse prefers to take the cautious one meal per week approach.

horsepoor

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2359 on: December 09, 2018, 06:07:57 PM »
Love it @horsepoor ! Breakfast salad sounds great.

I think it could become a regular thing in the summer!  My co-workers probably won't even blink if I'm eating salad at my desk at 9am, lol.

I'm headed out of town for the work week, so this morning I picked all the meat off of a leftover roasted chicken and made a quick stock in the Instant Pot with the carcass.  Strained it and threw in a couple potatoes and cooked them until they could be mashed up to thicken the stock.  Added herbs, garlic and random veg from the fridge, plus the leftover chicken meat, and ended up with a nice soup.  Hopefully DH will eat any leftovers while I'm gone.




mountain mustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2360 on: December 09, 2018, 08:31:43 PM »
This thread is extremely motivating! We have too much in both our regular freezer and our upright freezer, so I am committing to cooking at least one meal out of the freezer every week. It was around 35F and raining this afternoon, so it was a good time to get busy. I made:
--a big batch of soup in the Instant Pot: turkey from Thanksgiving, kale I grew this spring, white beans, a cube of "hot sauce" I made from our peppers, sauteed bacon ends, onion, garlic, various seasonings. It was delicious, and got rid of two large freezer items.
--beef broth from bones we bought last year that have been languishing in our big freezer;
--roasted pumpkin (the neighbors brought us a bunch);
--split pea soup (chipotle peppers go in this, which had been lurking in the freezer for quite some time);
--turnip greens (okay, these didn't clear anything out of the freezer, but still involved items we already had).
I'd love to experiment with how long we could go without doing a "big shop". We'd still need to buy things like milk, coffee, etc. My spouse prefers to take the cautious one meal per week approach.



Ok I have got to hear more about this "hot sauce" cube...do tell, how exactly do you make them?

Dollar Slice

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2361 on: December 09, 2018, 09:32:16 PM »
I was given our Chanukah dinner leftovers to take home since my parents are going on a trip and didn't want to have to figure out what to do with half a rib roast in the next two days. So... anyone have any great ideas for gorgeous tender leftover beef aside from "eat a big slab of meat every day"? :-) 

Also I'd love to know if anyone's used beef rib bones to make stock. I was thinking of throwing them in the Instant Pot to see what happens. I only ever tried to make beef stock once before (not in the IP) and it didn't go very well... there are only two ribs but they are pretty big and have a lot of meat still attached, so I thought it might be worth a shot. Seems such a waste not to use them.

lettuceevangelist

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2362 on: December 10, 2018, 04:43:35 AM »
Ok I have got to hear more about this "hot sauce" cube...do tell, how exactly do you make them?
[/quote]

Hot peppers (de-seeded), a clove of garlic, salt, olive oil--throw in blender, blend till smooth. Pour into ice cube trays, freeze. When they're frozen, they can go in a Ziploc bag. If they were bigger peppers, I would also roast them and remove the skin, but most are smaller than my little finger (they're African fish peppers).

mountain mustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2363 on: December 10, 2018, 05:39:40 AM »
I was given our Chanukah dinner leftovers to take home since my parents are going on a trip and didn't want to have to figure out what to do with half a rib roast in the next two days. So... anyone have any great ideas for gorgeous tender leftover beef aside from "eat a big slab of meat every day"? :-) 

Also I'd love to know if anyone's used beef rib bones to make stock. I was thinking of throwing them in the Instant Pot to see what happens. I only ever tried to make beef stock once before (not in the IP) and it didn't go very well... there are only two ribs but they are pretty big and have a lot of meat still attached, so I thought it might be worth a shot. Seems such a waste not to use them.

I make broth/stock out of everything. I keep a few bags in my freezer, one for veggie scraps, one for chicken scraps/bones, and one for pork or beef scraps/bones. When the bag is full I dump into the crockpot, and make broth. You could always freeze the rib bones, and wait until you have a few more bones to add, or buy a femur bone or two to add some flavor to the broth.

SquashingDebt

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2364 on: December 10, 2018, 06:04:32 AM »
I'm working on clearing out all my assorted odds and ends in the freezer before I travel for the holidays.  Yesterday, in a quest to use up my frozen ball of fresh mozzarella, I made pizza.  I ended up putting together the toppings entirely from freezer ingredients too, which made it a little random, haha.

