Pantry Shopping

This year, I really have a bug about using things up and minimizing the amount of stuff around here.  In the past, this urge has led to purchases - I'm not sure of the logic there, but the irony doesn't escape me.

This year, I am truly trying to get rid of stuff, and not replace it with more stuff.  Use it up, donate it, or throw it out!  I'm really trying to upcycle, as well - repurpose stuff - as long as it doesn't involve spending lots of money.

Part of my plan is "pantry shopping".  This is helpful to do in January, when all the holiday bills come in. Instead of buying groceries, I've been trying to use up what's in the house.  In doing so, I've realized - there's a lot of stuff in the house.  Weird stuff.  What-was-I-thinking kind of stuff.

When it comes to food, up until now I've just been using up the stuff in the freezer.  With a second freezer downstairs, there's quite a supply to choose from.  Things were going well, but it was time to face the real demon - the pantry.

On Sunday, Gary and I took all of the unopened items from the upstairs pantry and cupboards, and took them to the downstairs pantry.  Once everything was in the same place, we sorted through the food by date, creating several piles.  One pile was for food past the "best by" date, another was for items with a "best by" date in the next 3 months, and then the remainder was organized and shelved in the downstairs pantry.

We reviewed the past date foods, threw out the truly bad ones, and then took the "it should still be OK" ones upstairs, along with the ones that expire soon.  I restocked the upstairs pantry, then purged the refrigerator (ugh), and even cleaned up the spice cabinet.

This leaves me with an upstairs pantry with an odd assortment of items, and a challenge of finding ways to use them.  Every meal needs to have at least one item from the pantry.

Tonight, the first night post-organizing, was a home run.  I used up the following items:

• dried hashbrowns
• canned roast beef
• canned mushrooms
• cream of celery soup
• 1/3 tub of non-dairy cream cheese

to create a roast beef hashbrown casserole.  I "hacked" a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, and it was actually pretty good.  Gary and I both ate it willingly - perhaps the addition of curry spices helped - and Madi was able to stomach it all after covering it liberally with shredded cheese... and the promise of strawberry shortcake if she finished her dinner.  Not even the shortcake could get Sarah to eat it, but 3 out of 4 is a win in my book.  I don't know if I'll ever make it again, but we were nourished.

I served the casserole with canned beets, also from the pantry, bringing the total to 6 items used.  Not a bad start, but I think things are going to start getting dicey soon.  We have way too much tuna, beans, and rice for this to end well...  :)