End of the Pantry Challenge

Spending for last week:

• $21.50 for Bountiful Basket and extras that I split with friends (that's what I ended up paying)

That means that I went over my $100 goal by less than a dollar. Not too shabby. As long as I can stay out of the grocery store until Wednesday.

 For the last two days of the pantry challenge lunches are (have been) consisting of soup, sandwiches and mac and cheese. (Someday they'll get over this food jag.) For dinner tonight I made Chilean Lime Beans and Rice, it went well. Then we made cookies from ingredients in the pantry for family night. Tomorrow we'll have beans and rice again, because goodness it made a lot. I put a bunch in the freezer and we still have quite a bit in the fridge.

 I was hoping that this experiment would use up lots of the contents of my pantry. We didn't use as much as I hoped. We did however, try four new recipes using food storage that were successful, eat lots of fresh produce, cleared out some space in my freezer and saved a fair amount of cash. Looking at my pantry I feel like I need to do this for another month to get things cleared out and rotated. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I hope that my experience encouraged you to try a few new recipes and make use of the things that you have in your pantry.

Pantry Challenge Week 4

I meant to put this up yesterday, but family and friends come before blogging.
Grocery spending last week:

• Whole wheat hamburger buns- $2.45

• 2 cans pinto beans- $1.08

• 2 gallons milk- $4.25

• package of tortillas- $1

• package of pretzels- 50 cents (after coupon)

• package of Yoplait- free (after coupon)

• can of Carnation Instant Breakfast- $3.70 (after coupon)

• Bountiful Basket (apples, bananas, pears, oranges, cauliflower, broccoli, kiwis, pomegranates, lettuce, corn on the cob)  + bread pack that I split with my mom- $12

Total- $26.36 after tax
Total for the month so far- $79.36

Now I have to admit that I cheated. My family was visiting from out of town and we took them to lunch. Lunch for 5 adults and 2 children came to $59. Not really compatible with the $100 challenge. But I'm not going to be a bad hostess just because I'm doing some crazy pantry challenge. And I did make them eat food storage experiments for their other meals, which actually turned out pretty good. And I never got around to making the BBQ beans because I had too many other leftovers.

Menu Plan:
Breakfast
oatmeal
cereal
yogurt
fruit
smoothies

Lunch
leftovers
Ramen noodles (my kids love them)
shells and cheese
sandwiches

Dinner
BBQ beans
leftovers
Whole Grain Vegetable Lasagna*
Mac & Cheese with Cauliflower
Cream of Vegetable Chowder If you want to add chicken, be my guest.
Taco Salad

Sides & Snacks
Corn on the Cob
salad
roasted vegetables
fresh fruit
homemade bread and jam

*If you live in the Utah county area there is a Stouffer's thrift store near the plant in Springville, UT. Anything that isn't perfect goes to the thrift store. This could mean that they messed up the product, but most often it means that the package is under or overweight. Recently when my mom was there she found frozen Whole Grain Vegetable Lasagnas for $1.99 each, so she brought a few down when she came to visit. They tasted great. Hope that helps someone who is trying to get dinner on the table for less without spending their lives in the kitchen. :)

Pantry Challenge Week 3

Did you have a great holiday with your kids? We did. House cleaning and blogging didn't happen, but we had fun. So Heather had dreams of books I was going to review and various prizes I was going to give away this month, but I was forgetting 'I am a mother of three now'. I never have as much time as I am hoping for. And things always come up. Anywho, moving forward.
 Here was my grocery spending breakdown for last week:

• Cilantro, a pepper and green onions- $1.90
• milk- $2.89
• greek yogurt- $3.59 ( I used it to make tzatziki sauce out of my cucumber. That recipe was a failure.)
• bread- $2.34
• ice cream- $2 (It was a prize on the chore chart.)

So that's roughly $13.

 No complaints from my family yet on using the things that we have. Of course the kids just finished the last of the chicken nuggets and I'm not buying anymore before February. We'll see how that goes. I still have a fair amount of fresh produce including a squash that's been in my fridge since before Christmas, so I'm trying to use up those things.