Homemade dough used up the rest of my (getting slightly old) white flour and wheat flour, then I used garlic & basil flavored oil (leftover from my local creamery's delicious goat cheese in oil) as the "sauce", added caramelized onions and roasted eggplant, and cooked some sausage to add as well.  It turned out pretty darn good!

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2365 on: December 10, 2018, 11:32:43 AM »
Hiya, @Nederstash!  We live in a rural area, and like to stock up, so I don't think I'd be comfortable having an empty pantry.  :)

That might be the only downside to living in the country, lol! I'm in the city, I grow a few herbs, but mostly I get everything from the supermarket. I'd like to be more conscious of what I bring in. This challenge is great for that!

Truth, LOL!  I lived in Chicago for a short period of time, on the 33rd floor of a high rise, and my stocking up tendencies didn't mesh too well there.  It was a lot of work hauling two week's of groceries from the parking garage, down one elevator, across the lobby, then up another elevator.  ;)

This weekend, DH and I rearranged both freezers to make space for the half pig we bought.  I cannot wait to become a bacon snob, LOL!  I pulled out the rest of my birthday cake from earlier this year, a loaf of homemade zucchini bread, and a small bag of cherry tomatoes from DH's garden. 

Yesterday DH smoked a rack of ribs from the freezer, and we ate a bag of cauliflower fries with it, which freed up even more room.

Tonight's dinner will be Crock Pot country style ribs (bought on sale several months ago) with a container of Budget Bytes not refried beans and a half can enchilada sauce all from the freezer, a remaining 1/3 bottle of BBQ sauce from the fridge and a can of chicken broth from the pantry.

Tomorrow night will be cod and shrimp, and Wed venison steak.  Life is good.  :)

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2366 on: December 10, 2018, 01:38:38 PM »
cauliflower fries
What are cauliflower fries?  I love fries and cauliflower!

I've used all of the bones and vegetable odds and ends in my freezer to make soup.  I've made a huge batch of soup every weekend for the past month. 

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2367 on: December 10, 2018, 09:11:47 PM »
Freezer challenge week 3:
-2 containers of beef tips in a red wine sauce
-Stuffing
-Gravy
-Chicken broth
-Chicken chowder (single serving)

I used everything from week two, with the exception of rotisserie chicken. In fact, today I realized I had an entire turkey breast in the fridge, & made that. I now have lots & lots of turkey for the freezer.

Serendip

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2368 on: December 11, 2018, 10:04:48 AM »
Cooked up some kidney beans, now using some adobo paste (from the freezer) to add interest
Also making the forbidden rice (black rice) that I've had in my pantry for a bit..will serve with roasted yams and tahini dressing

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2369 on: December 11, 2018, 01:01:14 PM »
cauliflower fries
What are cauliflower fries?  I love fries and cauliflower!

I've used all of the bones and vegetable odds and ends in my freezer to make soup.  I've made a huge batch of soup every weekend for the past month.

Hiya, @4alpacas!  Thank you for asking.  We had these for the first time:  https://www.google.com/search?q=birds+eye+cauliflower+fries&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGo9zZy5jfAhVmtIMKHdAPDhAQ_AUIDygC&biw=1280&bih=910#imgrc=RcA36THSozfhzM: They are really good, IMO, but have a lot of "stuff" in them.  If you'd rather go a more natural route, check out:  https://gimmedelicious.com/2014/07/24/skinny-baked-cauliflower-tots/  I make them with almond flour instead of bread crumbs, and serve them with reduced sugar ketchup mixed with mayo.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 01:15:08 PM by MountainGal »

4alpacas

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2370 on: December 11, 2018, 01:44:24 PM »
cauliflower fries
What are cauliflower fries?  I love fries and cauliflower!

I've used all of the bones and vegetable odds and ends in my freezer to make soup.  I've made a huge batch of soup every weekend for the past month.

