Hey y’all!
How is everyone coming with their pantry meals? We had a great week last week, and cooked almost all of our meals in their entirety from our pantry (with a few fresh ingredients like veggies, salad, fruit, eggs, etc). I still have a whole lot of menu ideas outlined, using items from my pantry and freezer. So much so, that I’m definitely planning on continuing this Pantry Challenge into the month of February 🙂
Sunday, we had two big meals. We had a family get-together with Tim’s family and it’s always potluck (so much great food!). We worked on a Pantry meal for supper, we used the last of the frozen chicken wings in our freezer.
Monday, I tried something new in the air fryer, I did battered cod fillets and they came out great! I’ve already updated our Air Fryer Time and Temps document here (this is a work in progress, I add to the document any time I try something new or change the time/temp). I battered the cod using the traditional FEB method. For the F (flour), I used a combination of all purpose flour and rice flour, and added some salt, pepper and Old Bay Seasoning. E is the egg wash (beaten egg, no water). B is breading and for these cod fillets, I used panko bread crumbs, salt and pepper and more Old Bay seasoning. I like to batter them and let them sit in the fridge at least 30 minutes. Then I cooked in the air fryer. I made homemade tartar sauce, some deviled eggs using my Instant Pot, and then we made a salad and split a baked potato. A great dinner, and using ingredients we had on hand. I will definitely do cod like this in the future, it worked great for two fillets for the two of us.
Tuesday was Tim’s “normal meal” he requested! Taco Salad, using a package of antiobiotic free taco-seasoned turkey meat I had in the freezer. I cooked some dried pinto beans from my pantry in the Instant Pot, and we had some of the Uncle Ben’s Flavor Infusions Spanish Rice I really like.
Wednesday, we had a meal completely from our freezer! I had seen a “Pork Ramen Meal Kit” at Sam’s Club and was very intrigued, since it had both crockpot and electric pressure cooker instructions on it. When Sam’s put them on clearance, I grabbed a bag and stuck in the freezer for a “rainy day”. Wednesday was a super busy day for me, so this worked out great.It was easy to put in the IP, then fix some egg rolls in our air fryer, and steam a bag of edamame in the microwave. All from the freezer, and another great meal. I was sad that Sam’s Club seems to have discontinued these. It was a quick and easy meal and it tasted really good. Always great to have this type of thing on hand for “one of those days”.
Friday was the day I was most worried about, LOL! I knew I needed one meal this week that was healthy, for our “New Year, Healthy New You” recipe collaboration. I had a recipe pinned from MyRecipes.com for Black Bean cakes. I loosely followed that recipe, but incorporated a few suggestions from our YouTube subscriber family. The MyRecipes.com recipe is here. I cut up some carrot and onion, and pulsed that in my food processor along with the garlic. I rinsed the beans, and added them to the veggie mixture in the food processor along the other ingredients the recipe called for (canola oil, egg, panko). I also added a lot of seasonings (black and white pepper, salt, cumin, red pepper, Mrs Dash Southwest seasoning, etc). Instead of green onions, I just used the yellow onions I had in my pantry, and I left out the cilantro. I made the vinaigrette for the salad (we used the lettuce we had, which was not mixed baby greens), and the lime complimented the black bean cakes well. We did serve with a fried egg on top, and Tim also had salsa on the side of his. He did say they were good, and even went so far as to say he would eat them again, but we’ll see. I know that my meat-loving husband is not fond of meals like this 🙂
Saturday, Tim called an Audible 🙂 We had the breakfast food I had planned for dinner for a late breakfast, and then we raided the freezer again and had grilled sausage sandwiches and chips for a quick and easy supper.
All in all, a great week! I’ve got the next two weeks of meals all lined up, and can’t wait to share what we will be cooking next from our pantry!
How did you do this week with cooking from your Pantry, Fridge and Freezer? Leave us a comment and let us know!
Have a wonderful and blessed day, y’all!
