Eating From The Pantry Challenge: Day 3

We love no bake cookies. I’m going to check out the links to the other bars, too. Breakfast for dinner is a regular on Wednesdays for us.

Today we ran out of fresh fruit, so we ate canned fruits! Breakfast today was ham and egg sandwiches on homemade bread. Lunch for the kids was canned chicken noodle soup, fruit cocktail and mandarine oranges. Lunch for me was a bean burrito made with homemade tortillas, homemade refried beans (leftovers), a little cheese and some home canned salsa. Dinner tonight will be Flautas, spanish rice, and the rest of the leftover refried beans. I also made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread that we had as a snack with some jam. We also had more fruit cocktail and cheese sticks as snacks. Our milk is running low, so I’ve got to make more powdered milk!!

Hi! I’m curious what Jesse is eating for breakfast and lunch. Does he get to come home for lunch or is he brown-bagging, or business lunches, or??? It’s far easier to eat at home than to come up with brown bag foods, I’ve discovered. Thanks!!!

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Money Saving Mom here: Jesse normally eats pretty much what we eat except he often has business lunches or things which come up at the last minute (which is just the nature of being a self-employed attorney in a very busy and fast-paced field of work). It varies every day, depending upon his schedule and workload, so I’ve just learned to plan for him to eat with us or eat what we eat every day and then to be flexible based upon what his schedule ends up turning out like.

Hope that helps!

Breakfast was leftover oatmeal from the fridge for my daughter, and I had eggs and some whole wheat toast and spam (we actually like spam!). We have hens, so eggs are always available.

Lunch was ‘clean out the fridge’. My daughter and next door neighbor had turkey noodle soup, I had a turkey fajita (leftovers from last night’s supper) and we had clementine oranges.

Snack was s’mores made with graham crackers, peanut butter and mini marshmallows (microwave) and we shared an apple.

Supper tonight will be breaded fish from the deep freeze, homemade cole slaw, baked potatoes and leftover peach cobbler.

This morning we had leftover quiche for breakfast, leftover manicotti for lunch, and homemade ice cream and strawberries as a snack (the quiche and manicotti were double portions that I froze earlier this month). Tonight we’ll be making a homemade pizza, all from ingredients on hand, however (we did have to buy some cheese at the end of last week – does that count as eating from your pantry?) I also have some bread dough in the works right now . . .

I should be eating more fruit, and might have some grapefruit as a snack or some sliced veggies later on today.

Crystal,

I think this is a great idea and could probably do it – my problem is that I don’t know that I could make enough, as a pantry meal, for my husband to have leftovers to take for lunch tomorrow. Does your husband usually take leftovers from your dinners? Or, do you only make enough for one meal?

Thanks!

Nice one…you have inspired me to try at it again…next week we will eat from the pantry.

Also, I wanted to ask you…I have never tried powdered milk…is it more cost efficient to use when baking? What all do you use with it?

First of all, *love* your blog Crystal! And congrats on baby #3!

These posts are really eye opening, as I make trips to the grocery store 4-6 times a week- for a family of 4. If we run out of yogurt- I go to the store. Milk, eggs, I go. You get the picture. One of my goals is to get our grocery budget under control, and to meal plan.
Today we munched on leftovers, for once I did not go to the grocery store. =)

P.S. I plan to try your recipe for baked oatmeal- it sounds scrumptious!

Today we had the following:

Breakfast: Walnut Muffins
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/walnutmuffins.aspx

Smoothies (using canned and frozen fruits)
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/smoothies.aspx

My husband had his usual–fried potatoes with ketchup.

Lunch:
My husband has been home for lunch the last few months.
We had leftovers from the last couple of day–Museum Pasta Salad and Chicken Fried Steak.

Snack: Home canned pears

Dinner:
Tuscan Tomato Bread Soup
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/tuscantomatobreadsoup.aspx

and a green salad with lettuce from the garden.

We had evrything bagles with cream cheese, yogurt and strawberry milk for breakfast. Lunch was homemade pretzels with cheese fondue (leftover from yesterday) and tomato soup and popcorn chicken for lunch. And for dinner it was (date night for mom and dad-Ruby Tuesday) and for the kiddies it was ramen noodles, steamed brocolli & edamame, and pears. We also had a whole lot of snacks today!

Hi! Thanks for your blog. I love reading it and am learning a lot! Here’s what we had “from the pantry” today:
Breakfast: your baked oatmeal. I put frozen blueberries and milk on my kids’ portions, but they preferred it dry, and so did I!
Lunch: canned soup and left over homemade pizza from last night
Supper: Homemade biscuits and chicken noodle soup (AKA clean out the fridge soup) using all the leftover veggies from the last few days and the chicken from a couple nights ago. I also had a half open can of chicken broth I threw in with my homemade stock. I love this soup because my fridge gets emptied and I don’t waste much food at all (just throw out some chicken bones). Plus, it’s yummy!
Snacks: granola bars, carrot sticks, apples, crackers

I love this idea of eating from the pantry. We are not doing it this week, but I plan to do it in the future. For your other reader’s questions about sour milk – I often make my own “sour milk” by by putting 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of milk (you put the vinegar in first and then fill to the cup) and then letting it sit 5 minutes. This substitution was in my Betty Crocker cookbook. It has worked for me.
On a different note . . .
Have you heard anything about CVS only accepting one manufacturer coupon per transaction now? I was there tonight and was told by the manager that they got an e-mail today telling them this was the new policy!?! I could not believe it, and left kind of upset – especially since this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I am going to call the corporate office tomorrow, I was just wondering if you have heard anything about this.