Hiya, @4alpacas!  Thank you for asking.  We had these for the first time:  https://www.google.com/search?q=birds+eye+cauliflower+fries&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGo9zZy5jfAhVmtIMKHdAPDhAQ_AUIDygC&biw=1280&bih=910#imgrc=RcA36THSozfhzM: They are really good, IMO, but have a lot of "stuff" in them.  If you'd rather go a more natural route, check out:  https://gimmedelicious.com/2014/07/24/skinny-baked-cauliflower-tots/  I make them with almond flour instead of bread crumbs, and serve them with reduced sugar ketchup mixed with mayo.
Thanks!  I'll have to try out that recipe.  We have two containers of breadcrumbs in our pantry!

I've been slowly eating our pasta stash.  I don't know how we acquire so many bags and boxes of pasta!  I've even started cooking various types in the same pot of water.  I line them up based on cook time.  The pasta is usually a little overdone with this method, but I also don't want to cook 1/2 cup of pasta.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2371 on: December 11, 2018, 07:19:00 PM »
2 containers of beef tips in red wine sauce - gone! Once again, underestimated volume, and ended up eating an egg on a bagel. Don't mind at all, as I don't eat breakfast anymore (fasting), so I miss eggs!

We ate half of the mashed potatoes, stuffing & gravy yesterday, & will polish off the rest tomorrow with the remaining turkey in the fridge.

Now to figure out what to eat on Thursday. . . if I have time, I'll make pizza. If I'm pinched for time, things will have to get really creative. May be leftover pasta with a red sauce & meatballs.

Dollar Slice

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2372 on: December 13, 2018, 07:28:57 PM »
Follow-up on my standing rib roast leftovers, in case anyone ever finds themselves in such a situation. I did some reading and figured out that the standing rib roast ribs are the same as beef back ribs, so I looked up a recipe for cooking those. I put the meaty ribs into the Instant Pot for 22 minutes w/NPR and then checked them to see if the rib meat was good. It was! There wasn't much of it but I pulled off a couple of ounces maybe, and it was tender and delicious (very fatty/greasy, though). Then I put the ribs/trimmings back into the IP, along with all the gristly/fatty/unpalatable parts trimmed from the roast, and cooked them for another hour or so under pressure, plus NPR. The stock came out OK, lots of gelatin but a little too salty (I guess from the outside of the roast being heavily salted). I didn't love the flavor (could be more meaty) but it was OK. I ended up using the stock combined with tomato puree for a vegetable soup. I prefer chicken stock, but I was happy to get some goodness out of those meaty bones.

I ended up using the rest of the roast beef leftovers for Philly-esque cheesesteak sandwiches. Pretty tasty. And I will probably never eat this much beef in one week for the rest of my life...

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2373 on: December 13, 2018, 08:32:38 PM »
Freezer challenge week 3:
-2 containers of beef tips in a red wine sauce
-Stuffing
-Gravy
-Chicken broth

-Chicken chowder (single serving)


I'll use the chicken chowder for lunch tomorrow. I also managed to use a container of taco meat + a bag of tortilla shells for dinner yesterday. Yes! Tomorrow for dinner I'm defrosting a Persian ground beef, rice & green bean dish. My freezer is actually easier to navigate these days!

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2374 on: December 18, 2018, 01:14:43 PM »
You're welcome, @4alpacas!  Hope they turn out for you!

@MaybeBabyMustache, you're doing such a great job!  Way to stay focused!

@Dollar Slice, those sandwiches sound good!

Did some baking last weekend which used up a bag of flour and granulated sugar, and all of the butter in the house!  Nearly 2 lbs.  :S  And last month I bought BOGO loaves of bread, so DH pulled the second out of the freezer which we had stashed.

Christmas dinner will use up a 11+ LB bone-in ham from the freezer, and the rest of the non-dairy creamer in the au gratin potatoes I make every year.  I'm also going to make French Onion green beans for my first time ever in order to use up the French's crispy fried onions I bought for some reason earlier this year, LOL.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2018, 01:06:37 PM by MountainGal »

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2375 on: December 18, 2018, 02:20:25 PM »
Okay, so I used the Persian bean & rice dish (the last serving will go tonight) & we ate 6 freezer burritos last night, so that's a big chunk of the bag out of the way. Progress! Once we're back from the holidays, I'll re-inventory our freezer at home. We're also heading to our vacation house this weekend, and I'll do a similar process where I identify what we need to use up from the pantry & freezer, and target those items for consumption eat each meal. :-)

For tonight, I'll serve the leftover lasagna to two diners, the leftover Persian bean dish to a third, and my picky eater will have pasta & chicken (already in the fridge).

