I am always in a use it up mode. I don't have two of anything in the pantry unless I have recipes that call for two. I don't fix the stuff I bought this morning if I still have the stuff I bought last week.

Now the confession. I have an emergency supply in the closet. A large plastic container, a medium box, a large paper bag and paper goods stuffed over the cabinets. Everything in there is marked with a rotate month. Since it is for emergencies, it is mostly canned ready to eat stuff. Not the fresh stuff that I like to use.

So, once a month I have to rotate some canned goods into the pantry and find uses for it. That is a challenge. Last week I took the canned ham patties and browned them in a pan and served it on buns. That was good.

The vegetables are harder. I took a can of asparagus and a can of crab meat and mixed it with some green onions and a homemade remoulade sauce for a cold salad.

The corn I can use in a mexican casserole with beans and cheese and tortillas.

A quick soup is what I often resort to.

Cathleen

I also have one of those pantries that look like a grocery store! Eight jars of PB, 6 ketchups, 5 syrups, etc, etc.. The thought of only having one of anything would stress me out! My freezer is so full I can't fit anything else in, so I am trying to use up stuff, but it's so hard when there is an incredible sale. For instance, with the 4th of July, Kroger has Ball Park low-fat Franks on sale for 99 cents each--how can I pass these up!? So I broke my own rule and bought 5 packs! So while it's good to use up, there is also something to be said for not passing up a great sale.... Some sales come around pretty regularly, and they're easier to pass up, but some are just too good to miss.

I won't Be able to do this Full Force -

cause as another poster said -

I have a Great Fear of ending up with NO money and NO food - and necessities ;(......


But I am starting by Using up what is Left in the boxes and Bags that are Consuming my Freezer space


I am starting to Make my kids lunch every day with a little bit of this and That -

Like today I Emptied two Chicken tender Packets , tator tots. curly fries , Garlic bread , and Pierogie bags Each bag had about 2 servings left - Never enough for a Full meal for 5 or 6 -

But today I cleared out and Made a nice big "sampler Platter" With Dipping sauces and Fresh pineapple for Dessert -
It was a Huge hit...

I have 3 freezers to clear out - so this should last for weeks and END my "whats for lunch" stress

This is my first time posting!! Yea for me.
I am very picky about keeping all my little stocking stuffer hand lotions and hand sanitizers. Time to use them up! Thanks for the great idea.

I've been trying to use up stuff for a little while now. My pantry was scary to open because I was afraid of cans falling on my head. I actually can see the back some! I don't know if I can do this challange fully. I've been using things up for awhile now. I'll do my best, though!

We've done great. We ran out of chicken, hamburger, milk and eggs last week so we had to breakdown and get some. But we are almost completely bare now.

No more poptarts, chips, chesse, juice, cans of corn, cans of tuna fish, cans of chicken, penne noodles, marinades, muffin mix, rice a roni mixes, cereal, bagels - our pantry and refrigerator are almost empty - my freezer would be too if it wasn't for the meat and the breastmilk!
I'm so proud of us. We are starting fresh. We made a menu for the next 3 weeks and we are going to make our shopping list from that, and only that, so no more excess stuff!
Thanks for the inspiration to use it up!

__________________
Mom to Kaylee (10/2006) and Madalyn (1/2009)

We've been doing this whether we wanted to or not. In March we planned to move come June 15, so I started using what we had on hand. Why move it? And I needed to empty the freezer as much as possible as well. Life got funny and dh lost his job the week before we were to move. No money = a lot more eating out of food storage! I've bought a few fresh things here and there as well as milk, but over the past 4+ months I doubt I've spent $150 total for groceries. My shelves are looking a little bare, but we still have more!

When dh is back to work I'll enjoy stockpiling again, and this time I'll have a better idea of things I need to have more of, like oil and powdered milk.

__________________
Katie--mom to ds--22, dd--19, ds--17, dd + dd--7, dd--5

I saw this on another post, but CookingByNumbers.com allows you to put what you have in your cupboards onto a list and it will spit out recipe/meal ideas. It was somewhere else on mommysavers that I saw it, but it is appropriate here.

I am partially in. I do not have the food bunker pantry thing going on. My mother literally has a bunker. I hated it growing up and don't live that way. She grew up poor (picking cotton from age 12 in the summers) and having this bunker of food was/is her security blanket of sorts. It is so out of control, that I have gone the other way, living lean and mean buying weekly sales with only stockpiling really good sales like the chicken I will mention below.

However, last week I got chicken breasts on sale for $.60 a lb. They are Foster Farms too! They were $.99 a lb, but got marked 40% off to sell them on the sell by date. My freezer is full of frozen food storage bags of 3 chicken breasts per bag. (I bought 10 family sized packs.) Bring on your few ingredient chicken recipes. I try to cook recipes with few ingredients because fewer ingredients usually means cheaper.

I will try to use as much of what I have got with my chicken until the end of the month.

There was a request for green bean recipes. I am using up my chicken breasts. Here goes:

chicken pieces (for your family size)
1-2 cans green beans rinsed and drained (depending upon family size)
1-2 cans peas rinsed and drained (depending upon family size)
1 can cream of mushroom, chicken, or celery soup, preferably the lower fat one for health

Put the peans on one side of a 9 x 13 pan and the green beans on the other. Place about 1/3 of the soup as evenly as possible over the vegetables. Then place the chicken pieces over the vegetables and soup. Then spread the soup evenly over the chicken pieces. Bake at 350 in a preheated oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until done.

Easy and it uses up canned food. I use two cans of green beans and one can of peas for the three of us (two adults and a nine-year-old) to get more green non-starchy vegetables in the meal. If your recipe got bigger than two of each of the vegetables for your family, I would use two cans of soup.

I thought I would try to use up my stockpile before shopping. I found a box of stovetop stuffing hiding in the back of pantry, there was a casserole recipe on back. My dh looked at me like a grew two more heads, he's not quite used to this yet. Not great but not horrible either, used the bag of mixed veggies too. I haven't been grocery shopping in 2 weeks.:happy dance: