Pantry Challenge: Day 4 & The Public School Mom Extra Challenge

Well, I'm sick with a virus. I'm in bed with fever and aches and meds. I'm so thankful Trish brought me canned foods she could not use because times like this usually throw me off a budget for food. I would normally have Rick pick up something for he and the kids. Tonight I had soup for me and beef stew for them. That was nice.

(go here to know what I'm up to with this challenge)

One of the ways this sort of challenge is hard for me is in the fact that everyone but me has to eat a lunch that cannot be warmed up. Therefore, leftovers (which are a frugal way to milk out your food for sure) are not usually an option for us. Knowing that I was taking this challenge I went to the Grocery Discount Store in A-town where I usually stock up on a lunchbox selection for the kids and Rick.

They have these bags there that have granola bars, snack mixes and sometimes fruit snacks. I'm not a big fan of the fruit snacks but it's a fun treat when they can have it. Each bag is usually $3.50 and contains about 24 snacks. I got 50 snacks for $7. When you consider that a box of granola bars on a good sale will run you $2 for just six, this is not bad.

Reporting this challenge I wanted to report what I spent so here is that stops rundown:

2 loaves of sandwich bread, 2 containers of coffee, 2 lemons, juice (for our picnic and more for lunch treats), lunch snacks, 6 red onions, pesto seasoning x2, and something I'm not remembering at the moment that cost $1.75 (they don't tell you what the items are on your receipt). Total cost: $21.19

Day 2 we had leftovers

Day3 We had cereal, a beach picnic (meat, cheese, crackers, carrots, juice, apricots and corn chips)

Day 4 (today) Whole Wheat Pancakes, PB&J packed (I got sick), and thankfully canned soups for dinner

Here is what's up and coming (understand that lunches are what I'm making for them and will be adding a fruit or veggie, a snack and a treat to the lunchbox):

Jan 5: Cream of Wheat and Grapefruit Juice

Pesto bowtie pasta w/ garbanzo beans and chopped tomato

Chicken Tortilla Soup w/ Cornbread (that was supposed to be for tonight)

Jan 6: Banana Muffins w/ milk

Meat and Cheese Sandwich

Albaloo Polow (A Persian Dish for Epiphany...more on that later)

Jan 7: Homemade Granola

Couscous Salad dried fruit and nut salad

Lentil Casserole w/ shredded lettuce salad

Jan 8: Baked Oatmeal

Leftover Lentils and rice

Ham and Cheese Scalloped Casserole w/ Salad

My rule for myself in this challenge is that it's better to buy a few little things to make food with the pantry than to buy normal groceries. However, so far, I have everything to make the above. Next week I hope to make some homemade things for lunches as well to milk out the snacks I purchased for the month.

Eating From the Pantry: Starting Out

Today I spent the first day of my 2010 first of all sleeping in a bit. Though it did not last long. We let our kids stay up as late as they wanted and two of them STILL don't know how to get tired enough to sleep in.

A great deal of the rest of the day, I did the inventory of the pantry, down to the detail. My strategy was to take it off the shelf, write it down, clean the shelf off, and put it back more organized than it was before. I'm not a neat freak when it comes to the pantry though so mine will never look like an advertisement for Tupperware, but this is good for me:

I was amazed at what I had in there. It really is enough to feed a large group of people for a month. However, that is if you are going to eat a LOT of legumes. Which, I dare say we will be!

I was not going for fancy in the documentation either. I simply got an old notebook out and noted what I had by "canned goods" (which I put boxes by how many of them I had so that when I use a can, I can check it off and I know how many I have left -this method works best for me), and "Dry Goods". This is just the canned goods page.

(...hey, no checking my spelling!:)

The other pages that had mostly dry goods, did not use the boxes system, I just stated an estimate of what it looked like I had such as "1 cup raisins" or "1/2 cup almond slivers".