Before we leave, I need all prepared food out of the fridge, and fruit & veggies consumed, frozen, or packed for the flight. Dairy is harder, and I need to decide what to do with a few half bricks of cheese. I'll freeze, but the texture never quite bounces back.

Noodle

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2376 on: December 18, 2018, 08:52:00 PM »
Good progress being made!

Previous plans:
Mini samosas (for dinner with more soup)
Tater tots (as a side)
Hot dog chili (in a casserole)
Refrigerator biscuits (also in a casserole)
Apple compote (with ricotta cheese or Greek yogurt)

Also finished the end of a package of crumpets, a Trader Joe's frozen veggie side dish, a can of refrigerator biscuits, and a lot of leftovers hanging around the refrigerator.

Next plan:

The other can of refrigerator biscuits (another casserole)
Frozen hash browns (Breakfast)
Ham and cheese squares (with tomato soup from a box)

mountain mustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2377 on: December 18, 2018, 08:57:56 PM »
I was doing really well at this challenge, and then a local restaurant closed (all organic, really good food) and I somehow managed to fill my freezer back up with reduced/mostly free food! I feel super lucky, but I also was getting excited about clearing out my freezer, giving it a good defrost, and saving space to do a big meat purchase in the spring/summer. I have a lot of eating to do!

Unique User

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2378 on: December 19, 2018, 05:53:51 AM »
@mountain mustache that sounds like a good problem to have!

I've been chipping away at the cooked frozen food, still in the freezer - 1 package corn casserole, 1 package chicken and corn casserole, 9 portions sausage egg strata, plus other items too numerous to list.  We've done pretty good at using up other items also.  I made a batch of ginger lemon cheesecake squares using several food show leftovers that were just sitting around - 1/2 bag gingersnaps, 2 packages of cream cheese and a couple lemons.  Cooked a turkey over the weekend and although we added 5 pints of gravy and 4 packages of turkey to the freezer it takes up much less room.  Almost all dinners the last two weeks have been from the freezer (with the exception of fresh produce) except for a pot roast night.  One of the grocery stores had a 1.5 pound chuck roast marked down to $2 and I couldn't resist.   

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2379 on: December 19, 2018, 10:04:19 AM »
@Unique User - like you, as I take things out, new things are somehow making their way back in. ;-)

We finished off the Persian rice dish last night. Tonight will be leftover lasagna for a a couple of dinners, with the other two having freezer burritos with guacamole. The burritos are quite small, so I'm hoping we can make our way through all of the burritos tonight.

For Thursday, I'm thinking of making the kids & my husband a pizza from the freezer. It will remove one more thing from the freezer, but I'm also expecting that we'll be out of leftovers by that point.

Our flight is early on Friday, but my plan is to dump all of the easily transported fruit/vegetables into a bag & bring on the flight. We'll be near a fridge again in a few hours, so shouldn't be too bad & I'd like to use up whatever we have vs freezing or tossing.

SquashingDebt

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2380 on: December 26, 2018, 08:05:16 AM »
Anyone else going to do a pantry/freezer challenge in January?  That's become an annual tradition for my mother and me.  I'll report back as the month progresses.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2381 on: December 26, 2018, 09:36:46 AM »
@SquashingDebt - I'm in. We do something similar.

For today, we have a giant food full of fridge (plus leftovers coming in from elsewhere) & need to menu plan to ensure nothing goes to waste. We unexpectedly have no kids (my parents kept them for another day), so we will likely go out & have a glass of wine tonight, but I think we'll do spaghetti & meatballs for dinner. Leftovers!

krmit

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2382 on: December 26, 2018, 11:07:45 AM »
I'm in for a pantry challenge! Between holiday cooking and a winter farmer's market bulk buy, my grocery spending was high in December.

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2383 on: December 30, 2018, 12:23:05 AM »
I have another week off before I go back to work, and had planned to spend a couple of days batch cooking meals for the freezer.