Stacy
I am really loving this freezer/pantry challenge, for some reason it has really resonated with me. I live alone and both my freezer and pantry are out of control. This week I wanted to use out a two pound bag of pasta that was already open, that meant opening a container of pasta sauce, and I had two servings of homemade meatballs in the freezer. One evening I had plain old spaghetti and meatballs with a side of greens. The next morning I chopped up some onion and peppers, tossed in some pasta sauce and paprika, and poached an egg in it (shakshuka); had a bagette sliced up in the freezer so I toasted a piece of that ( can’t be wasting sauce). At lunch there was spaghetti nests with garlic and parmesan, fried sardines and an apple. Supper was a bowl of strawberry oatmeal with a tablespoon of ground chia – straberries from freezer, oatmeal pantry, chia’s been living in my fridge too long. (Tim, if you aren’t fond of quinoa, don’t even ponder chia.) My son brought me some of his seriously good chili, that was 2 meals with some pasta sauce and a can of black beans (pantry) added. Canadian bacon (freezer), egg, & cheese on a bagel (freezer). A cabbage soup to clear out the fridge (cabbage, carrot, onion, celery, parsnip, potato, tomato sauce) was a two meal wonder. And pumpkin oatmeal. It was a very filling week!
Hey Sue! Wow, I am almost positive that I typed up a really long reply to you on Monday and hit enter to post it, and I do not see the reply, so I am so sorry! Let me try again! First, I am so excited that you are doing the Pantry Challenge with us, and even more excited to hear that you are loving it and enjoying it! I know I loved reading what you had to work with and the meals that you came up with 🙂 There’s just the two of us, and my pantry and freezer are out of control too, but I do love to keep a well stocked pantry. It gives me so many choices of meals and things to make, but it was definitely time to at least make a stab at using a lot of it and cleaning some things out. Your Spaghetti and meatballs and all the other ways you reinvented that sounds amazing! We don’t seem to have spaghetti and meatballs every often, and mostly when we do, I make either our crockpot meatballs (that video is here) or I make some and bake in the oven. However, a few months ago our Kroger had a really good 2 day sale on their brand of turkey meatballs, for maybe 1.99, and I grabbed a bag for the freezer, for what I always call “a rainy day”. Which to me, means a day when I don’t really want to cook, haha! However, since we’ve started the Youtube channel, I’m doing more cooking, so I have less of those days 🙂 I also really like your shakshuka and how you repurposed the sauce with some veggies. I do something remotely like that, much simpler, that we call “Eggs in Purgatory (that is included in this four meal video here). I have never tried fried sardines, but that sounds like something Tim would really like. I had a can of sardines in the pantry, but he already ate those for a lunch one day, so no go on those for a while 🙂 I have bought and used chia in my oatmeal, and I’m ok with it, but it does have a bit of a weird texture! It works better for me in smoothies, but Tim would not try it at all! I use ground flax every morning in my oatmeal and I think it’s just nutty, but he doesn’t even like that, so no way he would do the chia, LOL! Ooh, your son’s chili sounds good. I definitely need to put chili on the menu soon. I have two soups lined up, but haven’t gotten to yet. I still have the turkey carcass in the freezer from Thanksgiving, and the ham bone from Christmas, so I need to work with those. Chili just sounds better and Tim will enjoy it more, as he’s a real meat guy. Your cabbage soup sounds like what our family calls “refrigerator soup”. Open up the fridge and clean it out! It sounds like a great week Sue, and so many good meals, and so much variety! I absolutely cannot wait to hear what you have left to work with and what kind of meals you prepare. So excited that you are doing this with us! Have a wonderful and blessed day —-Stacy
I had to buy a few more fresh things this past week to supplement things I had in the freezer and pantry to do my meals! We had leftovers at the first of the week. Then I did lentil tacos one night and we ate on those again another night. Did another meatless meal that lasted 2 nights also. I did the Instant Pot chicken risotto Saturday night and did have to get a couple ingredients for it but we do have leftovers for Monday night (if David doesn’t come home and raid my fridge!) Then I made a creamy chicken and corn chowder today, I had everything here for it except one canned item. But I have leftovers of it too so that will be Tuesday night maybe. So I can probably have leftovers two nights starting tomorrow and then plan again to use up more of what I have for the remainder of the week!
Hey Gail! Fresh is good, we all need some fresh produce and perishables like bread, milk, juice, eggs, cheese, etc to supplement our pantry and freezer! It sounds like you had some great meals! I’ve made the lentil tacos also and I really like them (Tim barely tolerates them and always asks why we can’t have meat!). I like them in a taco salad too. The IP chicken risotto sounds really good, but I love rice. I don’t have arborio on hand, so that one is not going to happen here for a while, until I can clear out more from our pantry 🙂 Yummy, I love soup, year round but especially this time of year, so the chowder sounds really good. Can’t wait to hear what you have planned for this week and what kind of meals you are cooking from your pantry, fridge and freezer! Hope you’re having a great week and a truly blessed day! —-Stacy