I am in again.
I did pretty well last month freezer actually has some room in it.
Need to clean out some more to make room for the veggies from the garden.
My goal this week is to finish using up what is in the freezer above the fridge. It is about 1/2 empty. Have never seen it this empty ever.
Lots of random stuff left up there. Will make for a interesting meal plan this week.
Did get all food items moved to the pantry that were in the spare bedroom.
Only a few things left in the storage area in the basement. Most of it is home canned items. Those I am fine with leaving down there since it is cool and dark and they will keep better in those conditions.
There are 4 jars of pasta sauce down there that I am going to put in the pantry this week.
There are lots of brownie mixes down there also but they will keep better down there also. Have a few bags of brown sugar and powdered sugar down there also. Other than those items the storage area is empty down there.
Hoping to make a big dent into the pantry and baking cabinet this month. Except I am almost out of flour so will need to get some of that.
Hoping once I get the freezers under control I can do some OAMC. Have wanted to do this for a while but no place to put the stuff since the freezer has been full.
I'll jump in so I can start using some of the meat I've been purchasing on sale. No more meat purchases for me unless it's seafood or something I decide to Pressure Can!
The home freezer is completely stuffed with meat and a few veggies, the small deep freeze has quite a bit of meat in it and my work freezer is stuffed full of meat (I use the space because nobody else uses it and it's on generator back-up if the power goes out so it's always safe.) Hurricane season is right around the corner so we always try to eat out of the freezers through summer anyway to limit our losses if we lose power.
I am also trying to work through a HUGE stockpile of boxed rice I have. I've been trying to squeeze it in at least once a week, twice a week if I think I can get it past DH. I've been working on this one for a while and still have 18 boxes but I got them for next to nothing with sales and coupons. Also have some other boxed meals I'm trying to work through.
Tonight we are having Plank Grilled Salmon (I just bought the salmon so it's not a freezer item), a boxed rice and either frozen veggie or salad, or both.
I am in again too. So far this week I have been eating up leftovers, though. Breakfast was toasted rolls I had in the freezer for a while. We had one bag of rolls today and will have one bag tomorrow and then I only have one more bag left.
I too, have tons of rice. It got so bad that I only get it if it is totally free and then it usually ends up at the church's food pantry.
I hope to defrost my freezer by May 15th. It will not be empty by then, but about 1/2 way and ready for early produce.
I just am NOT doing well with this. I simply can't seem to cut back on my cooking......or eat fast enough! Must be some 'left over' mental thing with being a single mother.....:thud:
I want to make an extra strawberry/rhubarb pie and put it in the freezer and I am not sure I can get it in there.......without 'mushing' it!
Guess I need to start feeding the homeless or something!!
Pulled a Flank Steak out of the freezer a couple days ago to thaw. Before leaving for work I grabbed a bottle of Italian Dressing out of the pantry, dumped some in a baggie and threw the meat in to marinate. Gonna have Fajita's tonight for dinner. The piece of meat is way too big for the two of us but I'll cook it all and refreeze it for another night. I guess that can only count as 1/2 a freezer item and 1/2 a pantry item since I also had to refrigerate the leftover dressing.
Used up most of my buckwheat flour and some ww pastry flour for lunch today, made buckwheat pancakes.
Still using up the onions that I got last October when the farm stand closed. Although I will admit, many of them are getting plunked into the garden to go, as their sprouts are not sprouts any more, but leaves!!!
I need be in this challange i still have a lot to use up in pantry and freezer seem like i take one thing out freezer and put several back in.Would like to get it almost empty before garden stuff make i dont have a garden but some of family does.
Used a quart sized bag (about half full) of frozen homemade meat spaghetti sauce from the freezer, a cup of rice from the pantry, two cans of seasoned diced tomatoes from the pantry and five green peppers from the fridge. Made Stuffed Peppers for dinner.
Got almost all of the stuff in the fridge freezer eaten up that I wanted to, so this morning I went and pulled out a bunch of stuff from the big freezer and stuck it in the fridge freezer. Most of it was meat that has a date of 6 months or longer on it. ( I foodsaver all of my meat and date it. Helps me keep track and able to rotate better.)
Will try and use up most of this stuff and then restock from the big freezer a gain.
The big freezer is about 1/2 full.
I did add some Healthy choice dinners to the freezer this week. I got them for .60 each. DH takes these in his lunch when there are no leftovers and we eat when I do not feel like cooking or are in a hurry.
The pantry is not going down as fast as the freezer is. Must be because I have food in the cabinets as well so using little bit from each area makes it go down a lot slower.
I found some lunch meat that was buried in the back of the freezer. Funny thing is I forgot to pick some up from the store for dh a couple days ago, but got lucky and had some anyway.
Well, my mom had a day off and she came by and helped me defrost my freezer. It was not empty by any stretch of the imagination. At any rate, it is done and I have a better idea of what is in there.
I have really been eating from the freezer on purpose. It has been over two weeks since eating out (vast improvement from one who at least snacks at a fast food place twice a week).
freezer:
3 packs of rolls
2 packs chicken breasts
hot dogs
spaghetti sauce
chili
bread
2 packs of steak
veggie soup
2 packs pulled pork
pantry:
BBQ sauce
box of cheesy potatoes
oh, added to the freezer......
9 cups strawberries
6-8 bananas
1 bag of diced apples
Wanted enough for LO so I pulled out two packages of ground chuck from the freezer to make Loose Meat sandwiches. I cheat, instead of being 1# each they are only 3/4#. Totally irks DH but he's got to get over his carnivorous ways. Having the last of the fresh corn but am debating on a frozen veggie or salad. It's hot today. Salad sounds good.
I'm using chicken from the freezer and pasta from the pantry for dinner tonight. The freezer is going down pretty fast but I feel like I've barely made a dent in the pantry!
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