It's been so hot here, so I put a batch of coconut curried lentils in the slow cooker.

I used up some veggies I had stashed in the freezer (a cup of celery, two cups of zucchini, a cup of diced tomato, and a cup of diced broccoli stems).

Also used up the last of the arborio rice.

mountain mustache

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2384 on: December 30, 2018, 06:49:00 AM »
I'm making my way through a gallon of veggie chili from the freezer, and yesterday cooked up a pork shoulder with green chile sauce...now there's actually breathing room in my chest freezer!

chasingthegoodlife

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2385 on: January 01, 2019, 01:51:08 AM »
Dipping into this thread again after a while away for a January freezer/pantry clear out.

After reading through some of the posts I am now craving lasagna something severe and sadly I don't have any of the makings to use up :) Oh well.

I went through the freezer and pantry today and identified the odds and ends that have been hanging around for a while and need to go.

Stewed plums became muffins.
Frozen raspberries, the last of the oat bran, frozen coconut milk and soy milk left by guests became Raspberry Coconut Bread (so good!)
Another frozen container of coconut milk and the bottom of the produce drawer became red Thai curry.
Leftover stewed lamb and red lentils became an Indian style curry.

Made a spicy pork stir fry while I was at it to take advantage of the new freezer space.
All were packed for lunches using the brown basmati rice which I don't really like and won't buy again. There's still another cup or so to go on that so should finish in the next few weeks.

Next on the list:
Frozen mango (chia puddings)
Pastry sheets (fetta and spinach pie)
Blackberry sauce - homemade and frozen (no idea??)
Rest of weird brown rice
The open packages of almonds and pistachios (toasted, used on breakfast oats/in salads)
Reduce the noodle stash (vietnamese style rice noodle salads, miso seafood hot pot with soba)
Reduce the pasta stash (pesto pasta salad with roasted veggies and nuts)
Convince husband to eat the crackers guests have left instead of buying more of the ones we prefer (this will be a challenge).

SquashingDebt

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2386 on: January 01, 2019, 09:02:51 AM »
Dipping into this thread again after a while away for a January freezer/pantry clear out.

After reading through some of the posts I am now craving lasagna something severe and sadly I don't have any of the makings to use up :) Oh well.

I went through the freezer and pantry today and identified the odds and ends that have been hanging around for a while and need to go.

Stewed plums became muffins.
Frozen raspberries, the last of the oat bran, frozen coconut milk and soy milk left by guests became Raspberry Coconut Bread (so good!)
Another frozen container of coconut milk and the bottom of the produce drawer became red Thai curry.
Leftover stewed lamb and red lentils became an Indian style curry.

Made a spicy pork stir fry while I was at it to take advantage of the new freezer space.
All were packed for lunches using the brown basmati rice which I don't really like and won't buy again. There's still another cup or so to go on that so should finish in the next few weeks.

Next on the list:
Frozen mango (chia puddings)
Pastry sheets (fetta and spinach pie)
Blackberry sauce - homemade and frozen (no idea??)
Rest of weird brown rice
The open packages of almonds and pistachios (toasted, used on breakfast oats/in salads)
Reduce the noodle stash (vietnamese style rice noodle salads, miso seafood hot pot with soba)
Reduce the pasta stash (pesto pasta salad with roasted veggies and nuts)
Convince husband to eat the crackers guests have left instead of buying more of the ones we prefer (this will be a challenge).

That's a lot of progress!  For the blackberry sauce - stirred into yogurt? stirred into oatmeal? as the basis for a salad dressing with added oil and vinegar?

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2387 on: January 02, 2019, 02:17:38 PM »
A pork dish comes to mind when thinking about blackberry sauce.  :)

Count me in for the pantry/freezer challenge!  During the holidays, the kitchen freezer was so full we could barley close it.  Lately:

2 boxes of pre-made appetizers were used during a football game and NYE
A bunch of seafood was cooked last night
A half bag of strawberries frozen in season was used for brunch
A pound of venison was used in enchiladas
A leftover half jar of spaghetti sauce and a can of tomatoes will be used with tomorrow's pork chops
A ham was used for Christmas dinner
Another pound of bacon was pulled from the freezer and put in the fridge
Chicken breasts bought a few months ago will be next Monday's dinner


Serendip

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2388 on: January 04, 2019, 10:10:04 AM »
We are trying to see how long into 2019 we can go without buying groceries (my SO usually drops by everyday for at least a few things)

Last night we made chili with soaked kidney beans, blackbeans from the freezer, celery and tofu languishing in the fridge, leftover tomato paste and heaps of onions, garlic, and spices. Very succesful taste-wise, plus we had leftover baguette from our NY Eve fondue.

