I made a chicken pot pie last night (I know, all my impressive pantry-clearing meals lately are not so healthy) using 1 can each of reduced-fat cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, leftover roasted chicken, frozen mixed vegetables, and refrigerated biscuits rolled out for the shell (why did I even BUY biscuits?!?).
I bought 3 summer squash at the farmer's market this weekend (for 50 cents each!) that I'd like to find some new ways to use. That's my goal for today - find ways to use them that use up other things in the cupboard or freezer. My freezer is getting low on veggies, rice, etc. but I still have SO MUCH meat. Ugh. I don't think I can use it all before the end of the month, but I guess we'll see.
I'm fighting my instinct, which is to fill it back up again.
I fight that same instinct, especially when things are on sale. I used our last bag of frozen garden beans (yellow string beans) a couple of days ago on 2 Bean salad. I use the yellow beans and black beans, lots of celery, some frozen red peppers, onions, etc. then forgot about it. Yesterday afternoon when I was pawing thru the frig, I found the salad in the back. Sometimes that's the best thing to do with salads that need to marinate/blend, forget about it for a couple of day. It was soooooooo delicious, I put it into Fitday so I know how many calories were in a 4 oz. serving. 111 but it's higher because of the two Tablespoons of canola oil in it. I cut that back, the recipe called for 1/4 cup of oil and we didn't miss that extra oil. DH wants chicken/vegetable stir fry tonight so I'll not be using any old stuff. This morning I baked a 'no knead' bread recipe, it cost 90 cents to made and it's really good. If anyone is interested, I'll post the recipe. Sometimes a recipe calls for cr. of soups and I've tried getting around it with homemade cream soups. I also have a recipe for that, you store it in a jar. (all dry), When you want to use it, just mix with water. I'm not very impressed with it, that's something that's been in my pantry for a year or so. I might have to work on getting rid of it. Glad you mentioned the cr. of mush/chicken soup.
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1 can each of reduced-fat cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, leftover roasted chicken, frozen mixed vegetables, and refrigerated biscuits rolled out for the shell (why did I even BUY biscuits?!?)
I'm also going to make a quinoa & black bean salad, as the warm weather's here & these cold salads make great lunches.
I collect loads of bean and grain recipes...my DH is a vegetarian and he likes them for his lunches. I do have a bag of frozen edamame - I use it sometimes in stir fries.
I know I have a package of quinoa to use up; I just have to ransack my pantry to find it. Last night I made tofu fried rice, using up some of my stockpiled brown rice, and some of every fresh vegetable I had in the fridge. I cut everything up the night before, and I still have some uncooked cut-up broccoli, red, yellow and green pepper, zucchini, and onion. I'm down to one garlic clove and will have to get some more. I also noticed my tamari is getting low.
I purchased some miso a couple of years for a recipe then forgot about it. Does that get old? I just looked at it, I've had it in a zip lock bag and it looks o.k. Any suggestion on using it up? I used another package frozen rhubarb strawberry sauce today, that's about it.
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I also noticed my tamari is getting low.
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Googling around today, I hit upon a recipe that seems like a grand slam for freezer cleaning, at least where my freezer is concerned: It's for an edamame succotash with shrimp (I've got lots of frozen shrimp & I have some frozen corn to use up). It also requires some crumbled bacon, but I'll substitute turkey bacon. I always have too much of turkey bacon, too. I get it to use for flavoring in dishes, rather than to eat the bacon strips, which aren't that good. (I agree, Bobbi, about their cardboard texture.) I end up throwing most of the package away because I don't use it fast enough or think to freeze it. So that's four ingredients in one dish.
And the bank said they've cleared my file for closing. Good. Now the lawyers need to set a date. This will happen, eventually. And my freezer will be in much better shape by moving day because of this challenge. (I won't discuss my packing yet.)
Good Morning! I'm using up the last package of frozen zucchini today, good thing because we will have fresh in a couple of days. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I used up some old peanuts I had in the freezer yesterday to put in DH granola, I don't eat it because it's not calorie friendly but I would love to, yum! I've been pigging out on garden lettuce every night and that sure helps fill me up before my entree. saef, what's that short for, your name? I love shrimp but am allergic to it, My favorite was shrimp coctails, I'm drooling just thinking about it. One disadvantage of living in the middle of America (Minnesota)is our lack of fresh sea foods. I envy all you that live on the coast, most of our fish are frozen. Sooooooooo, did anyone have any ideas of using up the old Miso I have in the frig? Have a good pantry/freezer cleaning day!
Hmm, let's see... I threw together some chili, in an effort to use up A LOT of stuff... including cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, chicken stock, black beans (frozen), overcooked kidney beans (frozen), ground pork (frozen), lentils, and TVP. I liked how it turned out, but I guess I used too much tomato, and it was too acidic for my husband.
I had finally used up all the eggs when we had company last weekend, and my husband's coworker said he would give us some eggs from his own chickens. Well, hubby came home with 3 DOZEN eggs on Wednesday! So he proposed that we eat a lot of egg-based dishes and relax on cleaning out the pantry/freezer for now. We had omelettes last night (with sauteed onions and summer squash, ham, a little bit of cheese).
