Surprise Meal Inspiration When Whittling Down the Fridge, Freezer, and Pantry

As I mentioned a little over a week ago, in early February, we decided to halt grocery shopping and use up as much as possible from our freezers (3) and fridges (2). It's actually been kind of fun to see what we have, then make something from it. It's also been great to have those "instant" meals of frozen leftovers. We did run out of milk last week, with no plans to buy more until March. As none of us rely heavily on milk for nutrition, this is no big deal. Whereas many households use cereal as a mainstay for breakfast, our family has always been happy to have alternate quick foods like banana bread or toast, which maybe supplemented with a slice of cheese or yogurt (while that lasted). I was going to say that we are also running low on fruit, until I began listing what we do have. We have a handful of tangerines, raisins, dried cranberries, dried prunes, bottled lemon juice, frozen blueberries, frozen blackberries, frozen plums, frozen cranberries, frozen orange zest, and frozen juice concentrate. I'd hardly say that is the same as "running out of fruit!" We also have a good amount of vegetables, in canned, frozen, and fresh forms.And, there is still meat in the freezer. The good news is that eating down the freezer is requiring us to use the pieces that no one has really wanted, such as the leftover turkey legs from Thanksgiving.

Despite still having quite a lot of food, just thinking that we're not grocery shopping for most of the month adds a suggestion to our subconscious that we are being deprived. In response, I have gone above and beyond what is called for to make sure my household feels that there is plenty of great food left. I have pulled out several boxes of snacky foods, such as crackers, granola bars, and pop-tarts. I moved the case of Cup Noodles to a front and center spot in the pantry. I made chocolate peanut clusters, 2 loaves of banana bread, roasted some raw almonds, boiled some eggs, and made more flat soda jello. My daughter made cereal-marshmallow squares (rice crispy treats with other cereal) and a blackberry pie. We were out of hot dog buns so I used corn tortillas and made hot dog taquitos to go with frozen sweet potato fries for dinner one night. Another night, I pulled frozen eggs and cooked yams from the freezer, plus 1  1/2 softening apples from the fridge to make a frittata, sweet potato casserole, and an apple and raisin crisp. When I was tempted to buy a chocolate treat for myself one afternoon, I came home and made a tiny batch of chocolate covered almonds, using chocolate chips and some of the roasted almonds.

Still, today and the next few days will prove to be the most challenging for meal and snack prep, as our supplies continue to dwindle. One freezer is now empty. Taking a quick survey of what's left, we've and made tentative plans for the week's meals. I found a block of turkey breakfast sausage and a bag of prunes to use in a breakfast for dinner meal tonight. My daughter will be making a pumpkin and chicken sausage soup along with another blackberry pie, all using frozen ingredients, for tomorrow night's dinner. Friday night, I'll make something Tex-Mex themed, using some frozen cornbread, frozen cooked beans, cheddar cheese, frozen canned tomatoes, onions, and seasonings. The amazing thing is that I think we could probably go another 10 days without shopping and still eat well.

We may have been mildly inconvenienced, but we accomplished a couple of significant goals. We used up foods that had been lingering for a long time and might have been thrown away at some point, due to the deterioration of food quality. We saved a lot of money on groceries this month, spending approximately $90 for February, which is about $130 under budget. We proved to ourselves that we don't need as much variety as we think we do. We found new possibilities for meals and snacks. Of course, we'll be happy to have our supplies replenished in early March. It is nice to get things cleaned out, every once in a while.

The message that I get from this experience is that most of us probably have a couple hundred dollars worth of food in storage. Should any difficult financial situation arise, most of us could live for several weeks without spending any money on food. It's like a little emergency savings account.