Eat From the Pantry Challenge, Week 1

On May 18th, I joined the Eat From the Pantry Challenge going on over at Learning the Frugal Life. I'm joining in the middle of it, but oh well, any attempt is better than none at all!

Well, I didn't do so well this week but I won't beat myself up over it. My goal was to buy only milk, eggs, and fresh produce for the rest of the month but I decided that if I can just cut way back on food purchases I'll be content with it so I haven't been blown out of the water.

One day I bought 3 bags of Market Pantry unbreaded frozen chicken wings (spicy garlic, barbecue and Jamaican) and we've been eating them here and there for lunch or a snack. If you haven't tried those, you really should. They beat the fire out of other brands and are reasonably priced at Target. Tonight we went out for Chinese and went to Wal-Mart where we spent $40 for food and some other things for our upcoming trip to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri.

On a good note, I haven't bought lunch while at work for over a week now. Yaaay!

All in all, I haven't managed to do as well as I'd hoped but haven't totally botched the challenge, either.

When I joined, I'd forgotten we'll be gone for a week and while we plan to cook most meals at our cabin we'll certainly eat out a few times, too. This isn't going to be an outrageously expensive trip but it won't be cheap, either. We've budgeted and saved for it, though, and we're really excited about it! However, I'm taking that week off from the challenge and will resume when we return!

Pizza Chicken

Dinner tonight was so simple and so inexpensive it was almost free!

When I made the menu for this week I forgot about the large bag of grilled and seasoned chicken and the large bag of fire roasted chopped onions I'd recently been given. But I remembered them tonight and utilized them in our dinner. I'm thrilled that although I was tired, we managed to have a good meal without going out for dinner and the meal helped me tremendously with the eat from the pantry challenge.

I call this dish Pizza Chicken because the ingredients are similar to those used in pizza but they're piled on top of chicken. It's certainly much lower in carbs than pizza, though, and honestly I prefer it to pizza.



To make this I just put the frozen grilled chicken and about 1/8 cup frozen fire roasted onions in an oval baking dish and baked at 325 until the chicken was almost hot enough to eat. Then I put about 1/4 cup of Focaccia Red Sauce on top of the chicken and topped that with an Italian cheese blend. I sprinkled it with some freshly ground black pepper and baked it about 10 minutes until the cheese was melted. Voila!

We had the Pizza Chicken with Asian vegetables (strange combination) and it was a very cheap but filling and good meal.

By the way, the red sauce I used has 2 grams of carbs for 1/4 cup, one of the lowest carb sauces I've found. It also has a robust and savory flavor to boot!

Eat from the pantry challenge

Sara, over at Learning the Frugal Life, has an Eat from the Pantry challenge going on this month. I just learned about it but I'm joining and will plan our meals around what we already have for the rest of this month. Fortunately, the MPM entry for this week already uses things we have so I don't need to switch gears there.

Eating from the pantry is something we try to do on a regular basis. We buy virtually all of our food on sale and buy a good quantity so rotation of foodstuffs is a necessity. Of course, that means that when something is nearing its 'end of life' stage, we consume it! But that also means we don't spend money for food items we already have unless we need to stock up on them.

My goal for the remainder of this month is to buy only milk, eggs, and fresh produce. I don't know that I'll make it since the stockpile mentality causes me to become a whirling dervish when I see certain things on sale but I'll be happy if I just cut waaaaay back on what I buy.

If you'd like to cut your grocery bill, set a goal for what's left of this month and join the challenge!

Dehydrating ground beef - who knows, you might need it someday!

A comment I left to a particular entry on another blog (which I absolutely love!) prompted someone to contact me about dehydrating ground beef and her email reminded me that I was going to post about it so here it is, my dehydrating ground beef post.

I get a big thrill when I catch ground beef on sale for a great price. Stocking up on it without busting my budget is a nice treat but finding freezer space for it can be a problem. I try to keep beef on one shelf, poultry on another, fish on yet another, vegetables in the bin, etc. but hitting the ground beef mother lode wreaks havoc with that system!

So, a few years ago I found a great way around that - I dehydrate a good deal of the ground beef I buy. Yes Virginia, you can dehydrate ground meats! Dehydrated ground meat works very well for soups, stews, spaghetti sauce and such but don't count on it for burgers or loaves. You might or might not be able to shape it. Once the meat is rehydrated, it doesn't like to stay together well.

Five pounds of dehydrated ground beef can be stored for about a year in a one quart bag or container. Talk about saving space and money!

A lot of people use a dehydrator but I only have two of them and it takes so long to do it that way so I use another method. I don't remember where I read this method but I've used it for at least five years and it works beautifully. The first time I used this method a small amount of the meat went rancid but that's the only time that's happened. The key is to follow the process to remove the grease and to cook the meat enough that it reaches the "rock" stage. By the way, there are several methods of dehydrating ground meat so if this one doesn't suit your fancy, there are others that might.

I generally dehydrate 5 lbs at a time but you can do it with any quantity. I think I did just 1 lb the first time to see if we'd like it. We did like it and I've dehydrated much larger quantities since.

So, here's how I do it:

Put lean ground beef (the leaner the better since the fat is what makes it go bad) in a skillet and fry it until its cooked well. Drain the grease off, put the meat in a colander and rinse it under very hot water, stirring it with a fork or spoon to get the grease out. Rinse well. Shake the water out of the colander then put the meat on a paper or cloth towel and blot it dry.

After blotting, put the meat back into the skillet, which has since been cleaned well, and cook for about five more minutes. Drain any grease, rinse it in hot water, shake well, and blot it again. Cook it one more time, again in a clean skillet, drain, rinse, shake, and blot dry. Usually by this time the meat looks like tiny rocks and is very hard. If it isn't at that point yet, put the meat on cookie sheets and put in a 150 degree oven, stirring now and then, until it gets to that rock stage, usually a few hours. Once it's got that tiny rock look to it, it's finished.

Some people like to put seasonings and dried onions or peppers in the meat and you can add those after the last cooking, draining, rinsing, and drying. You can also add a little flour during the dehydrating process so that when you rehydrate the meat, it has gravy with it. I just add seasonings as I use the meat but you might want to try adding them before storing the meat in glass jars or containers with tight fitting lids. The meat should be stored in a fairly cool and dark place. I just keep it in the pantry but you can store it in the freezer if you like.

To use, just put the ground meat in hot water and let it sit for an hour or two. Once its softened I just use it as I normally would for soups and stews and such.

You can also dehydrate poultry, fish and other meats and I'll post more about those in the future.

It might sound complicated to dehydrate ground beef but it really isn't. It's a little time consuming but many preparedness activities are. The peace of mind in having 50 lbs. of preserved meat is worth it...

Pantry meals

The business has been a little slow lately and since most weeks I work less than 30 hours, money is a little tight. Bills are paid and we have gas in the truck and plenty of food stored up so we're trying to eat from the pantry. We spent about $58 on groceries last week and I'd like to keep it under $15 this week with that $15 beingly mainly for bread and milk. We're pretty well stocked on everything else, I think, so eating from the pantry shouldn't be difficult.

The menu for the coming week is comprised of things we have on hand already. There's always the chance that my man person will decide he wants to go out at least once but we've found a pretty reasonable way to do that. There's a Chinese restaurant near us that charges $10.80 for two lunch take outs from their very large and good buffet. They don't mind if we really stuff our containers full so we can get 2 meals for each of us for $10.80 total. Not bad at all! If we do decide to go out, we'll more than likely do that. It's better than spending $20 or more for one meal and gives us a little diversion.

Hopefully business will pick up again soon but it's so nice to know that we have enough food to keep us fed for quite awhile.

Pantry update

Well, it was time to update my pantry contents list so I did part of that this afternoon. So far I've only gone through the main closet. I have to head to work soon so I'll probably do the freezer tomorrow. Here's what's in the main closet, though. You know, looking at this list, it looks like all we eat is convenience food but most of this is kept for emergency use and times when I can't cook for some reason. It's nice to have this stuff on hand just in case!

1 13 ounce box instant potatoes
3 Jiffy corn muffin mixes
3 Keto Mac & Cheese
1 box Ronzoni spaghetti
25 pounds of varyious legumes
2 pounds wild rice
1 pound white rice
10 pkg popcorn
7 boxes store brand pasta dishes like hamburger helper
2 boxes Taco Bell taco dinner
2 boxes tostado shells
2 cans chili
2 jars peanut butter
1 box saltine crackers

1 jar mayo
3 bottles Dorothy Lynch dressing
1 jar Classico sauce
1 gallon barbecue sauce
1 jar Ortega taco sauce
1 jar Archer Farms mild red enchilada sauce
1 28 ounce can red enchilada sauce
2 10 ounce cans red enchilada sauce
1 bottle mustard

9 cans salmon
10 cans tuna

3 jars instant coffee
2 cans regular coffee
1 box Swiss Miss cocoa
1 can vegetable juice

42 cans of stewed or whole tomatoes
16 8 ounce cans tomato sauce
1 27 ounce can spinach
4 cans spinach
5 cans potatoes
4 cans carrots
2 cans corn
12 cans green beans
4 cans mixed greens
5 cans mixed vegetables
7 cans of vegetarian beans
12 cans ranch style beans
2 cans refried beans
7 cans green chiles
2 cans artichoke hearts
3 cans mushrooms
12 cans chicken broth
9 cans cream of soup
2 cans pepper jack soup

large quantity of varying spices and baking items

Today's excitement

My youngest son's girlfriend came over this morning and we went to Target. I had a gift card with $27 on it and we both needed a few things so we shopped a little and had a nice time together. She got a great little Chefmate slow cooker for $8.99 and we both bought some clearanced food items including red and green enchilada sauces, refried beans, and taco shells. Those are nice items to add to the pantry. Ole!

They also had some clearanced Del Monte canned vegetables but I didn't have my coupons with me so I'll take the coupons with me tomorrow and get a few cans of vegetables to add to our pantry.