I have yet to do the Freezer but my freezer is not too big so that should be easy. Tomorrow I hope to post the menu for the first week. This will involve school lunches and lunches for Rick so I'm pulling out the old bread machine as well and cranking her back up!

The first meal of 2010 on the Pantry challenge was not too skimpy however. We never got to have our Christmas ham due to outings for the Christmas Eve service and the fact that no one was hungry after Christmas munchies all day, so I made it for New Years. Since I agreed to document the meals of the month entirely however:

Jan 1st: Breakfast: Cereal and milk (exciting)

Lunch: Leftover homemade subway sandwich from last nights family night

Dinner: Christmas Ham w/ Pineapple and Cherries, Green Bean Casserole, and Garlic mashed potatoes.

Taking The Challenge

I threw the leftovers of the rotisserie chicken we had purchased the other day in the trash. I was feeling the need to clean out the fridge. Then, a pang came over my conscience and it said "TAKE IT OUT NOW AND BOIL THAT CARCASS!" So, thankfully because I threw it away in it's plastic dome container so pulling it back out a few seconds later meant it was fine. I had no plans for dinner anyway to so I boiled it, strained out the bits, pulled of the little bits of meat, seasoned the broth and added egg noodles. I made some simple grilled cheese and that was dinner tonight.

Once I did this I felt like I'd done a noble deed. I resolved that I should indeed take the challenge in January as much as I can to eat from the cupboard. Money Saving Mom blogs about it here.

I will be stocking up on some staples such as milk, butter, eggs, and some seasonings I've run out of over the holiday. From there I'll be working to make it stretch a month by spending as little as possible.

The one area this always becomes a problem in for me is with lunches for Rick and the kids. I'm determined to get creative and make this work.

I'll be starting by taking inventory over the next few days of what I have. Then, I'll be blogging here what it is that I have to work with and what I come up with to eat. Should be interesting. I won't compromise our health if we get too low on fruits or veggies, I will be shopping for those. The goal however is to use up what you have that needs using. My friend Trish brought me a bunch of stuff from a harvest basket she got that she could not use because unfortunately she is allergic to a lot of stuff. It has filled our cupboards with blessings and I need to use them up.

The biggest bane of this plan is that YOU HAVE TO PLAN, AND YOU HAVE TO COOK. So, this requires knowing where you are ahead of time. I don't always want to do that. I like an easy out now and then. This challenge will be good for me to think and plan, and yes, work in the kitchen more! LOL!

I'm always inspired from the memory of what my grandma told me of my great grandma's cooking during the depression. She had 9 children and she managed to feed them. She made either cornbread or biscuits at every meal. What a lot of work! Still, it takes work to make from what you have and that's what I need to do.

So, I'll keep you posted. Oh, and please, if you read what I've got, send me some ideas!

PS- I'm changing up the blog layout in the new year. This drop down menu is not working for me as I thought it would. I may loose a few links to your blogs for those I know personally....I'll get it all on track but it may take me a while.

Honest Scrap

My BFF Trish at A Future and A Hope gave me a bloggie award a while back that I'm just now getting to. Thanks Trish. I'm supposed to share 10 honest things about myself. Scary.....

1. I don't like living my life by a book, besides the bible that is. The bible is the foundation on which our individual personalities, created like beautiful canvas artwork by God, should be based on. Though there are things to be gleaned by books that tell you how to do things or how to be, or how to react, many times there is more frustration involved in trying to become someone else. I read books when my eldest was a baby on how to raise a baby "God's Way", I read books as a young mom on how leaving your home tidy and wiped down every time you walk out the door was "godly", I've read books that say a godly husband should do this or that and a godly wife says this or that. I purged my library a year ago of such rubbish and started diving into the study of the word of God. I could almost hear the chains falling off!

(Isn't this sign funny!?)

2. I'm a horrid speller and grammar person (my spell check even just corrected my spelling of "grammar" lol!). Thankfully Rick is great at both and helps me but sometimes he does not get a chance to check my blogs and when he does it's embarrassing some of the things that get on here that I don't notice. I'm making a blanket apology right now for my lack of talent in that area. I don't shine in that department at all!