I thawed black rice and will have that with bananas and oatmilk (home-made) for breakfast.
If we make it even for another day or two, I will be pleased :)

SquashingDebt

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2389 on: January 05, 2019, 01:50:23 PM »
Pantry challenge is going well so far.  I've only spent $21 on food at the grocery store, and only bought smoothie ingredients and parmesan cheese (because who wants to eat up all the pasta in the pantry without parmesan cheese?).

I live alone, so I only cook one or two big-batch meals a week and eat leftovers from them or out of the freezer the rest of the time.  I decided to use a different strategy this year to work through my freezers.  I usually try to inventory them and keep a spreadsheet going, but end up never keeping it up-to-date.  It can also get a little overwhelming.  So, my plan this year is just to grab whatever's on the top layer that looks good and make a meal out of it.  It's been working well so far.

First, I thawed and ate some pasta sauce that had tomatoes, red peppers, and eggplant, eaten with some pasta from the pantry.

Tomorrow I'm making country-style ribs (from the quarter pig I bought last year) in the Instant Pot.  I decided to keep it simple and just cook them with the 2/3 bottle of BBQ sauce that's been in my fridge for about a year.  I'll eat that with rice from the pantry and green beans from the freezer.

If I'm ambitious, I'll also make green curry tomorrow, with the green curry paste past its sell-by date that I just found in the fridge, along with coconut milk from the pantry, veggies from the freezer, and probably either pork or tempeh from the freezer.



MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2390 on: January 07, 2019, 12:57:05 PM »
Doing well here, too.  I did go to the store last Friday, but only because I had to go pick up a RX.  Bought several things we were completely out of, including some HBAs, as well as fresh produce and eggs.  Using coupons, ecoupons, and buying sale items saved me 31% off my total order.

Also used up:
1 large can of chicken, only 5 more to go
A bag of frozen corn, a bag of cauliflower
A can of leftover ginger soda from a party last year to a neighbor's kiddo.  Only 6 more to go, LOL.
1 can fruit cocktail
A pint of sour cream
Tonight I'll serve turnips and zucchini with salmon

And I made sure I prepped the produce bought Friday for lunches.  The berries bought last month went to waste due to illness.  :(
« Last Edit: January 07, 2019, 01:06:34 PM by MountainGal »

Tris Prior

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2391 on: January 15, 2019, 07:17:17 PM »
I make pies a couple of times a year. The other day, I found a ziploc with leftover trimmed bits of pie crust, from the last few rounds, in my freezer. Thought about making some sort of mini-pie or hand pie with it, but I'm trying to cut out sweets post-holidays. Decided to do a half-assed mushroom pot pie - fried up some mushrooms and an onion in butter. added some thyme I dried from the garden, tossed in a few glugs each of leftover veggie broth and some chardonnay I didn't like.

It's in the oven now - smells pretty good, so we'll see how my half-assed efforts turn out.

ETA: it was delicious!
« Last Edit: January 18, 2019, 08:34:24 AM by Tris Prior »

SquashingDebt

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2392 on: January 16, 2019, 06:19:12 PM »
My second week of the pantry challenge hasn't been as good as the first.  The combination of a busy weekend and a craving for salads led me to buy a bunch of salad ingredients to eat for dinner all week.  I did do a good job eating not-particularly-appealing leftovers from the freezer for my lunches.

Anyone else seem to always try to re-start healthy eating at the same time as a pantry challenge?  (Got to love January and all those goals...)  They're kind of tricky to do at the same time.

