The pantry is taking longer. Canned goods have decreased and hoping that the upcoming holiday season helps me get through some of our baking supplies, but still have stuff in there that needs to be used.
One of the things that I did to help use freezer stuff up was to spend a day cooking up some of the meat that was older than some of our other freezer goods. I had a few pounds of pounds of lean hamburger, Italian Sausage, a beef chuck roast, a whole chicken, a few packages of boneless chicken breasts and a ham roast that all needed to be cooked, although the ham roast was fully cooked, I wanted to get it gone.
Some of the hamburger I cooked and crumbled into one pound portions and put those in freezer baggies that we used up within a couple of weeks in tacos, chili and just yesterday I used the last of it in a homemade Taco Soup I made and served it with corn bread.
The rest of the hamburger I cooked into hamburger patties that can be easily microwaved later by the teen in the house and slapped in his favorite sandwich roll.
I did the same thing to the Italian Sausage we had. Cooked up a couple of pounds crumbed and then cooked a few sausage patties. We are graced with an Italian grocery store called Graziano Brothers that makes the BEST Italian sausage in the world. I mean that. When I didn't live here and I would come back and visit.....guess what would came home with me? Pounds of Graziano sausage. I grew up going to that market and buying their sausage and other goodies.......but I digress. :)
We had some amazing sausage sandwiches one night using some focaccia buns I got at Palmer's Deli & Market and the rest was used as a topping on one of our homemade pizzas.
After cooking:
Pizza Tip: If you want an amazing pizza spice that you sprinkle on before you cook your pizza, check out this Pizza Blend at Allspice, an amazing spice store we have in the East Village area of Des Moines.
As you can see, we have quite a collection of spice blends from Allspice and we love our favorites!
The beef chuck roast was put in the crockpot with beef stock, onions, carrots and potatoes for one meal and the leftovers were turned into French Dip sandwiches a couple of nights later.
I roasted the whole chicken and the boneless breasts, pulled the meat off the bone from the whole chicken and made a fabulous chicken pot pie.
So easy, especially when you use pre-made pie crusts and Campbell's Healthy Request Cream of Chicken soup as a base for your chicken & vegetable mixture that's tucked inside....and yes, I'm sure there are the Cream soup haters out there...but guess what? I don't care.....it works for me once in a while and it's really good in this dish.
Some of the chicken I had left over was made into chicken salad with celery, grapes, walnuts and both the husband and I had it for our lunches and the rest of the roasted chicken was portioned out to freezer bags.
In between the meals I mentioned, we also ate up some of our Trader Joe's groceries; Margarita pizzas, beef & broccoli and chicken lo mien.
As I mentioned in my previous posts, I wondered if I was going to see a difference in our grocery bill and I did.....in fact, one week other than a gallon of milk and a few other things we were completely out of, I didn't even have to do any grocery shopping.....I was able to plan meals with the things we had on hand.
With this week being a short week before Thanksgiving....which WE ARE GOING OUT TO EAT (yes, I'm yelling...I've been wanting to do it for years) our menu looks like this:
Monday
Skillet Pork Chops with Apples (using up the last of our boneless lean pork loins)
Scalloped Potatoes
Salad
Tuesday
Trader Joe's Fish Nuggets with Dill Sauce
Wild Rice Pilaf
Steamed Vegetables
Wednesday
Trader Joe's Ham, Caramelized Onion & Gruyere Cheese Flatbread Tarte
Our freezer inventory looks much more manageable now and I'll update you towards the end of the year on how the pantry is faring.
I let you know how our Thanksgiving Dinner out goes.....I remember doing it one year when my mother was still alive. We all went to one of the downtown hotels and the buffet was amazing and our leftovers were sent home with us in aluminum foil shaped like swans.....no kidding.