Here's the meal plan for this week:

Breakfast:

Upside Down Cranberry Cake- If it turns out well I'll put it up here.

cereal

oatmeal

Lunch:

leftovers

sandwiches

shells and cheese

stir-fried veggies with brown rice and plum sauce

Dinner:

Reuben Pinto Burgers- Another new recipe

Hippie Tacos (Vegetarian style)

BBQ Beans  (Again, sans meat)

Squash Quesadillas with Apple Salsa- Looks good, going to give it a whirl

Cream of Mushroom soup- good ol' standby

Green eggs and Spam- The green eggs are made with pureed spinach. My daughter is a big fan of sauteed Spam; it tastes like thick bacon. I'm not so much.

Snacks

More tangerines, pears and apples

muffins

yogurt

Homemade bread (universe willing)

What fun things are you eating? And how are you trying to use what's in your pantry?

$100 Challenge Week 2 and giveaway winner

So spending $100 or less looks like it is going to be harder than I thought. Partly because I didn't do much grocery shopping for most of December because we were out of town so much. The end of week 1 and I've already spent almost half my budget. However, I now have enough produce to last me at least a couple weeks.
Here's the breakdown:

•  Bountiful Basket- $15 (cucumber, radishes, lettuce, spinach. avocados, broccoli, tomatoes, oranges, apples, bananas, pears, grapes, and blackberries)
•  Italian Pack- $8.50 (eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, garlic and fresh herbs. If you have never tried this you should, it makes my fridge and kitchen smell like heaven.)
•  38 lb case of tangerines- $15
•  BB handling fee- $1.50

 But then I split the case of tangerines with two friends, so they each gave me back $5.
Produce total= $30

• milk- $1.61 after coupon
• olive oil- 2 (17 oz) bottles @ $1.99 each (How can I resist that price?)
• Yoplait yogurts- 10 @ 40 cents each (When my children request healthy snacks I really try to make it work. And this is a challenge, not a punishment.)

Grocery total $40.03 (including tax)

I never made Taco Soup last week, because we had enough leftovers to cover meals without. Nor did I make wheatberry salsa, but both of will hit the menu again this week because I opened  tortilla chips for the BBQ Wheat salad and I want to use those before they go stale. In fact BBQ Wheat salad is making a reappearance because I have all the ingredients for it and Thing 1 has decided that she really likes it (as do my husband and I). Also my children requested (and gobbled) scrambled eggs with mushrooms and toast. Fine. Little do they know that I made it with half dry powdered eggs. (I'm still getting them to eat healthy meals built around my food storage, so I'm happy.)

Breakfast and Lunch are more or less the same story as last week. Variety is not a priority for my children. I will also make muffins out of one of the instant mixes that is in the pantry.

Dinner

Eggplant Parmesean

Taco Soup

BBQ Wheat Salad

Fresh Pesto and Pasta (Pasta and Red Sauce for the kids)
Tomato Basil Soup with toasted rosemary sourdough bread
Green Eggs and Ham (Made with spinach)
leftovers

Snacks and Sides
fresh fruit
Wheatberry Salsa
roasted zucchini with caramelized tomatoes

fresh veggies and dip
green salad
yogurt

And the winner of I Dare You to Eat It by Liesa Card is April Evans. Congrats! Now you are on your way to tasty and realistic adventures with food storage. Stay tuned for another giveaway later this week.

$100 Challenge and Menu Week 1

Happy New Year everyone!
 So it's a new year and one of my resolutions is to organize (and maintain) my pantry. In order to do this I need to clean it out, which from what I've read is something that you should do once a year anyway. So I'm going to try to live off my pantry this month and to make it slightly more realistic I'm giving myself a budget of $100 for groceries (food storage meals go down easier with some fresh produce). So this month I'll give you a rundown of how much I'm spending and what we're eating. Hopefully it will give you some ideas to use your own food storage and save some money. And there will be prizes!
 So here's what we're eating this week. (I have to have multiple meals sometimes because my husband is a vegetarian and I have my own dietary restrictions.) On weekends and holidays, I tend to make big batches of breakfast foods like waffles and use the leftovers throughout the next week. This week I'm also focusing on using a lot produce that's in my fridge.

