Week Two Wrap Up

Spending for week two $5.65! We bought quite a few freebie groceries, but only had to pay for half and half and soyoy bars. So we're now $25.16 under budget for the challenge. On to week three.

Week One Wrap-Up

Week one of the pantry challenge was a success! We spent a total of $9.19 this week on groceries.
What did we buy? Dairy: milk, half and half, organic greek yogurt. Produce: pears, apples, shredded cabbage, big tub of baby spinach, and a tomato.

I can see that the pantry stockpile is dwindling, but the freezer is actually filling up more! Not what I expected. But as we've been trying to make the most of what we have, we've been ending up with lots of leftovers. We now have baked potato soup, vegetable soup, lots of collards, and pizza sauce all added to the freezer this week.

I'm going to be cutting the budget to $20 a week for the rest of the month and rolling over the extra from this week into next week, since there are some extra things we will need to buy next week like dog food.

While we had been planning on not doing the pantry challenge at all while we go on vacation later this month, I think we will try to take enough food with us that we only go out once a day. Hopefully will have a free breakfast at the hotel and I will plan either lunch or dinner from our pantry, with the other meal being out.

Pantry Update and Menu Plan

So, only a few days in, but so far so good! We've spent a total of 1 cent so far on groceries (soyjoy bar deal at CVS). And the food so far has been great (if I do say so myself). I will have to do a little shopping either tomorrow or Tuesday so we have milk and produce, but here's the simple menu plan for this week:

Monday
(B) oatmeal/smoothies
(L) tuna and veggie wraps
(D) homemade pepperoni pizza

Tuesday
(B) homemade toast or rolls with preserves
(L) baked potatoes with steamed broccoli
(D) Indian-spiced turkey burgers with veggie dippers

Wednesday
(B)toast or soyjoy bars and fruit
(L) out for playdate? or PB&J
(D) pasta with homemade marinara sauce and meatballs and salad

Thursday
(B)cereal
(L) "snack tray"
(D)barbecue chicken sandwiches

Friday
(B) waffles
(L) potato and kale soup
(D) broccoli cheese quiche

Saturday
(B) cereal and fruit
(L) leftover quiche
(D) tacos

January Eat From the Pantry Challenge

So I'm going to take a stab at the pantry challenge for January. We've actually been eating mainly from the pantry and freezer for all of December, so I don't have much of a stockpile, but I do really want to work through what we have and also put together a donation for a local food pantry.

My goals:

• Keep grocery spending under $25 a week for the month of January. This will be mostly produce and dairy.
  
• Clean out the freezer in preparation for defrosting and a thorough cleaning at the end of the month.
  
• Work through pantry to avoid having food expire.
  
• Inventory freezer, fridge, cupboards.
• Gather and deliver food pantry donation.
• Grocery budget money will go towards supplies for the garden. I want to add another raised bed and we also need to purchase another truckload of mulch/compost as well as plants and seeds.
  

Baking Day - Cookies

I'm planning on using this month's OAMC day to do most of my holiday baking. I'll also be trying to find the time to make some tutorials, create gift tags, and get gifts shipped out.

So here's what I'm planning on:

Cranberry Pecan Biscotti
Lemon Meltaways
Pecan Tarts
Ginger Cookies
Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars
Carmello Candy
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies*
Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies*
Homemade Bread

*from pre-made dough

Cinnamon Sourdough Waffles...

I had a ton of friendship bread starter that REALLY needed to be used. No desire to make a zillion loaves of bread, so I stuck one cup of starter in the freezer for future use, and mixed up bunches of waffles with the rest of the starter. There are several different recipes online, but this is what I did. All measurements are approximate, since I don't measure much when I bake.

-2 cups friendship bread starter
-1 1/4 cups flour
-1/4 cup oil
-2 eggs
-1 or 2 T sugar
-1 t salt
-1 1/2 t baking soda
-1 t vanilla
-1 t cinnamon

These make really light fluffy waffles. Each batch made 7 in my belgian waffle maker. I'll freeze them for later use. These would be good with nuts added.