It's day 12 of not stepping foot in a grocery store and it's day 2 of our Eating From The Pantry Challenge.
Here's what we ate today:
Breakfast: Baked Oatmeal with frozen strawberries and milk (Recipe is here–this is so easy to throw together the night before and stick in the refrigerator to bake in the morning for a delicious hot and fresh breakfast!)
Lunch: Scrambled eggs and hashbrowns with cheese, whole-wheat toast with butter, apple slices
Snack: Quaker Rice Snacks
Dinner: Stir Fry over brown rice (concocted with some fresh veggies I needed to use up)
If you're eating from your pantry this week, I'd love to hear what was on your menu today!
Question. Day 12 you had apple slices for lunch. If you haven’t shopped in 12 weeks, how’d you get apples to last 12 days? My fruit (and veggies) seem to go bad rather quickly. Suggestions?
***********************
Money Saving Mom here: I’ve found that if I buy very crisp varieties of apples (such as Gala–which these were), they will keep quite nicely for up for 2 1/2 weeks in the drawer in the fridge. You might also try those green fruit and veggie bags. Those work very well, too!
My family loves baked oatmeal! I might just have to make it now that you’ve reminded me of it. Going on vacation soon & that would be a great thing to take along… Yum!!
Thanks for posting a picture of your oatmeal. I’ve made your recipe before and didn’t like it because it was too dry.
Now I realize that you’re actually eating it like cereal (with milk added) not like a creamy oatmeal.
Tada, the light bulb went off! 🙂
Rochelle
I am following you in this challenge. We spent WAY too much on a party this weekend and I would like to use up what we have before I spend any more money. Yesterday we had cereal for breakfast, sandwiches/wraps & fruit, and pizza for dinner.
Breakfast-Breakfast Burrito from the freezer
Lunch-Tuna Patties in Whole Wheat Tortilla, chips
Dinner-Roast(from freezer) Potatoes, Carrots in Crockpot
Snacks-Grapes and Peanut Butter Bars
Thanks–you reminded me that I wanted to make up a bunch of hard boiled eggs for snacks and egg salad for lunch!
Crystal, your meals always sound so delicious! Great job being a good steward of what you already have!
Kim from Philadelphia
We are also eating from the pantry this week.
Breakfasts
Waffles
Muffins
Cereal
Lunch
Leftovers
Soup
Pasta Sides
Lunchmeat
Dinner
Pizza
Ranch Parmesan Chicken
Chicken Stir-fry
Chicken Taco Casserole
Fish
Chicken Enchiladas
See a theme with the dinners! I had stocked up on a great meat sale. I am out of ground beef though. I am going to Saturday and getting 20lbs though, so next week I can have more variety to my menu.
curried chicken ( I had some coconut milk)
rice
cake
spinach (mixed in with the curried chicken and green beans (from the freezer).
Late morning I had a turkey sandwich (we roasted a turkey on Saturday) on homemade whole wheat bread. My daughter had cereal and milk with fruit for breakfast, and her lunch was PBJ on whole wheat, string cheese and an apple. I had a string cheese mid-afternoon with an apple too. For supper we had turkey fajitas with all the ‘fixins’ and peach cobbler (home-canned peaches) for dessert.
Breakfast: Oatmeal/Brown Rice porridge with raisins
Lunch: Sandwiches
Dinner: Lasagna, coleslaw, carrots with ranch dressing
You can see some pictures and recipes here!
http://savingwithmelissa.blogspot.com/2009/03/yummy-lasagna-and-fresh-coleslaw.html
Breakfast Bagels and jam
Lunch fried egg with cheese sandwhich
Dinner Turkey Pot Pie Cheesey buscuits
That baked oatmeal looks great! Way to go on making it through Day 2.
Today’s meals:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
I buy oats in bulk to keep the cost low ($9.75 for 25 lbs of old-fashioned oats). I add powdered milk in with the oats, water and salt to keep it creamy.
Lunch: Chicken and Rice Soup
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/chickenandricesoup.aspx
I used leftover rice and boiled the bones of a leftover roast chicken to get the last bits of meat from it for the meat in the soup.
Snacks: Sugar Snap Peas, French Bread with butter
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/frenchbread.aspx
Dinner:
Museum Pasta Salad
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/museumpastasalad.aspx
Everything is from my pantry except for the sugar snap peas and green onions, which I picked from my garden today.
Yummy meals! You have a pretty tasty pantry stash. Today we had leftover steak (a Christmas present) and sliced roasted cabbage with roast tomatoes. Very delicious.
I love reading your blog!
*Blessings!*
Jamie
My mother-in-law is in town helping me with the new baby and she threw together chicken and dumplings from my pantry! Left-over crockpot chicken, potatoes, frozen veggies, and made-from-scratch dumplings! Yummy!
I made a deep dish pizza using a family recipe. It calls for stewed tomatoes on top rather than sauce under all the toppings. My husband and I both love it and I usually always have the ingredients for homemade pizza crust!
Biscuits and gravy for dinner at my house tonight, for a grand total of about three bucks! Just posted 🙂
Always feels good to use up the pantry staples we get for such a steal.
