Eat All The Food In Your House - Take 2

[draco44]

I had about a cup of leftover cranberry sauce. I used it to make granola!

I mix the cranberry sauce (the kind that contains some whole berries is best) with 3-4 cups of oatmeal, about 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 1/2 cup crushed nuts, some cinnamon and ginger, a dash of salt, and bake at 300F for about 35 minutes on a buttered pan, stirring once in the middle of the cooking time.

[NotJen]

I had about a cup of leftover cranberry sauce. I used it to make granola!

I mix the cranberry sauce (the kind that contains some whole berries is best) with 3-4 cups of oatmeal, about 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 1/2 cup crushed nuts, some cinnamon and ginger, a dash of salt, and bake at 300F for about 35 minutes on a buttered pan, stirring once in the middle of the cooking time.

Oh yum, I might have to try that!

I love making cranberry sauce to mix in to oatmeal and yogurt (just like other fruit jams) - keeping extra in the freezer.  Normally I buy extra bags of cranberries at the holidays, but they never went on a good sale this year.  Maybe they will before Christmas.

[gatortator]

I had about a cup of leftover cranberry sauce. I used it to make granola!

I mix the cranberry sauce (the kind that contains some whole berries is best) with 3-4 cups of oatmeal, about 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 1/2 cup crushed nuts, some cinnamon and ginger, a dash of salt, and bake at 300F for about 35 minutes on a buttered pan, stirring once in the middle of the cooking time.

This sounds great!  quoting this so I can find d it later.

[Roadrunner53]

Used up all the turkey leftovers and made a creamy turkey soup. I even added the last few cups of stuffing to it! The one non turkey dinner thing I added was cream of chicken soup and that really flavored it up and made it creamy. I made a roux of flour and butter then added the turkey broth. It came out so nice and lump free. Added celery, onion and mixed veggies. Very delicious!

[MountainGal]

~Sunday DH smoked two tenderloins which yielded 6 servings
~Thanksgiving leftovers made for several additional meals for DH and me
~Last night I added leftover green beans to a yellow squash and zucchini stir fry
~Two cups of spinach went into my first ever spinach egg shirataki noodle soup.  I used the rest of the spinach to build 4 lunch salads.
~Leftover cherry tomatoes were washed and tossed into the above referenced salads
~Today's lunch included a leftover cheeseburger patty on top of the baby spinach
~I have a pie crust leftover from Thanksgiving baking, which I'll turn into blueberry hand pies this weekend
~Tonight for supper is leftover beanless chili from the freezer

[horsepoor]

Made kind of a skillet/casserole dinner last night with chorizo and spaghetti squash.  Mixed in a box of frozen spinach that was languishing from the grocery madness this spring, as well as half a can of olives and the last of a jar of homemade BBQ sauce.

Last week I mixed up a bunch of random ingredients like chia seeds, shredded coconut and protein powder, and I'm using it as a handy base to make a low carb porridge type thing when I want a quick hot breakfast.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

-Froze remainder of the keto chili, as it made A LOT
-Ate leftover meatballs for lunch, & froze another bag of meatballs for future use
-Used the rest of the cranberry sauce on a breakfast sandwich
-Finished off the stuffed acorns (although, have a bit of filling & roasted squash leftover that I need to deal with)
-Tonight, we'll eat the leftover butter chicken & asparagus

I have so many leftovers in the freezer that I'm out of storage containers. Time to start working through the stash & cleaning out the freezer!

[SquashingDebt]

Just finished my third extended power outage of 2020 (after almost 5 years living in the same apartment with no extended power outages).  This one was only 26 hours or so, so all my freezer food is safe (yay!), but I cleared most things out of the fridge this morning.  The only upside is that now my list of random things to use up is reset to baseline, haha.

[MountainGal]

@horsepoor, thank you for the idea!  We bought a spaghetti squash from a roadside vegetable stand which I'll use in a casserole loosely based on your post above.  :)

[horsepoor]

@MountainGal  If you cut the squash in half the long way and bake, you can then loosen up the insides and put your fillings in there and bake right in the shell. Makes for easy cleanup!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

I've not been feeling well, so it's been a lot of lazy options. A few wins:
-Ate one container of chicken & dumplings (freezer) for lunches. Bonus, avoided buying soup for lunch one day
-Used up one package of ravioli & the remainder of an open jar of pasta sauce for dinner last night. Open pasta sauce has a way of sneaking past us, but not this time.
-Had a "cup of noodle" instant ramen thing for lunch one day when I felt really under the weather. That stuff is generally enjoyed by a teen boy, but has been languishing in our garage pantry since the pandemic stock up. It was nice to use up at least one.
-My lovely husband bought a 2 pack of sliced pepperoni (giant sized) at Costco when it was on sale. We had no need for it, so it went into the freezer. I recently defrosted one pack & reminded him of his purchase & that he needed to "use it up". He's done a good job making his way through most of the first package.
-I'm not sure how much of a win this is, but I made two loaves of cardamom bread for the holidays. Only one was up to snuff for sharing with family. I had to do some additional cooking time for the second, & it came out a little uneven. However, this was the perfect food while I wasn't feeling well. I'd have a slice for breakfast & often for a snack. Not diet recommended, but since I was eating under 1000 calories a day (yuck, flu), it was no problem. My teen son polished off the rest of the loaf. So, ugly but delicious cardamom bread is now a thing of the past. Win!