Bobbi, I wish I had advice on the miso, but I've NEVER cooked with it. I usually use recipezaar to find recipes... here's a link to all recipes containing the ingredient "miso" sorted so that the highest rated ones are first. http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.ph...%2Frecipes.php
Bobbi, oh dear, oh dear ... I have thought of a use for your miso, but your lament on the lack of seafood gives me pause. You do you have access to salmon, don't you? That seems pretty pervasive. The reason I'm asking is that I'd probably make miso-glazed salmon. Google "miso-glazed" & you'll see all the recipes for this. I'd add some o.j. & sesame oil & use Splenda instead of brown sugar. If not, chicken breasts might do as well. I have never tried miso-glazed elk. Speaking of regional differences -- I would venture that our per capita consumption of elk down here near Manhattan is definitely lower than yours. For any meal of game, I'd have to 1) pay exorbitant prices at certain restaurants & specialty grocers; or 2) drive a couple hours west to Pennsylvania & dine with my deerhunting cousins, who live just outside of Scranton.
The edamame succotash with corn, red bell pepper, onion, turkey bacon & shrimp was sinfully good. I piled it on top of some steamed kale (also from my freezer). I will get two dinners out of that dish, no question.
I have some more elderly ground beef to use up. I am going to try a ground beef & sauerkraut soup recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen. This package dates back to April 2008, so I'm definitely getting out of the deepest recesses of my fridge.
Good guess, Bobbi, "saef" are my initials. So vanilla, compared with some of the wonderful usernames here. I've thought of changing it to "Batwingsbegone," in honor of another poster here whose transformational effort I've found to be inspirational. But I think that's kind of showy, for me. ;-)
Oh, and Thinfor5Minutes, my plans for quinoa & black bean salad were foiled the other day. When I went into my box of Trader Joe's quinoa, I discovered pantry moths had gotten into it. Disgusting. I threw it away. What a waste of money. This led to an evening of pulling down boxes from my shelves & checking everything & discarding some things & then putting out moth traps. Shiver, shiver, shiver. Yuck.
bobbi - what kind of hashbrowns? My freezer coop uses frozen hashbrowns in soups instead of fresh potatoes quite often. They usually are just potatoes with a little bit of oil, its the frying them into hashbrowns that gets caloric. Shredded hashbrowns work great in blended soups to thicken them (add shredded potatoes and skim milk to a "cream soup" and skip the cream). Cubed hashbrowns work in soups that call for sliced or diced potatoes.
I've been back and forth on a pantry challenge for awhile. I am in a freezer coop, so I do get new freezer stuff every month. My challenge is to lower the inventory each month even though I still get this new stuff.
It was frozen french fries, not hash browns. Guess I typed it in wrong? I made them for DH a copule of nites ago, I had 1/2 of one to see if they tasted ok. They were full of ice crystals but it didn't harm them.. I used the last package of frozen zuchinni and now all my last years veggie are gone. Good thing because we now have fresh zuchinni. See ya all
We managed to give away over a dozen of the eggs to my MIL so I'm free to go back to my original pantry-cleaning plans.
When I needed to use up the eggs and those summer squash that I bought too many of, I found a perfect recipe: Italian Vegetable Custard (original source, with picture). It was fantastic! I don't like olives and I didn't have fresh tomatoes, but I put some dried onion flakes in when I mixed the squash and egg, and topped it with (canned) mushrooms. I definitely want to try it again with the tomatoes. I used an Italian seasoning blend instead of the basil. I made one mistake... used garlic powder instead of garlic salt, and used the same amount, which made mine much more garlicky... but I really liked that, I'd do it the same next time.
Tried turkey bacon for the first time on Saturday, since I got a package of it for $1 on sale a while back and froze it. We weren't big fans of eating it plain, but agreed that it would make AWESOME BLTs, so I think that's gonna be dinner tonight. I just need to go buy lettuce.
I made DH some more oatmeal granola and used up the last of the sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds I had in the freezer. I found a quart of frozen tomato soup I made last summer from our tomatoes, I'm thawing that out for tomorrow. I'm so proud of myself for sticking to this pantry challenge and cleaning out old foods. I think turkey bacon tastes like cardboard but it has a great flavor. I usually scramble it up in some egg whites + 1 whole egg, that's good. It's fantastic crumbled up and added to a fresh lettuce salad, yum.
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Tried turkey bacon for the first time on Saturday, since I got a package of it for $1 on sale a while back and froze it. We weren't big fans of eating it plain, but agreed that it would make AWESOME BLTs, so I think that's gonna be dinner tonight.
My freezer is getting low on veggies, rice, etc. but I still have SO MUCH meat. Ugh. I don't think I can use it all before the end of the month, but I guess we'll see.
My favorite was shrimp coctails, I'm drooling just thinking about it. One disadvantage of living in the middle of America (Minnesota)is our lack of fresh sea foods. I envy all you that live on the coast, most of our fish are frozen.
So he proposed that we eat a lot of egg-based dishes and relax on cleaning out the pantry/freezer for now. We had omelettes last night (with sauteed onions and summer squash, ham, a little bit of cheese).
