Anyone ever do a pantry challenge?

saef · 07-16-2009, 10:46 PM

Marinated steak on the Foreman tonight. It tasted great, but it was tough, despite sitting in the marinade for about 10 hours. I was chewing & chewing.

I've decided I'm going to take those faux sausage crumbles & make something Italian-inspired with them. I'm also going to use cannellini beans, roasted tomatoes, broccoli rabe, garlic & maybe some roasted red peppers. Maybe zucchini, too. This sounds like an excellent soup, but with the heat & humidity suddenly upon us again, I will probably eat it like a ragout or over some whole-wheat pasta.

Bobbolink · 07-16-2009, 11:18 PM

I'm still working on last years tomato soup, I thawed it out and forgot to eat it.

We had Salmon steak (wild caught frozen), they were on sale this past winter 10 for $10.00, great buy and 4 oz. each. I made potato salad for DH, I had a huge bowl of garden lettuce, sesame oil dressing and one crumbled strip of turkey bacon.

Bobbolink · 07-18-2009, 12:24 AM

I made baked Enchiladas with a package of flour tortilla I found in the freezer plus Elk burger and an old can of enchilada sauce, cheese, etc.

saef · 07-18-2009, 03:00 PM

I crumbled up a Gardenburger black bean burger over my salad for lunch today. I've always meant to try this. With salsa, some black beans & some avocado slices, this was a nice change in my salad repertoire.

Bobbolink · 07-25-2009, 09:10 AM

My freezer is empty of last summers vegetables, thank goodness!
Our zucchini is ready and we had our 1st last night. I dipped slices in egg, Italian bread crumbs and tried to fry in Pam cooking spray. Didn't work, had to add some oil. This morning on allrecipe.com site I saw a recipe for dipping the zucchini in Italian dressing and grilling. I'm going to try that tonight. Have a great week-end everyone.

ladyinweighting · 07-27-2009, 04:17 PM

OK - looks like I finally found this challenge.

Time to clean out my freezer & have some strange meals.

I'll check back in after dinner.

Lynn

Bobbolink · 07-27-2009, 05:17 PM

I made some pineapple corn muffins for the church pot luck and used an old can of pineapple, experation date was Dec. 2008. The top looked like it wanted to rust it was so old but pineapple looked like the day it was put in the can so I used it and nobody died!

ladyinweighting · 07-28-2009, 10:36 AM

Began this challenge by figuring out what I have in my freezer - TONS of veggie burgers. Guess I'll have to figure out how to be creative with veggie burgers!

Lynn

mayness · 07-28-2009, 11:29 AM

I haven't posted much lately, but I've still been participating!

Right now as we speak, my crock pot is making beef stew with some beef shoulder from the freezer, canned cream of mushroom soup, and veggies and seasoning.

I heated up some frozen cooked taco filling last night (ground turkey, TVP, onions, peppers, black beans, seasoning) to make tacos... that's also my lunch today and tomorrow.

I recently made lots of pulled pork with some freezer-burned pork tenderloins - just threw them in the crock pot with barbecue sauce, chicken stock (my crock pot runs hot and I didn't want them to dry out) and my "secret" ingredient - dry jerk spice mix. I froze what we didn't eat.

I made these "cookies" to use up some oatmeal and over-ripe bananas. I used brown sugar instead of splenda (so my husband would eat them) and used whole eggs instead of whites (I tripled the recipe and used 2 whole eggs). They were really tasty -- I think they make a good breakfast cookie or a snack rather than a dessert, because they're not very sweet.

We move THIS SATURDAY! I'm feeling pretty good about how much I cleaned out of the freezer, and there's definitely less stuff on my shelves to move. We went grocery shopping last night and I managed to buy only $15 worth of stuff (milk, fruit, salad stuff), which will get us through the rest of the week.

Bobbolink · 07-28-2009, 11:35 AM

Quote:

We move THIS SATURDAY! I'm feeling pretty good about how much I cleaned out of the freezer, and there's definitely less stuff on my shelves to move. We went grocery shopping last night and I managed to buy only $15 worth of stuff (milk, fruit, salad stuff), which will get us through the rest of the week.

Good job on the $15.00 grocery bill, hubby had to like that!
I'm using up some dehydrated spiced tomatoes that I made a couple of years ago. They keep really well, I'm mixing it with some seasonings and fresh zuchinni from the garden. Then going to eat it tonight with left over spaghetti and elk meat balls from last night.

Bobbolink · 07-29-2009, 07:29 PM

It's a good thing we have two large freezers since I keep many types of food in there. I found 3 bags of marshmellow, all opened and 1/3 to 1/2 full. I used up the colored mini marshmellows in some rice crispie bars for DD, threw in a handful of frozen peanuts. Did I eat one? Does a bear poop in the woods?

I only ate one small piece!

thelish · 07-30-2009, 06:49 PM

I know I'm kind of late in the game, but I want in

Inspired by the group I am going to make homemade hummus tonight with a can on beans I found and make a dish (don't know what to call it) out of some leftover tomatoes, zucchini and okra.

Bobbolink · 07-31-2009, 07:23 PM

I made some delicious low calorie zucchini muffins this morning using some frozen applesauce from last years crop. The recipe called for 1 cup whole wheat flour and I ran out so I dug out the oat flour I've had forever and used some of that. Also ate a bag of Green Giant frozen beans/potatoes/tarragon in sauce, something hubby purchased last year sometime.

ladyinweighting · 08-01-2009, 09:21 AM

I'm still working on my veggie burgers. I think I'm going to turn into one!

Hyacinth · 08-01-2009, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayness

I never plan ahead enough to cook dried beans for specific recipes, but I usually have a couple varieties cooked up and waiting in the freezer.

Great tip! I read that on here a while ago and I started doing it too. I think dried beans taste fresher and have better texture, anyway.

Mayness, I make homemade stock, too. I don't eat a lot of meat, so sometimes it's just vegetable stock. I pour it into ice-cube trays and freeze, then transfer to a plastic container. I take out however many cubes I need for recipes that call for a few tablespoons of water, and I also cook rice in it. Good stuff!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobbolink

I also thawed out an 8 oz. container of strawberry/rhubarb sauce to put over fresh strawberries. I used sugar free jello with the rhubarb so it's really low calore.

I like the rhubarb recipe! I have a ton and can never figure out how to use it without adding a ton of sugar to it.

Bobbolink, your farm/garden sounds awesome. It is a dream of mine someday to own five acres or so, mostly so I can have a big garden.

MISO - I've made miso gravy and miso pate before. Both are recipes that can be easily found by doing a google search, but if you have trouble finding one I can post.

Has anyone ever used supercook.com? You enter your ingredients and it searches recipes for you on the internet.

The things I plan to use up next are: frozen green beans, asparagus, and a box containing all the half-used bags of dried beans, lentils, polenta, panko, quinoa, etc.