[SquashingDebt]

In-between Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking, I'm trying to eat down the freezer.  These last few days, even more so since I haven't re-stocked my fridge after my power outage.

Yesterday was homemade pizza for lunch and lentil soup for dinner.
Today is pizza rolls and broccoli for lunch and black pepper eggplant & tofu for dinner (I'm looking forward to that one!).

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We managed a very small (for us) grocery shop yesterday, as we are heading out of town on Saturday. We will want to eat down as much of our fridge/freezer inventory as possible before we go.

Here's what we've gotten to so far:

-Finished a mixed margarita container in the fridge
-And, similarly a pomegranate martini mixed from Thanksgiving. We're team players, cleaning out those mixed drinks ;-)
-I ate the leftover green beans for lunch, along with the remaining spicy chicken over a salad. Still have about 1/2 of the salad left to go
-Tonight we're having carnitas (from the freezer) for dinner
-I made my picky eater a cheese quesadilla last night, and froze the one remaining tortilla
-Put out a meat & cheese tray before dinner last night, using meat & cheese purchased for Thanksgiving
-I pickled four batches of jalapenos, getting almost all of the ripe jalapenos off the plants. Three jars will be Christmas gifts
-I made eggs for my husband this morning, & added plenty of chopped pepperoni (he eats Keto, so this isn't as random as it sounds). We're in the home stretch on finishing up one of the two giant Costco sized bags of pepperoni

We still have plenty to work through before we leave:
-Leftover chicken alfredo
-Chicken meatballs
-Mac & cheese
-Bagged salad
Plus whatever leftovers we generate during the week

[okisok]

Getting rid of cocktails is still cleaning out the stuff in your house :)

Used the last of the pasta in a casserole. SO came into the kitchen and asked 'is that all the pasta you're putting in there?' Yes, along with a pound of ground meat, a jar of pasta sauce, and a half pound of cheese! I threw in some Italian seasoning and it came out delicious. Even with only a couple of cups of pasta, it was still enough for three meals.

I let some yogurt sauce go bad, about a cup. Which is really sad because it was really really good, but it the couscous I made to go with it wasn't that great. I could've used it as a veggie dip! 

After following this tread for a while, I am doing much better about shopping for only things that I'll eat and making a plan for what I've bought.

[slackmax]

Finally used up the last drops of a plastic bottle of imitation vanilla flavoring. Rinsed and recycled it. Two more bottles of vanilla flavoring still in the cupboard. Guess I ought to combine them, if possible, and recycle the empty. 

[Linea_Norway]

Today was the last evening in a vacantion rental. We ate up most of the leftovers today. For lunch a tortilla, topped with tomato pasta and 2 cheeses, plus some pizza herbs from the cupboard. For dinner a salad with penne pasta, boiled eggs, chopped up cheese, a pommes granate, some chopped up walnuts, half a red bell pepper, a chili pepper. As a dressing a leftover mixture of cottage cheese and creme fraiche, with lemonjuice and lots of herbs that I brought from home.

[MountainGal]

@horsepoor, I made the spaghetti squash "casserole" last night!  I used half a pound of leftover ground pork that didn't go into Sunday's BBQ burgers, and made my own spaghetti sauce (only because we are out of the jarred stuff).  So good!  And it yielded 6 servings, so DH and I will have lunches for a few days.

Aw, @MaybeBabyMustache, you finished the margarita container?  And no invite?  LOL.  Safe trip to you....

Lately:
~Used up a can of diced tomatoes and tomato paste in the above referenced spaghetti sauce
~Used the spaghetti squash above DH and I bought at the vegetable stand last month
~Ate slices of a gifted chocolate cake for brunch over the weekend along with leftover whipping cream from Thanksgiving  O:)
~Finally made the blueberry hand pies I mentioned 2 weeks ago.  Yum!  They used the leftover pie crust and a bag of blueberries frozen over the summer.
~Part of last Friday's take out was made into two more meals by putting smoked turkey onto English muffins
~Ate the rest of the chicken veggie soup from the freezer
~Juiced two lemons, froze it in silicone molds, and put them in a freezer bag for the winter
~Instead of buying more snacks, I've been eating down the pork rind supply
~The brick of mozzarella has gone into the spaghetti squash casserole, a quiche, and used in a Fathead pizza crust

Except for some molded blueberries, we did very well at eating all the fresh produce we had on hand.  There are two remaining avocados, but they are currently ripening in a brown bag on the kitchen counter.  I'm picking up our monthly grocery shop this evening. 

