My biggest lesson-learned in the Eat From the Pantry Challenge is not to send your spouse to the grocery store–even with a detailed list–if you expect to hold to eating from the pantry. Oh well, we still were able to use up quite a bit of stuff from the pantry this week, so I can’t complain too much. This week, we’re leaving town for a few days, so the pantry will remain full and unused. We’ll have to come on strong at the end of the month (and probably continue this into February) to really make a dent.
If you can’t use the one you love, love the one you have (or something)
This week, substitutions were the big thing for me. If a recipe called for sweet potato, but I had tons of winter squash in the pantry, I used winter squash instead. If we needed walnuts, but I had pecans on hand, I swapped them out. In the past, I probably would have added them to the grocery list, but not this month!
Make Your Own Flour
I decided to try my hand at making flour in the food processor to try to use up some of the bulk grains I have. The result? Rice and oats work well in the food processor, millet & quinoa, not so much. Oh well, the millet was old anyway, so I fed it to the worms. Now if only I had a Vita-Mix with the grain mill blade…
Make your hubby bake for you!
My husband loves to have a well stocked pantry from a baking perspective. But that also means that when things like marzipan and candied peel go on sale, he stocks up. So what better way to declutter the pantry than to have him make me almond macaroons, bananas foster, and other yummies? Not good for the waist-line, but great for emptying the pantry.
Wow, a lot of spice blends
We have made a good dent in our store of spice blends in the pantry and have also used up quite a bit of our frozen stash of cilantro and garlic this week. We’ve been enjoying kicking the spice up a notch, and I’ve really enjoyed sending empty containers to the recycle bin. The cupboards are looking nice!
It’s a good thing we’re doing this…
In the end, it’s a good thing we’re doing this because the fridge in our garage finally died as a result of the sub-zero temperatures we’ve been having. The good news is that we’d used enough stuff out of the freezer that we didn’t lose a single thing. Score!
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