Pantry Challenge January Round Up

Let me count the ways that I bombed this past month in the Pantry Challenge.....lol. But I had fun and hope you did too.

For starters DO NOT EVER shop for groceries after being under anesthetic..lol. I felt so well after my upper and lower scopes that we decided to shop at Meijers (remember I love that place!), I wandered through and blew a cool $50 some odd dollars, can't find the receipt now. Got some wonderful produce (did I ever tell you how I just love Meijers produce? I think it's the lighting!).
My dear husband pushed the cart dutifully up and down the isles for me as I plucked things off the shelf (who knows what!) and dropped them into the cart. What on earth was I thinking? That is right I was not in my right mind and what did that paper say that I signed before surgery? "I will not make any financial decisions for 24 hours." I wonder now, does grocery shopping fall under that category? I think so! That brings me up to $122.09 for the month.

Then another $49.56 at the local grocery store this was sort of a woe is me shopping trip, I had to do the prep for my upper/lower scopes (drink the nasty stuff to clean your insides out) and I wanted to treat myself, so I bought my favorite soda Canada Dry, my favorite kool-aid drink TANG, the good ice pops (not those nasty cheap watered down ice pops......lol). Since I knew once the tests were done I would be back on a gluten free diet, I got some Lenders Bagels and Thomason English Muffins, no generics for me on those! I also bought the good juices to drink during my prep time, nothing like Welches White Grape Juice $4.50 a bottle and Mango Peach Juice. Those items added up very quickly. $171.65 for the month.

Then on 1/30/12 I ran to the store real quick like for milk & chicken (remember I did not want to butcher our laying hens so I had to buy chicken)........that cost me $23.76.
They had milk on sale for $1.50 so bought a few of those,
Cannelli Beans on sale for $1.00 a can, I stocked up on those since I can sneak them into a lot of things..lol
Tyson Chicken was on sale for $1.99 lb.

January 2012 cost us $195.41 for three people, doing homeschool math that comes to an average of $65.14 per person for a month or an average of $48.85 per week. I was hoping for less, but I know that I could have done without the $50 bucks spent on surgery day, I am still kicking myself for that one! I am thankful for what I saved and did not spend with being gluten and dairy free, I could have spent a lot more $$ on fancy products.

How is your February going on the pantry challenge? I am going to just keep on going with it and see where it leads me. Remember if you are not gluten free or dairy free you can still use my recipes (comment if you have questions about them), just use whole wheat or white flour and regular dairy and butter in the recipes.

If you are new around here we are having a Pantry Challenge, here is how it works.........It's easy, before you head to the grocery store, shop your freezer, refrigerator and cabinets to see what you can use up. For the first 3 weeks I try to only buy milk, butter and bread, since I usually have an abundance of canned fruits and veggies on hand. If you don't have chickens you may need to buy eggs :-p Make a family game out of this, let the kids pick some can goodies from the cabinet, find some meat in the freezer and go from there.
Moe

Month 2 of my Pantry Challenge & recipes

Tonight for dinner we had Chicken Stew as I call it. All from the pantry except for the chicken (did not want to have to butcher a hen for dinner....lol. So I let Tyson do the dirty work!)

I sliced up a bunch of celery, carrots, onion and put them in some olive oil and sauteed them.

Dumped those into the crockpot with a 32 oz container of NO SALT GF chicken broth,

cut up the chicken breasts (3 of them) added those to the crockpot,

sprinkled in some cumin (1/2 tsp or so),

1 tsp of poultry seasoning,

1/2 tsp of Kitchen Bouquet,

1/2 tsp of Marjoram.

A can of black beans drained and rinsed 

a large can of green beans (I think around 30 oz or so?) drained and rinsed.

I cooked that on high for an hour and then on low for about 3 hours. But you could put it on low all day and just leave it. I had some brown rice in the fridge leftover so I tossed that in about the last hour. It was a hit!!

Moe's Gluten Free/Dairy Free Chicken Stew

A fine meal like this was not be complete without a wonderful dessert!!

Moe's Gluten Free/Dairy Free Peanut Butter Truffle Brownie

1 box of Gluten Free Hodgson Mill Brownie Mix (use regular brownie mix if you can eat wheat  :)

I used 2 eggs to make the cake like brownies and followed the recipe on the box.

Then to make the peanut butter filling (use Sunbutter if you have allergies to peanut butter)

Filling

1/2 cup Fleischmann's salt free margarine (it's dairy free too!), softened (or use real butter)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons Almond/soy or dairy milk (I added a bit more to make it more creamy)

Blend with mixer until creamy. Then I cut the brownie in 1/2 with a knife, layed on the filling and then put the top of the brownie on. It's 1/2 gone already! lol

Moe

What we have been eating.

We have found some goodies in the freezer.
Beef roast in crockpot with Italian seasoning (beef sandwiches)
Pastrami lunch meat (frozen)
Beef soup for lunch (frozen)
Pork chops with seasonings on them (freezer)
Chocolate chip pancakes (freezer)
GF/CF cupcakes (freezer)
Lentil soup for lunch (canned) added a can of corn and sprinkled a bit of cheese on top for color
Corn (pantry)
Greenbeans (pantry)
Fruit cocktail (pantry)
Homemade cocoa mix (top of the fridge)
More partial bags of cold cereal (top of fridge)

Pork Chops & Oven Roasted Veggies
I made pork chops again this week. I cooked them in a skillet with olive oil and some seasonings on med/high for about 20 min or until brown on each side, then I add about 1/2 cup of water and then cover (you could use broth or creamed soup if you are not doing low sodium/gluten free/dairy free like me) and cook for about 45-60 min until they are the desired tenderness, I like them falling apart) add more liquid if they are not done, so you don't burn them.

Then in the oven I made cut up roasted veggies with skins left on, I had a yam, white potatoes, celery, mushrooms, zucchinis, onions and I tossed all those in a bag with lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Baked first 3 items for around 30 min at 450, then added the rest in and baked another 30 min at 375 until done. I did stir them a few times and check potatoes for doneness. Our 11yr old asked why the potatoes turned orange in the oven, he had never had a sweet potato before. He loved them and so did DH. I actually liked them myself, in years past I had had baked ones that were stringy and nasty, so I just assumed that they were all like that. Well I have a new veggie that I like!! Yams or sweet potatoes (same thing right? correct me if I am wrong please).

What have you been eating?
Moe

What is for dinner?

Frugal Beef Stew-Donna Rollison

 To get the recipe click on the title. If you look around on the site, please be mindful if you need to be GF/CF only look under the username Writermom77. If you are not gluten free then you can look all over the site for yummy recipes from other homepages.

This was really good!!! I think that the GF Worcestershire Sauce really made it tasty!!

I had some surplus canned goods too I did tweak it a bit :O)

Our local grocery had canned veggies on sale last month for .44¢ and I stocked up, so I added

2 cans of corn

2 cans of greenbeans

1 can of sliced mushrooms

1 can of rinsed Cannelli Beans (not sure how to spell those? They are by Progresso)

4 cups GF broth

Three of us ate on it for lunch, my guys loved it so much that I decided to make more right then and there. So I added 4 more cups of GF broth, another tablespoon of GF Worcestershire sauce and another batch of the above veggies & beans. So I have a HUGE pot of yummy soup instead of a stew!

This ended up being a blessing since my Dh informed me that a family from church had a need, so I plan on taking a container of this soup over there with some store bought dinner rolls.