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@MountainGal - post COVID, patio margarita party! :-) You are making great progress.

As for us:
-1 bag of Costco sized pepperoni, completely gone
-1/2 the chicken alfredo, eaten in last night's dinner
-salmon patty & cauliflower rice/cabbage mix used up for last night's dinner
-Last of a tiny amount of taco meat + cheese + tortilla into a quesadilla for my son's dinner
-Last of the cucumbers, eaten
-I finished off the tikka masala for lunch
-And, had the last few "low sodium" Ritz crackers in an open sleeve (accidental purchase, & they are not good), with a piece of cheese as a snack

We're making progress ahead of our trip, and hope to pack as little as possible in the cooler

[okisok]

I took the couscous dish and rejiggered it with some veggie broth and fresh cilantro. It was way better the second (and third) time around. Now I'm sad it's gone instead of dreading finishing it.

I'm going to try really hard to use up the rest of the bunch of cilantro before it goes bad. Why can't you buy the amount of cilantro you need instead of bunch??

Quesadillas coming up next, and personal pizzas with some cheese and pepperoni.
We got lunch for free at work today, so I'm planning to get through the week without buying any groceries. And not letting anything go bad in the fridge.

[Noodle]

I think I have reached peak hoarding--between some of the holiday goodies that are only available at this time of year, and stocking up for the last "non-shopping" push before we get vaccinated--and am now ready to start eating down the hoard. I am still struggling a bit with produce but have managed to clear out ground beef (in a beanless chili I am serving on baked potatoes), shrimp (the dish I made with it did not work out, so I ate the shrimp out of it as a snack), a whole boatload of produce, cooked chicken, and an orphan half-package of soba noodles in a salad, some cheese with crackers (Trader Joe's has been a little too tempting lately), and some popcorn chicken and a random jar of sweet and sour sauce for a faux orange chicken. Looking forward to a lot of creativity in the new year...

[MaybeBabyMustache]

Made an almost entirely "from the freezer" dinner last night:
-Salad (not from freezer :-))
-Edamame
-Paratha
-Spicy chicken/non spicy chicken for picky diner

We have a little bit of edamame & chicken left, but those will be eaten in lunches. For tonight, we'll have keto chili, & hopefully finish the last of the alfredo. Picky teen will have the last of the non spicy chicken & mac & cheese. Our fridge will be so close to empty when we leave! And, we're making good progress with the freezer, which always feels great.

[horsepoor]

I think I have reached peak hoarding

LOL. With the beef quarter we got around Halloween, and then a small lamb from a friend, a few chickens and other things, the freezer is totally packed. So when our regular purveyor of lamb emailed a couple days ago and asked if I would like to purchase a lamb next month, of course I said yes. He can be kind of unreliable and hard to get ahold of, but he raises the best lamb ever, so I will be finding space in the freezer.

We could eat for a long time without going to the store if needed, which is nice to know since covid is running rampant here.

[okisok]

I'm going to try really hard to use up the rest of the bunch of cilantro before it goes bad. Why can't you buy the amount of cilantro you need instead of bunch??

To prevent more cilantro waste, I bought a live pot from the farmer's market. Now I can cut how much I need. Also less plastic waste.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We are now at our vacation house, and eating everything in the house begins again. Here's what we've done along those lines (and, I must confess we bought too much on our "stock up" trip, so we need to be thoughtful):
-Have been eating a 1/2 bagel (freezer) for breakfast. Tossed a bag of freezer burned bagels someone left behind. I valiantly tried to eat one on the first day, but ended up tossing them
-Finished up eggs someone left behind (recently) & the eggs we brought from home
-Found a few sausage patties in the freezer, so have been making those with eggs for my husband for breakfast
-Finished off the bag of mini peppers we brought with us before they could go bad, which was a feat

My husband "surprised" me by buying me a Christmas cookie tray. I do adore Christmas cookies, and I've been attempting to limit myself, so I don't go full on crazy. A few of them are quite delicious! As needed, however, I will toss the extra so I don't gain ten pounds.

Tonight we'll have salmon & brussel sprouts for dinner, and I'll have an Italian chicken sausage we brought with us in the cooler, as I'm not a huge salmon fan

[MountainGal]

'Tis the season!  Sunday DH smoked the ham I bought a few months ago.  I sent leftovers home with several family members.  DH will eat some for lunches, and I made egg muffin sandwiches for supper last night.  Yum.

