Clean Out the Pantry: Week 2 Review

Week 2 of shopping from the pantry, fridge and freezer went well. My husband ended up having to stay out of town 2 nights for work so one meal was moved to the weekend and one was shifted to the menu for this week.

Here are the meals we did eat this week:

Tuesday
whole wheat angel hair pasta with chicken sausage & mushroom/ripe olive sauce

Thursday

Coyote Quesedilla a la Guy Fieri (so good you HAVE to make this one)

Friday 

sweet & sour chicken (from The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook) with brown rice

Saturday

cheeseburgers & steak fries (I think you know what those look like.)

Other than most of the ingredients for the quesedilla, the only other thing I had to buy for these meals  were 2 bell peppers. The rest came from our pantry, fridge & freezer. Here's the list of everything I used up for dinners:

~package of Sam's Club chicken sausages
~jar of spaghetti sauce
~finished up 1/2 a box of whole wheat angel hair pasta
~2 pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts
~2 tomatoes from our garden
~onion
~1 pound package of hamburger patties
~sourdough english muffins
~bag of frozen steak fries
~finished a can of parmesan cheese

I went to the grocery today and did really well. The only things I bought for meals this week were turkey bacon and a head of romaine lettuce, both for BLTs tonight. I reserved a few whole leaves of the lettuce for sandwiches and chopped the rest up to use for salads. I also bought stuff for my husband's lunches, baby food, a few staples that we've used up and need to keep on hand (Worcestershire sauce, Parmesan cheese, jelly, Dijon mustard) and the ingredients for two dishes to take to a family get together next weekend.

Oh, and I did buy several outfits for the little one. All of the summer stuff is on clearance at $2 or $3. I spent $20 and got a ton of darling clothes to put back for next year.

Clean Out the Pantry Days 4-7

Okay. So I sort of cheated for the latter half of my Clean Out the Pantry week.

Day 4, Thursday: I had Chipotle for lunch at 3pm so I knew I wouldn't be hungry come dinner time. When I got home from town, I threw together a quick tuna salad (tuna, eggs, light Miracle Whip) and threw it in the refrigerator. I'm not a big fan, but my husband loves the stuff. He had some on toast for dinner and finished it up with crackers for breakfast on Saturday. Yes, tuna for breakfast. Weirdo. :)

Day 5, Friday: My husband ended up having to work really late Friday night and ended up staying out of town because he also had to work Saturday. I never really got hungry enough to sit down to a meal so I just fixed a quick PB&J sandwich and called it a day.

Day 6, Saturday: The last time we went out to dinner alone, as a couple, was for our anniversary back in March. That streak was broken on Saturday when we dropped the baby off at my sister-in-law's house and headed to a nearby steakhouse.

Day 7, Sunday: Pizza for dinner. Enough said. It wasn't that I didn't want to cook and it's pretty unheard of for us to eat out once a week, let alone twice. We were both just hungry for it and there were coupons in Sunday's paper.

I'm still calling Clean Out the Pantry Week 1 a huge success. Here's a list of all the things we used up from the pantry, refrigerator, garden and freezer:

• 6 tomatoes from our garden
• can of dark red kidney beans
• bag of croutons
• large sirloin steak
• package of organic hearts of romaine lettuce
• bag of shredded 2% cheddar cheese
• leftover coleslaw
• box of reduced sodium Stove Top stuffing
• 1.5 lb. package of pork chops
• 1 onion
• box of long grain & wild rice
• 19oz. bag of shrimp
• 1 lime
• 3 cans of tuna
• 2 eggs

Clean Out the Pantry Day 3: Garlic & Jalapeno Shrimp

Last night I made the Garlic & Jalapeno Shrimp from the May 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living . I had everything to make it except for the jalapeno pepper which I picked up at the grocery last week for 38 cents. Bank breaker right there ladies and gentlemen. :)

My husband and I both liked it. A lot. I'll definitely be making this one again.

On the side, we ate this seasoned rice that's been taking up space in the pantry since I got it free with a coupon.

The recipe also specified to "Serve with cold beer." I'm not gonna argue with Martha so...

Grocery Update: This morning I did my menu planning for next week and discovered that I could easily do another week of cooking with what we already have. I went to the grocery today and only spent $10 on ingredients for those meals. It would have been less, but my husband specially requested a dish. I have the chicken and the sour cream, but had to purchase the rest.

The only others things I bought were bread, produce, beer and things for my husbands lunches next week. All of these are things we will consume in a week.

My credit card was very, very happy. It was also nice not having to unload 2,000 bags of groceries and spend an hour putting everything away.

Clean Out the Pantry Day 2: French Onion Pork Chop Skillet

Last night's dinner was one of my husband's favorite. I found the recipe in a Kraft Foods magazine shortly after we got married and it's been a semi- regular feature on our menu since then. We haven't had it for a while so my husband was excited to see it finishing up on the stove when he got home.

You can find the original recipe here. The only modifications I made were to use one pound of pork chops instead of 1.5 and I used 2% shredded cheddar cheese instead of part-skim mozzarella.

I swear there really are pork chops in there, under the onions.

I didn't have to buy a single thing for this meal. Even more exciting was that this dish used up my last box of stashed Stove Top stuffing. I don't really know how I amassed so much of that stuff, but at one point I had about 10 boxes on the lazy Susan. Either there was one heck of a sale or I had some mad coupons. Or both. :)

On the side, we had salads made from our fridge stash of lettuce, tomatoes from our garden and croutons from the pantry.

Clean Out the Pantry Day 1: Garbage Salad

Kristan's post about having a ton of food stocked in her pantry and wanting to cook for one week using only ingredients she had on hand. I decided to challenge myself to the same thing since I have a ton of non-perishables in the pantry, meat in the freezer and things in the refrigerator that need to be used up.

Yesterday I hit the trifecta. I used not only two items from the pantry, but also an item from the deep freeze and a few things from the refrigerator.

The steamy weather yesterday was not conducive to a heavy dinner. It was, however, perfect grilling weather so my husband threw a sirloin steak (from the deep freeze) on the grill for our protein. Instead of serving it with a starchy side, we decided to just throw it onto a salad. Every one of the toppings were things we already had on hand and some of them were things that would have gone bad had they not been used up this week.

I present to you my Garbage Salad:

spring mix, tomatoes (from our garden), dark red kidney beans, croutons, coleslaw & sirloin steak

Yes. That says coleslaw. My husband looked at me like I had lost my mind. 

I wanted a slaw-like dressing for my salad, but we didn't have any because I'd used up the last jar toward the end of last week in a batch of homemade coleslaw. We ate it as a side dish with several meals, but there was still quite a bit leftover that would have gone spoiled in the refrigerator. I threw it on top of my salad to keep that from happening. Lo and behold, it was actually really good.

It was a perfect meal for a hot summer evening. We weren't overly stuffed and the veggies were extra refreshing.