Breakfast
Pumpkin Waffles
Baked Apple Pancakes
granola
cold cereal
oatmeal

Lunch
sandwiches
leftovers
mac and cheese (for the kids)

Dinner
BBQ Chicken and Wheat Salad (without the chicken)
Stir-fried Green Beans & Brown Rice and Tropical Sweet Potato Casserole
Hawaiian Haystacks
Red Pepper Pesto and Pasta
Taco Soup (Vegetarian style)
leftovers

Snacks
Wheatberry Salsa and chips
fresh apples
canned peaches
smoothies
crackers and cheese

Now for this weeks giveaway: I'm going to give away a copy of I Dare You To Eat It by Liesa Card. This is my favorite food storage book. If you have no idea where to start with your food storage, this book is a great starting place. It's full of tips and ideas that make using your food storage feasible. Here's what you have to do to enter:

1. Be a follower of Secrets of Mom (required) and comment on this post.
2. Join the $100 Challenge and comment.
3. Share your favorite food storage recipe.
4. Share this post on twitter.

The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. The giveaway ends at midnight on Sunday January 8, 2012. The winner will be announced Monday morning. Keep checking for more recipes and giveaways throughout the month.

December Updates

Great news!

1. I passed the CPN exam! I am now a Certified Pediatric Nurse and I get to put extra letters after my name. Wahoo!
2. Cindy Lou Who's reflux is getting better. She's still on more than $500 worth of medication each month and I still can not have tomatoes or onions, but I can have small amounts of cranberries, chocolate, citrus, beans and dairy. Really, this is huge people.
3. We had a great Christmas, including some time with my brother-in-law who just came home from the Philippines.

With these big things behind us I'm ready to conquer the world. Or maybe just tackle my house. It needs serious work. And perhaps get around to fixing my blog, that is getting my computer programming husband to fix my blog. Starting the first of the year I'm going to try something new: The $100 Challenge. For the month of January I plan on spending no more than $100 on groceries for my family of five. It's basically a pantry challenge, but gives me some leway to buy milk and fresh produce. I'll share my menus and food storage ideas here and I'll find prizes for some of those who want to join me in my endeavors to rotate my pantry items and save some money. Who is with me?

What I've been up to

 I swear I have a dozen blog posts bouncing around in my head, but not enough time to write them. That is, time where I'm in the 'writing zone' plus had enough sleep plus have 2 hands free. I've written a couple in a state of sleep deprivation and come back to proofread them and I'm not quite sure what I was trying to say, so we'll get back to those. So I'll just summarize what I've been doing in list form, because Heather is all about the lists. :)

1. Feeding the baby- She gained 3 pounds in 4 weeks. I spend a lot of time feeding the baby.
2. Chipotle Roasted Vegetable Quesadillas- I found this recipe on Skinny Bovine's Kitchen. I left out the corn, and added 2 tomatoes, 1& 1/2 medium carrots, one Hatch chile and doubled the chipotle (and left in the seeds cause I'm lazy). It was so yummy. Unfortunately baby couldn't handle the spiciness, and the two times I ate it as soon as I fed her she projectile vomited on me. But if you aren't breast-feeding I highly recommend it.
3. Started reading How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. In the introduction he says that he tries to run his pantry dry at least once a year. I thought, I need to do that. So I have been trying to plan all meals around what I have in my pantry. In addition to rotating things, it just makes it easier to organize when I give myself a little space. And in the next few months I know there will be many sales on non-perishable items and I need to make room.
4. In my efforts to clean out the pantry I made Peaches and Cream Oven French Toast, using canned peaches, evaporated milk and powdered eggs. It was pretty yummy and all members of my family or at least those with teeth ate some (Cue angelic chorus). However, I'm pretty sure that I could come up with a healthier version that is just as yummy.
5. Dealing with reflux- A new development in just the past week. I've determined that baby can't handle it when I eat anything remotely spicy, but it seemed like cutting that out wasn't enough. No, no- there is a huge list of things that I have to cut out. And since I have it has made a huge difference. She's happier and sleeps longer through the night. The problem is when I got out beans, dairy and many fruits and vegetables, it makes it hard to find anything to eat, let alone anything vegetarian. (And I had gone weeks without eating meat and was feeling fine!) I may need to go back to being a carnivore for baby's benefit for awhile.
6. Enjoying my oh-so-adorable children who are probably the only people whom I would tolerate such shenanigans from.

Pantry Challenge Review

In the past couple weeks this is what we have been eating: Navajo Tacos, Chicken Fajita Pasta, Beef Stew, Noodles and Company, Chili, Banana Oatmeal Bread, Cream of Mushroom Soup, Orange Buttermilk pancakes (made with powdered milk), Toasted Ham and Cheese Sandwiches with Tomato Soup, Beef and Wheat Enchiladas and lots of leftovers. And eating food storage for lunch is easy because every day my kids want "Ramen doodles" or Mac & Cheese. I have to be very persuasive to get them to eat anything else. :S I've learned a few things from this challenge.