Also:

~Mom left extra dip and raw veggies, so we'll eat those throughout the week
~Leftover deviled eggs my sister made was my snack yesterday, and my breakfast and lunch today
~I made a yule log cake, and sent some home with family, and kept two servings each for DH and me
~I'm making The Pioneer Woman's one pan enchiladas tomorrow night which will use up a can each of chilies and olives, and an avocado
~I bought a salami and a cheese tray from Sam's Club, which served as appetizers for last Sunday, and will do the same this upcoming Saturday
~We have a full drawer of produce I purchased last week, which I'll be mindful about using during my 5 days off
~I'm going to make DH's grandma's holiday braid bread during my days off, which will use some of the yeast bought after the food shortage
~I bought half gallon of milk in order to make overnight French bread for Christmas brunch.  Leftover milk will be used in overnight oats for DH, along with some of the frozen berries purchased fresh during season.

Happy Holidays, everyone.  :)

[Linea_Norway]

Because of the holidays, shops will be closed for several days in a row at the end of the week. To avoid the big cues in the days before the closing, I shopped for the whole week yesterday. Lots of fresh veggies, so many perishables. I had to make a meal plan to know what I had to buy. I am using recipees for the time being (from a Turkish cookbook from the library), so it is easy to make a list of ingredients. I am now cooking in the sequence of expected experation date.

- Saturday when we came home late, we both ate a leftover portion.
- Sunday we ate leftover bouillabaise (French fish soup) with a selfcaught fish, both from the freezer. We added some naan bread from the freezer.
- On Monday I made a squash cake with some of my dried selfpicked mushrooms (shaggy ink cap), with a goat cheese cream and ruccola salad. It was way too much, so half is frozen again. We also ate a portion of leftover croquettes from the freezer. We also ate leftover from yesterday for lunch today.
- Today I made an Iranian lentil stew with egg plant. I also made croutons from leftover sourdough bread, to use tomorrow. There is a little leftover stew that I will have for lunch tomorrow.
- Plan for tomorrow is to make Turkish pizza and serve with a salad of spinach, croutons and some more ingredients. Maybe I'll add the leftover goat cheese from the Monday dish. I also have half a pack of ruccola salad left. Maybe it can go on the pizza.
- On Christmas eve I will let DH cook. I hope he will use one of the 4 packs if Norwegian sour cabbage (not sauerkraut, completely different) that we have in the cupboards. DH plans to use some of the dried cramberry-like berries that have been in the cupboard for ages.
- On one of the days after Christmas, I planned a lentil soup with carrot. I will chop up rest of the carrot and freeze it for later use. Or maybe, ferment it.
- And I also bought ingredients for a desert that includes mascarpone and wipped cream. Maybe for Christmas.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@MountainGal -love your holiday plans. Sounds delish!

@Linea_Norway - our vacation house is not close to anywhere else, so we often buy for 10-14 days at a time. I can tell how many days left we have on the vacation by how easy it is to find items in the fridge. :-) Also, the Persian stew with eggplant is my husband's favorite (he's Persian). I'm not a huge eggplant fan, but maybe I should make that in January.

[Dutch Comfort]

2 Brown bananas made banana-pancake breakfast for kiddo #1 and some outdried slices of bread made french-toast breakfast for kiddo #2.
Tonight will be left-over potatoes, canned carrots, peas and corn and some chicken from the freezer.
X-mas food shopping errands will start today, so I want to clean out any leftovers from past week today before it gets burried under the fresh stuff. I have a list, so hopefully I will be able to stick to the list......

[Roadrunner53]

Had some bananas that were over ripe so made banana bread in my bread maker. Added walnuts from the freezer. Came out really good. Stored the rest of the bananas in the freezer for another day. Only so much banana bread two adults can eat!

Now, I am going to attempt to make grinder rolls. Will use the bread maker to knead the dough. I have made home made pizza dough and home made bread but never grinder rolls!

[Linea_Norway]

@Linea_Norway - our vacation house is not close to anywhere else, so we often buy for 10-14 days at a time. I can tell how many days left we have on the vacation by how easy it is to find items in the fridge. :-) Also, the Persian stew with eggplant is my husband's favorite (he's Persian). I'm not a huge eggplant fan, but maybe I should make that in January.

@MaybeBabyMustache
The Turkish and surrounding areas cookbook said that eggplant has a pretty bitter skin. You can either cut it off or cut it to zebra stripes to make it less bitter. He had another stew as well with lamb meat, lots of tomatoes and eggplants, and some herbs. I cooked the meat and potatoes for 2,5 hours or so and added the ovenbaked eggplant for the last half hour. That dish was really delitious.

[Dutch Comfort]

Finished 3 bags with small amounts of dried pasta. Different cooking times, but it worked out and we had a great pasta dinner for 4 (and leftover for 1 lunch).
Used a gifted bag of almond-flavored cake-mix to bake a Christmas cake with DD. It came out delicious and we will have enough to bring to the Christmas dinner tomorrow with my parents.
Decided to postpone shopping till boxing day, the kitchen is still stuffed, so no need to shop for more food. Will get some fresh produce then......and it will be a lot less crowded than today! 
 