I am eating out of my pantry (with the exception of 2 gallons of milk I bought on Sunday night)

Breakfast-
mini wheats (almost free of course) and milk
apple juice

Lunch-
Little Smokey sausage (I got on clearance a few weeks back and froze)
strawberries and bananas
milk

Dinner-
Beef Tacos
Homemade salsa
Homemade Tortillas
Corn chips
milk
Strawberries

Snacks- peanut butter crackers

Dessert-
Those bars you linked too- Scotch Teas (They were great and SUPER easy to make)

My Baby (9 mo) at today- Motts applesauce (from Target), homemade sweet potatoes, homemade frozen blueberries, frozen bananas and apples mixture (which my older kids will drink for breakfast tomorrow)

We had pancakes for supper. I was late getting around to fixing supper and didn’t have a plan (I was doing other things and lost track of time). Anyway I thought about the yummy looking picture of pancakes on here. Quick and yummy.

I am sooo excited. Before my son went to bed we made up our first batch of baked oatmeal. It is covered, in the refrigerator, ready to bake in the morning. With my husband being deployed, this oatmeal is going to last a while. I hope it turns out. Thank you Crystal!

Eating from the pantry update:
Today we ventured out to purchase two gallons of milk. (CVS deal)
That is all we bought! I am so proud of us!
We are on day #10 of eating from the stock pile. ( c :

Thanks for the challenge! I’m trying to use stuff up too! Not really stuff from the pantry, but from the fridge & freezer and counters! I made homemade bread this week (for the first time in years), and I’ve been working at using up a bunch of ripe bananas that were on my counter. I just posted a couple new recipes using ripe bananas on my blog if anyone is looking for some.
I pulled out a loaf of “Montana Toast” which is like Texas Toast, that’s been in my freezer for months and tomorrow will make French Toast sticks with it for lunch and to freeze for breakfasts.
Funny how a challenge like this actually gets me motivated to do what I should have been doing all along – using up what I have!

Breakfast- Scrambled Eggs, Biscuits, Jelly
Lunch- Leftover Roast, Potatoes, and Carrots from last night
Dinner- Crockpot Lasagna, Garlic Bread, Green Beans
Snack- Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

I am going to carry this over to next week too! Its been really fun.

I tired the Scotch Tea bars recipe last night and added a sprinkle of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips– so easy and really good!

WOW! I have loved reading about this challenge and I am giving in and going to try this. I have meat on hands for a few days, but after that….My husband and I grew up where you always have some sort of meat for dinner every night. And I have continued that with our children, I wonder what their responses will be after the meat runs out. But I am determined to do this….for a few days anyways. I think that I will go and whip up a batch of your oatmeal right now for our snack this afternoon. I must say that your baked oatmeal is a hit with a lot of paople on here. It is very yummy!!!!

We’ve been doing a version of this too, adding just a few items this week. Last night we had a prepared Indian eggplant dish from the pantry, channa masala made from canned ingredients, basmati rice, and yogurt (which needs to get used up asap!). I made custard (which I’m posting about today) for dessert. It doesn’t feel like deprivation to use up what we have, eating like this.

Jennifer

The following is yesterday’s menu from my new blog, www.stockpilecooking.com

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
Breakfast:
Cereal (Life Maple and Brown Sugar)- approximately $0.10
Lunch:
Leftover cheesy potatoes from last night- $0 (because the cost was figured into last night’s dinner)
Dinner:
Buitoni refrigerated tortellini (2 packages) – $1
Kraft Pesto Sauce- FREE
Del Monte Spinach- $0.09
Total for the entire day: $1.19

We are going to try this challenge, too. We absolutely need to buy fruit and I already made plans to purchase a bit of meat before deciding on this, so we are at a bit of an advantage. This will be fun!

According to my Fannie Farmer Cookbook To sour pasteurized milk add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup milk and let stand at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. I usually start with room or slightly warm milk and it thickens pretty quickly!

Crystal, I am not participating in this particular challenge, but I wanted to thank you for posting the pancake recipe. We tried it for dinner tonight. I used 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 all-purpose (dh is not “sold” on whole wheat just yet, but he’s getting there!). I also added 1 teaspoon of vanilla. They were very tasty.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these pancakes! Thanks for the recipe.

I absolutely adore your blog, too. Thank you for the DAILY information and inspiration!