1. I don't know if I will ever be desperate enough to drink powdered milk. I can
   cook with it, but I won't drink it.
2. When I washed out the chocolate milk jug and filled it with water and hot chocolate mix, my kids didn't even notice. That one can save me a lot of money the way my kids go through chocolate milk.
3. I really can live off my food storage!
4. I can get away with spending only $10-15 a week on groceries, without even clipping any coupons.
5. I got to the point where making homemade bread wasn't that big of a deal. And I don't own a bread maker.
6. I have more food in my pantry than I thought I did.

I do have to confess that I cheated. Saturday night my in-law's were in town and they had promised a few months ago that they would take my daughter to Pirate Island Pizza the next time they came. No food storage that night, but does it count if I didn't have to pay for it?

Kitchen Experiment- Chicken Tabouleh Salad

The recipe for this Middle Eastern dish came from Brown Bag Success. It was not a big hit in our house, even after I made my own alterations. I should have known better than to try to feed my husband something with cucumbers and tomatoes. He doesn't like it, the kids won't eat it. The whole thing smacks of "chic food". However, I still enjoyed it. It's a different and easy way to eat wheat, that doesn't require a wheat grinder and I'm always looking for those. Perhaps this recipe will useful to someone whose family isn't quite as picky about their produce. I think that it would be good as a side to a pasta dish.

Chicken Tabouleh Salad 
1 cup cooked wheat berries
1 cup chopped cooked chicken
1 tomato chopped
1/4 cup snipped parsley
1/2 cup chopped cucumber
1 green onion chopped
1/2 cup Italian dressing
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp grated parmesean

Mix everything in a bowl. Cover and store in the fridge for several hours before eating. This gives the wheat a chance to absorb the dressing.

Pantry Challenge Update: Cranberry Pork Ribs, Beef & Bean Burritos, Wheat Salsa, Homemade Pizza and French Toast, and of coarse lots of leftovers. We haven't had to buy any meat or cheese, just the occasional small random ingredient. We had guests this weekend and everyone was complimentary of the food, even if it was totally based around my food storage. No one complained that the french toast was made with homemade bread and powdered milk. I thought of a way to use some of those canned pork chunks, but it requires beans. How am I out of beans? Some time in March I will have to try this.

The Pantry Challenge

 Recently I stumbled across a blog called Money Saving Mom as she was discussing her pantry challenge for the month of January. It sounded like something I would like to give a shot, well sort of. Her challenge was for the entire month of January only use foods that she already had in her fridge, freezer and pantry. I'm just not that hard-core. What I have been doing  for February is using stuff from my pantry in every meal and I plan everything based on what I already have. In assessing my pantry, other than the staples, I noticed a few things:

•  I have enough cookies mixes and other dessert ingredients to last me at least a year, at least. Seriously, if there is some major natural disaster leading to a lack of food in the grocery stores any readers are welcome to come to my house for cookies and hot chocolate, provided you can get on the internet at that point and ask for directions to my place.
• I may have enough Post Raisin Bran to last me that long too. (Ok, maybe not quite that long.) I keep buying the stuff when it goes on sale for $1 a box because my husband likes it, but he doesn't eat that much of it.
• I have lots of canned pork chunks. I only know how to do one thing with them, Chile Verde, and it's not something my kids are willing to eat.

So far so good. To turn my pantry items into meals that I and my family will eat I find myself going to the store every couple days for fresh fruit and vegetables. (Yeah, I could probably plan this a little better.) But that's ok, I'm still spending way less, I'm rotating through my stuff, I'm improvising and trying new things and my family still eats it. Here is what we've been eating lately: Cheesy Mushroom Chicken and Rice, Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins, homemade Chicken Soup, Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins, Chicken Piccata, Hamburger Helper (feeling uncreative and needed to eat something other than chicken) and Kung Pao Chicken. No one has complained. No one has even noticed that I've been doing anything different. Strangely enough, both my children have been eating better than usual. I'm afraid if I say anything it will break the magic spell. Next project: learn to make something with canned pork chunks.