[MaybeBabyMustache]

As evidenced by the fact that this is probably my favorite thread on this forum, food waste gives me the chills. I freak out when the fridge is overly full, because I know I need to use up all of those items before they go bad. We packed up from Christmas yesterday, and my mom/sister sent us home with a laundry basket filled with leftovers. We didn't notice until we got back to our house. I'm absolutely twitching at the idea of needing to use all of this up.

I'm thinking tonight - salmon & sprouts
Tomorrow - parents/kids with us - we'll likely do prime rib & shrimp
Monday - maybe a pizza made with tons of charcuteire leftovers.

After that, totally unclear what we're doing with all of this food.

[horsepoor]

I just couldn't pass up a sale on fresh organic turkeys right before Christmas, so I have a project today cutting that puppy down, smoking the quarters, packing up the breast halves to freeze for later, and then making a big pot of stock. At least it is *only* 14# instead of the 22# behemoth DH ordered last year.

Last week I way over-cooked and now we have lots of leftovers needing to be eaten. I would just freeze the turkey, but I cleverly agreed to also buy a lamb at the end of January, and the freezer is already full. And then the in-laws sent us a great big box of Portuguese chorico for Christmas as well.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

Laundry basket full of holiday leftovers is almost conquered! I did send things home with my sister/parents this morning, and saved enough for lunch/dinner tonight.
-We ate all of the prime rib. Made a second dinner with it (sliders) & used up the slider buns, horseradish & mashed potatoes
-Also turned the remaining prime rib into lunch sandwiches, and finally... used it in scrambled eggs for breakfast
-Made several stuffed pizzas last night with various charcuterie leftovers.
-Finished all of the Christmas cookies. I think we may all regret this when we get on the scale next week. ;-)

Woohoo! I love seeing an almost empty fridge.

[Roadrunner53]

Well, the hub and I had a spiral ham and we are using it up! First it was a ham dinner. Then in omelettes, then in pea soup. Then a second ham dinner. Tonight will be in fettucine with alfredo sauce with peas. There isn't much left after that but what a delicious ham it is! It was on sale and I bought two at the time so down the road we will have more of the same. It was $1.99 a lb and they were with bone and 10-11 lbs. each. Oh, and I used the Reynold's turkey size cooking bag to warm it up in. It took two hours at approx 325 degrees. Came out so wonderful! That will be my go to method to warm them up from now on (they are precooked).

[MountainGal]

@MaybeBabyMustache, congrats on completing the laundry leftovers!  And, count me in on trying the Persian stew with eggplant.  @Linea_Norway, I am one to completely peel the skin off of eggplant.  Way too bitter for my taste.

Lately, in no particular order:
~I drizzled raspberry liqueur on the last remaining slice of Yule log and topped it with whipped cream.  It was delightful!
~We ate the rest of the enchiladas Sunday night, along with another avocado.
~The above referenced enchiladas only used half the ground beef I cooked, so we had the leftover meat on leftover rolls from Christmas as a type of slider.  On the side was the last avocado and leftover black olives.
~The failed fudge I made a few weeks ago (it never set up) was divided into 3 jars and will serve as a nice hot fudge for ice cream.
~Some of the leftover ham went into ham hock and beans.  I froze half, gave the neighbor's a 1/4, and DH has been eating the remaining 1/4.  This used up all of the dried pinto beans, so onto next month's grocery list they went.
~Other leftover ham went into egg muffins, an egg biscuit, and DH ate some for his lunch.  The remaining leftover ham went into the freezer.
~For lunch today I had half the leftover chicken curry from September.  I'll eat the other half tomorrow.
~In the crock pot for tonight is a pork tenderloin, along with the extra can of peach pie filling (SO sweet) DH bought earlier this month, and most of the bottle of horseradish he bought last month.  I'll serve it with spinach salads with warm bacon dressing to use up some of both of those items.
~Sunday we'll grill blue cheese burgers to use up the blue cheese purchased last month.
~Been focusing on eating the array of crackers, cheese and salami leftover from entertaining the past week.  My body just does not like wheat.
~I juiced and froze 4 limes.
~I need to focus on slicing the cucumber to use with some of the HUGE vat of artichoke dip I made last Saturday.
~Next up:  What to do with the 3 bags of fresh watermelon frozen over the summer.... Hmmmm....

I haven't yet made overnight oats or DH's grandma's bread.  The produce drawer is empty except for the above referenced cucumber, bag of spinach, and a head of broccoli.  I'll serve the latter tonight as well.