PMG

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2393 on: January 16, 2019, 06:51:14 PM »
Made butternut squash mac and cheese.  we’re not particularly doing a pantry challenge right now, but the squash was on its way out and I determined not to waste it.  Some googling for receipts found several delicious looking ones that needed extra ingredients, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that a trip to the grocery for one item leads to many unplanned purchases.  I kept looking until I found the one that we had all of the supplies for. Used up a chunk of cheddar cheese from the freezer that wasn’t good for slicing anymore. 

horsepoor

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2394 on: January 16, 2019, 08:06:43 PM »
I'm doing this somewhat inadvertently as the government shutdown/furlough drags on.  I have plenty of time on my hands, and want to keep the grocery spend down.

For breakfasts I've been working on the oatmeal supply, along with random nuts and the non-dairy milk we overbought at CostCo.  Also adding random dried and frozen fruits and some protein powder that's been around way too long.

Tomorrow I'm making cornbread with my stock of masa.

Other things I should work on using:

Lots of plain, raw almonds
Tons of frozen green chile and poblanos
Partially dried tomatos
Thai and regular basil pesto
Spiral sliced ham
Remainder of an overcooked lamb roast with the bone
Canister of unsweetened coconut flakes
Canned peaches
Apple and apricot butter

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2395 on: January 17, 2019, 11:06:10 AM »
@SquashingDebt , kind of.  My lunches of topping fresh baby spinach with leftovers worked pretty well last week.  I bought a fresh bag of spinach this week and it seems to be going well.

Cold weather had me nesting over the weekend and focusing on using up what we have:
~Cherry tomatoes from last season went into homemade pasta sauce
~Mulling spices given to me as a Christmas present went into orange mulled wine
~Instead of smoking new cuts of meat, we ate leftover backstrap and loin from the freezer
~Brought up the container of Folgers and bottled waters from the guest room to use them up
~Been nibbling on leftover Christmas treats I froze instead of throw away last month
~Instead of buying more zucchini at the store this week, I remembered we have grated garden fresh zucchini from last season in the freezer

Unique User

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2396 on: January 21, 2019, 07:05:50 AM »
Haven't done very well lately, but with lots of teenagers in the house this past week, I used up some lingering cinnamon rolls in a can to make monkey bread, a cake mix and vanilla greek yogurt to make coffee cake and another cake mix to make cookie bars.  Only 5 boxes of cake mix left!  Will be making turkey chili tonight to use up some lingering turkey meat, cans of rotel and pinto beans.  I found a couple cans of mandarin oranges and refried beans behind black beans.  Not something we like or use, so I'll be looking for uses of those. 

MountainGal

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2397 on: January 24, 2019, 10:54:44 AM »
Having been down with pneumonia had me going stir crazy stuck in the house.  Baking and cooking kept me sane, LOL.

~Leftover Christmas baking ingredients went into biscuits and muffins
~1 lb sausage went into gravy
~Used the rest of the nori sheets in sushi Sunday
~Used leftover sushi crab on top of salads twice this week
~Thawed blueberries and have been using them on top of dairy free yogurt and salads.  Here's to healthy antioxidants!
~Used 2 large chicken breasts and 2 lbs pork ribs in various entrees
~Similar to 2 weeks ago, bagged spinach has provided lunches this week, with leftovers on top and homemade blue cheese dressing.

Next up:  Figure out how to use frozen sandwich rolls from Halloween.  A strata?  French toast bites?

horsepoor

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2398 on: January 24, 2019, 12:27:02 PM »
Made pancakes from leftover sourdough starter this morning, and topped them with the remains of a jar of apricot butter.

I have several jars of peaches that I need to cook down into a jam or something.

Tonight DH will be out skiing, so I'll cook myseelf a lone sweet potato that's looking a little sad.

halftimer

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Re: Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2
« Reply #2399 on: January 24, 2019, 05:36:39 PM »
We didn't eat a bakery loaf quick enough and it hardened up, so I made Tuscan Bread Soup (https://food52.com/recipes/33081-pancotto-tuscan-bread-soup) and used some other bread ends from the freezer at the same time.  I also used a bit of leek dip mix from the cupboard, and it turned out delicous. I will definitely make this again. Frozen bread ends are something that pile up around here (I already use them in casseroles, meatballs or meatloafs and other things when we need bread crumbs).   I need to commit again to using up all our random bits that end up in the freezer!