Our dinner was our usual for Cub Scout night — Quasadillas. I use leftover brown rice and frozen in snack size ziplocs and add to a pound of browned ground beef.
I need some ideas for the porkchops that I found in the freezer. I’m looking for a crockpot idea for tomorrow!
Looks yummy!! I am joining you this week in cooking from what I have on hand and decided to have a theme on my blog of healthy breakfasts all week…lets hope I have enough ingredients on hand! LOL
Love your blog BTW I am a regular reader and always appreciate the freebies and posts you put up for CVS and Walgreens 🙂
We are eating from the pantry this week too. I’m 38 weeks and I’ve had no time to get to ther store! This week we are having:
Breakfast:
Cereal
Bagels and cream cheese
waffles
baked oatmeal
Lunches:
PBJ’s
hot pockets
chicken nuggets
Dinner:
marinated grilled chicken
Fried rice w/ beef
grilled cheese and tomato soup
tater tot casserole
Brats
Steaks
I’m not sure about sides but it will be a last minute decision I’m sure. Thanks for the great ideas. I just made baked oatmeal and can’t wait to try it tomorrow!
Day 2
Bfast – homemade waffles
Lunch – leftover venison steak (served cold, cut in strips, finger food style), cheese stick, sun chips, fruit
Dinner – enchiladas, made baked tortilla chips with the leftover corn tortillas in the oven and served with salsa, leftover corn on cob and rice from last night’s dinner.
Dessert – chocolate pudding
Snack – popcorn
I think this is the first time I’m leaving a comment for something besides a give-away. =)
Just wanted to say that this challenge came at a great time for me. I had already told myself that I was going to make do with what we have on hand instead of going to the grocery store this week . . . so reading your challenge and knowing many others are doing it is great!
We have our own chickens/eggs, so there’s never a lack of those for breakfast, egg salad sandwiches, egg custard, etc.
We had creamy chicken & biscuits w/ salad last night, ate at in-laws tonight, and more “from the pantry” meals planned for the rest of the week.
Thanks again for the encouraging challenge!
I am just loving reading about the meals you are preparing with your pantry challenge! Your family eats so well!
Thanks,
Emily
Can brown sugar be substituted in the oatmeal recipe? Looks delicious. In our family we use frozen blueberries to cool our oatmeal instead of ice cubes. My daughters love making little patterns in their oatmeal with the blueberries.
Today we had scrambled eggs for breakfast, leftovers for lunch (clam chowder and grilled chicken sandwiches) and for dinner we are having cabbage roll casserole. I also challenged some of my friends to do this this week also!
We had cereal for breakfast. Lunch was canned Progresso Soup (from Feb. Walgreen’s deal) and pretzel bread (free from Target) and I made homemade cheese fondue. And for dinner Shrimp Alfredo (frozen meal I stocked up on when it was on close-out at Food City for $3.75 and I had a $2 coupon) and apples slices with cashew butter. Snack was fruit-popscicle-things as we had 70 degree weather here.
Hi,
I started following your blog in Jan and love it. I love the great deals I’m getting. Sometimes disappointed that I don’t always seem to get the same coupons as you (such as no Schnick razors coupons in my Sun paper this week, or I didn’t get that section).
While, I’m not eating from the pantry the whole week I didn’t know what we were having tonight. That usually meant a trip to the store. But you inspired me and I got had some frozen chili that we put over baked potatoes. No extra $$ spent on tonight’s meal. 🙂
Not eating from the pantry this week, but I have before. It is a challenge but rewarding to see what you can come up with!
Good job momma!!
I definitely did a pantry dinner tonight. I had a few leftover cranberry chicken breasts in the fridge. I paired them with two boxes of scalloped potatoes that I got for free a few months ago on a great catalina deal. I found a can of green beans in the cupboard to round out the meal. I did shop this week, but I only bought a few fruits and veggies and several boxes of cereal to take advantage of a free milk deal at my local Shaws supermarket. I’m hoping for a great meat deal next week so I can put some more meals in the freezer.
This morning we ate up some waffles in the freezer. Morning snack was dried blueberries. For lunch we had left over Farmhouse Chicken and an afternoon snack of fresh apples. For dinner we had sloppy joe and for snack tonight applesauce before bed. This challenge is GREAT! My husband LOVES it!
Looks yummy! Just wondering…how do you get your frozen strawberries to look so fresh?! Do you have a special way to freeze them? Thanks for the recipe!
Sounds like a delicious day! I’m not participating in the challenge per se, but needed to eat from my pantry the past two days due to an unexpected medical problem (pinched nerve–nothing serious). For lunch today, I made tofu (no sausage to be had) jambalaya with baked brown rice. Dinner was homemade pizza pockets (crescent rolls, tomato sauce spiced up with pizza seasoning, chopped pepperoni, and smidges of different cheeses from the meat drawer) and pickled beets. Okay, I was the only one who ate the beets. Yesterday’s dinner was a very unglamorous meal of hamburgers and potato wedges.
Not sure what’s up tomorrow. Maybe I will forgo the store and find something interesting to concoct!
Take care,
Rhonda
left-over chicken with hot sauce for breakfast anyone?