Happy New Year, everyone!  :)

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@MountainGal - that's some serious over achieving on the leftovers. Nice work! I had part of a bagged salad & chicken skewers for lunch today, and the kids shared a pizza out of the freezer. We're making progress on the milk, which I refuse to put in the color, because it takes up so much space. Dinner tonight will be a mini cheese/veggie tray, the last of the salmon/coconut shrimp/wings, and if we need more food, I'll make the bacon wrapped chicken (freezer) for myself a teenager#1

[Poundwise]

I screwed up a Christmas cookie recipe... added egg directly to flour and mixed it up, then realized that I had gotten the order wrong and this would mess with the texture of the cookies.  So I started the recipe over again. This left me with a bowl of a flour/egg/salt/baking soda mixture. It sat on my counter until yesterday, when I added two more eggs and some water to make a pasta dough.

There were horrifying little hard pieces of egg/flour and I thought that the pasta would be gritty, so I added some extra water and kneaded it 3x with an hour wait between each kneading, instead of 2x with 30 minutes in between.  However, after I ran it through my pasta maker and boiled it, the fresh pasta was perfectly fine!

We used it some of it like lo mein in a stir fry with a mishmash of Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, scrambled egg, shallots (didn't have scallions), and garlic. If I had thought of chicken and sprouts, those would have been good. We tossed it with some Maggi sauce and soy sauce, and the kids pronounced it tasty, though I thought it was plain.

Today my husband had some with spaghetti sauce and said it was fine that way, too.

Oh yeah, and last week I made a Swedish bread that nobody liked (too many caraway seeds). We're completely out of bread, so I took the stale bread, ran it under water and reheated, then sliced it to eat with some borscht and sour cream. It was great.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@Poundwise - those are some serious saves! Well done on the creativity.

-Hauled an unopened variety cheese pack & meat pack on our drive (in the cooler), so we would have something fun for NYE. Had that with a cauliflower crust pizza and delivery pizza (I know, but we'd just completed a 12.5 hour drive & needed it).
-I used a leftover 1/2 apple that was still good on a cheese tray. Now we officially have no fresh fruit in the house, save for some lemons.

We're going to need to be creative today, as all of the stores are closed. I have plenty of salad ingredients, so at least there's that option. I'm sure we'll think of something for dinner.

[Catbert]

Finished the leftover Christmas dinner.  5 lbs of prime rib goes a long way with only 2 people eating.

-Sliders with homemade biscuits and horseradish [American biscuits, not British :-)]
-Cottage/Shepard's pie which helped use up the horseradish mashed potatoes and random veggies (rib bones used to create a broth which became the gravy)
-Asian salad which used up an Asian spiced sauce found in the back of the frig
-Hash based on an Ina Garten recipe which includes brussel sprouts along with meat and potatoes

[Zamboni]

We finished our leftovers from Christmas as well today . . . that turkey turned into the best white chili I've ever made!

I think it's time for me to destock down from the pandemic. I'm moving at the end of the summer, so it gives me some time to use things productively.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

-Used the last of a bag of chicken skewers on a salad at lunch
-Finished off all of the veggies purchased for the Christmas veggie tray.
-Used up a bagged salad

I made freezer breakfast burritos for my 15 year old son. He needs a quick breakfast option, & if he doesn't have something, will graze all day through snacks or other junk. The recipe calls for making a breakfast casserole, sprinkling with cheese, & adding to tortillas. Roll & freeze. I now have two bags ready to go in the freezer, and bonus - used up yogurt in place of the sour cream it called for, and breakfast sausage that had been hanging out in the freezer forever. There is a bit of leftover breakfast casserole (we ran out of tortillas, and/or I didn't add enough filling), so we've been eating that on its own for breakfast. Still delicious.

-Picked the last of the green tomatoes, & jalapenos.
-Picked a few oranges, and used them in a cranberry orange muffin mix yesterday. Bonus, used up more old yogurt.
-Made a box of brownies that somehow were in the pantry. Two teens were very excited. Added in extra chocolate chips to increase their excitement. I'm trying to avoid, to get rid of those 3 lingering holiday pounds. Boxed brownies are certainly easier to avoid than homemade.

[MountainGal]

@Poundwise, well done on saving the dough!
@Zamboni, white chili is the best.  Yum!

Everyone did a great job on using up holiday leftovers!

The past week:
~Used up a partial bag of frozen blueberries on top of the grain free Dutch baby pancake for New Year's Day brunch
~Ate the rest of the shrimp with the crab legs for New Year's Day supper
~Made a smoothie from a bag of frozen strawberries, a can of coconut milk, the rest of the frozen blueberries, and some of the never ending bag of baby spinach
~Saturday night we grazed on salami, cheese, crackers, frozen appetizers, etc.
~Ate the rest of the pork, peaches and cauliflower rice
~Tomorrow I'll put a ground beef and pork meatloaf into the slow cooker.  This will yield many servings for leftovers.

Happy New Year, everyone!

[Poundwise]

@MaybeBabyMustache and @MountainGal, thanks for the encouragement!  You did some nice work on those breakfast burritos and the smoothies, too!