3. I've officially decided I don't like Starbucks except for Fraps. So, I guess I'm a summer time Starbucks gal. The hot coffee blends are too sickening sweet for me now for some reason.

4. I still don't know how to set a table properly, and I never will. Frankly, I don't care much for "Miss Manners" type living. Just don't show me your food while you are talking and I'm content. The rest is just to prissy proper for me. Remember, there is a tomboy under this exterior still. I was the mom who tried to see how loud my soda could make me burp till Rick warned me that may not be a good idea in front of the kids. He had a very proper upbringing, but I happen to know, he likes that I'm not. I promise not to burp loudly except when it's just me and him and I can have a good little laugh. :)

5. I rarely mop my floor. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a mopped floor. It just seems to be one of the most frustrating thing to clean because it gets dirty again instantly. I seriously mop about once every three months unless there is company. That is kinda scary. When the kids were little I mopped more I promise.

6. Part of my wishes I lived in a big city like New York. Though I grew up in the country and I love it, especially the wide open sky and sunsets, I would love to live in a safe and quaint apartment in the city just up the road from a outdoor cafe. Something cute like in "You've Got Mail". I love the quaint old buildings with the long narrow windows and the "Sesame Street" type stairway entries. If I was rich it would be fun to have a little apartment in the city somewhere (not LA, but maybe SF) where Rick and I could get away. We would spend our days browsing through book stores, having tea or coffee, and walking the sidewalks in the neighborhoods. Living in the city with kids though is not part of my fantasy.

7. I'm a very relaxed Christian mom. We let our kids read Harry Potter and watch Pokemon. (It's not been easy though. Victoria has a Christian friend who told her "I'm not allowed to talk about Harry Potter" to which I think I will train my children to respond "really, are you allowed to talk about Gandalf?" To read my soap box on Christians and fiction go here) We let them listen to just about any kind of music and judge music song by song for what it talks about. When we hear a bad song we tell the kids why it's bad and we turn the station. We don't let them play certain stations in their room because this monitoring cannot happen there. We keep strong lines between fiction and non-ficiton and allow room for both in their lives. I let my 12 year old talk about how she thinks Taylor Lautner is so cute and am not intimidated by the natural changes in her thinking as she grows up. I've learned more and more to lighten up unless there is a good reason not to, and we do have our many things where the kids get a definite "No."

8. I love loud music. All kinds except hard rap. I will never grow up in this way if growing up means I no longer get my endorphins flowing through music! I'll be the old lady driving with loud music someday in a little red Cooper! Look out.

9. I don't like spending money on clothes. I seriously won't buy clothes unless they are from a clearance wrack (and usually less than five dollars) or the thrift store. I think clothing is one of the easiest and dummest ways to spend a fortune. I also don't believe in being too proper when it comes to how you dress. That is such a cultural thing anyway. My kids have been going to school with holes in their knees for a few months now. I'm finally going to patch them this week because they are making thier way all the way around to the edges but I don't have a problem with the look to a point. I also begged my husband not to tuck his shirt in all the time when we got married. I'm just not fashion stuffy. It's so restrictive to dress properly all the time. You can't get into life as much.

10. I am equal parts hermit and social butterfly. It causes a quandy for me constantly. This year I'm convicted to do more to reach out to people and not let my hermit side take over as much. When my hermit side takes over I shy away from really connecting with people and my social butterfly side wines about this very pathetically. This is the year of the social butterfly. The hermit has had a lot to ponder on the past few years. A lot to learn about, a lot to reach out and bravely do despite opinon both spoken and implied. The hermit has had reason to take over. It's a new year though and the butterfly is restless and confident that the hermits work was good but is settled now. She want's to fly, and smile more. You are now all convinced I'm bipolar for sure LOL!