After shopping we went to lunch then she had to head out to get her son from school so I came back home and am about to head out again to do laundry.

Tonight's dinner is wild rice with beef roast gravy, green beans, and salad. Yum!

Update

My last entry was December 31st of 2007. My job has kept me busy and I just haven't had the heart to blog for awhile but I'm back.

Rising food costs have a lot of people concerned and I think there's reason to be. But I'm not in a panic. Instead, I'm using the knowledge I already have and am seeking more to help me prepare healthy, good tasting food at a reasonable price. I'm pretty darn good at that but there's always room for improvement. :)

Anyway, this evening or tomorrow I'll try to post an updated inventory of the food we have on hand and will share our dinner menu for the next week or two with y'all.

In the meantime, I'm off to work!

What's in YOUR pantry? Or..how to save money on food

Recently someone emailed me wondering how much I spend on food per month and what frugal meals I prepare. What ensued was a lengthy email conversation about food and frugality and how a person can reduce their grocery spending. I told the enquirer that I generally spend less than $200 a month for three or four people full time and two teens on weekends. She wanted to know how I managed that and here's my response:

"Besides the fact that I live in an area of the country that has a lower cost of living in some things, there are quite a few things I do to spend less and feed my family. Here are a couple of major concepts I put to use. One is buying items when they're on sale for what I call "Denise's price" and the other is buying a lot of those items at Denise's price.

We all have different food likes and dislikes, dietary needs and quirks but here are some of the things that are staples for our household:

white flour, whole wheat flour, and soy flour
corn meal, grits and oats
white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, and splenda
yeast, baking powder, and baking soda
salt, pepper, and other basic spices like garlic, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, lemon pepper, cinnamon, ginger and way too many to list here
extracts like vanilla, almond, and orange
white and apple cider vinegars
dried beans, peas, and legumes
white rice, brown rice, and wild rice
dried fruits
a variety of canned tomato products such as stewed, sauce, paste, sundried, and whole
several kinds of pasta, mostly whole wheat or soy
broths, barbecue sauce, steak sauce, soy sauce, ketchup, nut butters, soy sauce, lemon juice, mustard, mayo, salad dressings, and Teriyaki sauce
extra virgin olive oil and canola oil
canned milk, regular milk, sweetened condensed milk, and powdered milk
canned fruits and vegetables
canned meats and fishes
coffee, tea, and other beverages
fresh fruits and vegetables
frozen meats, vegetables, and fruits

There are many things I haven't listed but that should give a good idea of what we keep in our pantry."

The reader responded to the list with an admission of not keeping a good pantry and wanting to learn more about that so I thought I'd post about this and ask...what's in YOUR pantry and what are the two most important things you do to save money on food? Or do you not try to save money on food?

As a side note, tonight's dinner was beef roast with vegetables and Buttery Bread Sticks. The bread sticks were made with ingredients that were all on sale and cost less than $.75 for a very large pan of them.

The beef roast was purchased on sale at $1.29 a lb and while the carrots and potatoes were also purchased on sale at the local grocery, the onions, zucchini, and green beans were picked from the garden this evening. I cut the roast into good sized chunks before cooking it and seasoned it pretty heavily with this Gourmet Steak Seasoning.

The meal was delicious, very frugal at less than $1.25 per serving, and fed three adults and two teens.

My pantry doth progress-show me your pantry!

Well over a year ago, my other half enclosed a corner of our large porch to make a pantry for me. We stock a lot of food and really needed the storage space. But rather than build shelves for me as we'd planned he started putting "stuff" in the pantry and it quickly became "the pantry that wasn't". I mentioned it a few times but really don't want to nag so I didn't squeal too much over it. Finally it all came to a head a few days ago and the next day he spent most of the day in there putting up shelves and organizing. He's going to put more shelves in and I'll more than likely rearrange parts when he does but I was and still am thrilled! I actually have a pantry now and it's going to be wonderful, I'm sure.

This was the pantry a few months ago, looking bad but not as bad as it did a few days ago - trust me, it was a real cluttered mess.



And here are some shots of how it looks now.

This shelf has my other half's satellite tv installation equipment on it.


Here are a few of our canned goods, seasonings, and condiments along with other dry goods.

Here's another shot of some canned items.

Here are some of our appliances that were taking up a lot of kitchen space.

And here are miscellaneous appliances and pans.

I think I'm really going to enjoy having so much stuff in the pantry and out of the kitchen. Right now I'm painting the cupboards with Kilz getting them ready for paint soon so some of the cupboard doors are off and we took this opportunity to move almost all the food into the pantry. I'm giving serious thought to keeping most of it in there and using the kitchen cupboards for very often used appliances and the most often used food items. I've also considered leaving the cupboard doors off but if I do that, everything must be so tidy inside the cupboards so that probably isn't the best idea for me.

Anyway, having the pantry cleaned out makes working on the kitchen so much easier! Now if I can just figure out what to do with the kitchen...

Do you have a pantry? If so, do you have pictures of it? Show me, if you do. :)