We're on vacation and took a large portion of food from our fridge with us... we won't waste time going to the grocery store, and there will be less to pack on our way home. Feeling pleased about that.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

I was quickly skimming @MountainGal 's update & saw the smoothie & shrimp together & thought, whoa... a shrimp smoothie is way outside my comfort level, no matter what! Glad to see those are separate updates. ;-)

We've been doing a great job eating through leftovers all week. I finished the chicken skewers, by adding them to a salad for lunch. My son ate the leftover pizza (of course) & we're keeping on top of the fresh produce as well.

[Linea_Norway]

I need to join this thread again. Our kitchen shelves are stuffed and need to be used before everything goes out of date. And with out of date I mean that very old dried food can losse it's taste. I gladly eat stuff that has expired the date of the pack as long as it is dried food.

In the cupboards:
- 3 types of pasta, 3 2 types of rice, 2 packs of quinoia, rice nudels in 3 sizes, 2 packs of bulgur, nudels, tortillas, 1 and a half pack of couscous, 2 and a half packs of lasagna sheets. In our previous house, that pasta/rice drawer was twice as big and also usually full.
- 1 pack of macaroni and 1 pack of rice that are extremely short cooked. This is meant to be used in homemade dry trip meals where I just want to add hot water. I put those in a separate cupboard now, so the pasta/rice drawer is less stuffed.
- A pack of cranberry-like dried berries, a staple. In the same cupboard another couple of packs of Norwegian style saurkraut, which is not saur.
- Lots of selfpicked dried mushrooms of various types. The most common varieties tend to get used. For the rest, I need to make a plan.
- A few types of self picked mushrooms confitted in oil.
- Some nori leaves. In the same cupboard dried shrimp sheets that turn crunchy when deep fried. I used half the pack last summer.
- Lots and lots of spices. I might want to make more tiki/garam massala dishes.
- 2 pots of artichoke hearts.

In the fridge:
- A refridgerator shelf full of selfpicked mushrooms preserved in various ways. As well as some preserved selfpicked plants and some vegetables. I recently started eating some pickeled carrots. A pot of self-salted lemons.
- Another shelf full of preserved red peppers and vegetable purees. All from the store.
- Lots of opened spices and pickels.
- Half a pack of grated mixed cheese, which won't last forever.
- Lots of home made jams, 1 left from the plums in our plumb tree, 3 2 with selfpicked blueberries and 1 left with storebought rubarb. 1 pot of selfmade lemoncurd. I just finished the other pot of lemoncurd.
- A pack of tofu, bought intentionally to try out some tofu recipees. Used one of two packs.

In the freezer:
- Lots of frozen selfpicked plants in the freezer. A box of selfpicked raspberries.
- Half a squash/mushroom cake in the freezer (now in the fridge) which is made from a recipee, but strangely enough tastes quite sweet, despite the other ingredients. I should just have it for lunch one day. Today I ate a portion of oatmeal (from budget bytes) for lunch. I have one other such portion left.
- Some frozen vegetables (red pepper, carrots, green onion and now also butternut squash cubes) to make such they didn't expire when we went on vacation. Also cauliflour leaves and broccoli stilk in slices. The latter is good in a soup.
- Frozen self picked mushrooms of varying types.
- Frozen leftover portions, one with chickpeas, one for rouille (a spicy spread for french bread containing fish stock). And also a portion of leftover saus that can go with deer, last eaten with reindeer. A portion of kale/potato stew. Leftover meat sauce from longtime cooked meat.
- A bag of frozen peas, a bag of frozen brussle sprouts, 2 bags of spinach (a staple) and a bag of asian style precut wok mix (not more expensive than fresh veggies, and without the cutoffs). 2 bags of different types of green beens, one bag of precut red curry wok mix.
- 2 31 whole lemon.
- Selfpicked rose leaves.
- Pommes granate seeds, intentionally frozen to use later occasionally. Edit: used half, added new. And added another one.
- Still more selfcaught (by DH) fish in the freezer. 2 whole trouts and 2 trout fillets. 5 3 portions of white fish, which we have been eating a lot since last summer as we started with 15 or so portions.
- Some deer meet in the freezer and other meat that might have laid in the deepest part of the freezer drawer. Also a portions of ground lam that I plan to make a borek-like thing with quite soon. I bought new ground beef, ground pork and ground lam.  And some sausages.
- Boneless chicken thighs. Good for a massala stew. 3 2 bags of chicken breast fillets.
- Some selfmade foccasia that was baked a bit too long and is therefore harder than I would like. Some frozen tortilla wraps as well. Today I added 8 pieces of homebaked naan bread, but that was intentional, as that fits nicely with stews.
- 2 1 pack with sheets of fillo pastry. Bought intentionally not too long ago.
- A ball of leftover pasta dough

I probably forgot about half the stuff. Edit: Adding everytime that I strike through.

I think that from now on, we should stop buying other things than dairy and first make a plan based on what is in the freezer and on the shelves.

The only big BUT is that it is a pandemic and always good to have a lot of food in store. But we shouldn't risk that it expires. The trout may be a first good candidate to eat, as it is already passed three months in the freezer.

[MountainGal]

Ha ha, @MaybeBabyMustache!  I could see shrimp with maybe a blueberry gastrique, but blended into a smoothie?  Ew, for sure!

@Linea_Norway, that is quite a list!  But, you got this!  :)

~I forgot to post about my breadcrumb win.  Last week DH was going to throw away the "heels" from his loaf a bread.  I told him I could do something with them.  I crumbled them in the food processor, and put them into yesterday's meatloaf.  I don't usually eat grains, but figured it's a small amount per serving.

~Sauteed some of the never ending baby spinach with zoodles and served them with the meatloaf last night.

~Thanks to TV commercials, I've been craving pizza.  So Sunday I'm going to make fathead pizza dough topped with the Hillshire Farm beef sausage log given to us for Christmas, along with black olives, etc.

~Inspired by @Zamboni, I'm going to make a white chicken chili in the slow cooker next week.  This will use up a pound of chicken breast, along with a few cans of beans and diced chiles.  I'll also make mug corn muffins to use up some of the corn meal.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@Linea_Norway - I love hearing what you have stored. It's quite interesting!

@MountainGal - have you eaten cauliflower crust pizza? Do you have a preference between that & fathead pizza? My husband eats Keto due to a food allergy, so always looking for options.

I ate the rest of the curry for lunch today (it made 5 dinner portions, 3 lunch portions & 3 more lunch portions for the freezer). It's so delicious. For dinner tonight, we'll use the rest of the mini meatloaves, some of the salmon, the last piece of cauliflower pizza, and my picky teen will likely have pasta & chicken. Still TBD. Our fridge looks remarkably well organized these days.

[horsepoor]

@MaybeBabyMustache  I sometimes make cauliflower crust pizza. The fat head dough seems kind of hard to work with, and I try not to depend quite so much on almond flour and cheese (I eat low carb but not quite keto). I make it generally like this recipe though I usually microwave the cauliflower rice and then wring all the moisture out. I also find that a little more cheese is helpful. Since it's kind of a process, I like to make several crusts at once and par bake them, then pack them in the freezer between parchment paper. Makes for an easy meal to pop one out, throw on toppings and bake.

@MountainGal  I did the exact same thing with bread heels last week!

This week I'm focusing on using up the veg I bought prior to Christmas in an effort to minimize trips to stores. Tomorrow I'm planning to use make a braised cabbage with some of the Portuguese chorico my SIL sent us for Christmas and a jar of tomatoes I canned in 2019. Sunday is probably roasted cauliflower and golden beets or carrots with a small leg of lamb. This week I should also use the big chunk of salmon my brother caught off his boat this spring.

Funny side note - I went to the store on Monday morning to grab a couple items, and thought "oh no, we're going into another grocery hoarding phase..." then I realized that there was just a bunch of fruit and veggies sold out because of New Year's diets. Feeling pretty good at this point that I can use up anything moderately perishable and start fresh again in another week or so.

[Linea_Norway]

I am first using up the fresh stuff that we bought, like half the butternut squash, and frooze the rest of it in cubes. From the freezer I have eaten the remaining 2 portions of oatmeal cake, which tasted good with yoghurt. Now (11:30 am) we finished the piece of bread for today. For later today (second lunch/in between meal) I plan to eat the squash/mushroom cake from the freezer, or only half of it.

Tonight I plan to make pasta carbonara with added froozen peas from the freezer. I found out that I have frozen sprouts as well, probably bought for pandemic hoarding.

Maybe I'll update the list above with the paper list that hangs on the fridge (done). We have 3 fridges, or rather 3, one followed with the rental house and is built in. Doesn't have a freezer. We use it mostly for pots of spices that need refridgerating. Als I have stored lots of selfpicked food there, also because we have little space in the cupboards. We moved in our own 2 combi fridges, one in use for normal food and the other one for homemade beer in a metal tank that you can tap from. It fits 2 beer tanks. Both fridges have 3 freezer drawers. I totally miss overview in them, so therefore I made a list full of ingredients of each drawer amd have done that for a few years. It hangs on one of the fridges. The idea is to update the list each time you add or take out something. And twice a year or so, I need to review and rewrite the lists from scratch, as they become messy and unprecise.
One of the freezer drawers is dedicated to meat and another one to bread. But I just found out that there was quite a lot of meat in another drawer, so I reorganized a bit. It probably happened because the normal drawer was stuffed. I also put all the remaining fish in the same drawer. There was more fish left than I thought.