GF/DF Menu Plan from pantry & freezer

Late this week, but late is much better than no plan at all.  Still working out of the pantry & freezer

Dinners:
Soft Tacos
Macaronada
Chicken Curry/Rice
Waffles
Saucy Chicken in crockpot (babysitter)
Enchilada Casserole (DH on dinner & these are already made)
Popcorn & smoothie after Superbowl

Lunches:
Macaroni & Cheese
Pancakes
Hot dogs/Sausages/Fruit
Sandwiches
Sausage Soup
Chicken Nuggets?  Leftovers? (DH again)
Superbowl party - taking ground beef & cheese

Breakfasts: We're almost out of oatmeal.  I need another 25# or 50# bag.

Snacks: Smoothies, Lemon Blueberry Loaf, GF Cupcakes, Cookies

I can't believe how much food is still in our freezer.  It feels like progress is slow, but I know I'm pulling at least one thing every day.  I might have to keep a lot of this up through February to keep using up the stockpile.

Katie

2017 Groceries Week 4 - $54.86

I went to Haggen Tuesday for the organic potatoes & local white cheddar that were on sale.  I also bought organic celery, organic zucchni, and a few bananas.  I spent $20.65

Thursday I was at Fred Meyer to pick up DH some coffee creamer. I also bought a bag of potatoes because I was making mashed potatoes for our small group Bible study diiner.  While there I splurged on a $0.99 chocolate milk, another gallon of organic whole milk, and a frozen pizza for DD2 that was on sale for $5.35 instead of $8.00.  I also got red band bananas and a lemon so I could make lemon blueberry loaf.  I spent $21.43.

And I thought I was done for the week and close to $40.00, but as we headed home from church Sunday I decided to stop for a couple things including more milk, GF rolled oats, & a loaf of bread.  I spent $12.78.

Week 4 Total: $54.86
YTD 2017 Total: $149.57
Weekly Average: $37.39

Katie

Pantry Challenge 2017 Update

I sorted through the pantry this week. Here's what I discovered:

• Old salad dressing we need to use soon
• 3 jars of pickles
• 2 quart cartons of chicken broth - completely buried
• spice packets for dips that I'll never use
• 3 hidden boxes of mac'n'cheese - Yay!
• a box of Rice Krispie treats

Here's what I already knew and was reminded of:

• I have a lot of pasta & pasta sauce
• I have a lot of dry beans (great northern, pinto, kidney, black)
• I have a tiny bit of almond butter I'll use up in smoothies this week.

Here's what I didn't find and was hoping to find:

• My coffee bean grinder

I also delved into the freezers, though I couldn't get far into the outside one.  Here's what I found:

• 4 pounds of organic ground beef!  The packages were tucked high up to fill space behind the ice maker! 
• 3 quarts of applesauce!  They were taking up a lot of space.  I thought they were broth until I read the labels on the lid.
• 3 quarts of diced tomatoes!  These were from my garden and I was hoping they weren't part of the frozen-in shelves. 
• 2 Costco-size bags of coffee beans
• 3 gallon bags of frozen white peach slices (I thought we'd use them all up)

We've been making plenty of fruit smoothies and DS has been eating berries every day so I'm hopeful I can move more berries to the inside refrigerator soon.  I want to defrost the outside freezer a bit, but am afraid the 100+ pounds of berries will turn to mush.  Bringing the accessible berries inside will avoid making a mess (I hope!). 

I pulled several things from the pantry that I just won't use.  I'll take them to co-op in a few days:

• new box of 100 green tea bags.  I have green tea and a 2 year supply of other tea.  
• Torani syrup.  I bought this thinking I'd be buying an espresso maker.  Hasn't happened.
• spice mixes. I received these as a gift and, while gluten free, are intended to be mixed with sour cream.
• gluten free crackers. DD2 didn't like them.
• candy canes. Won't eat them.
• gourmet jam. When will I use it?
• a cupcake stand.  I've had it 2 years and haven't used it
• a Star Wars pancake mold I've never used
• a strawberry huller I don't like as well as my primary one
• excess sprinkles 
• packets of peanuts from McDonald's that I collected for sundaes but we don't use
• excess bay leaves
• plasticware my husband brings home from work that I wash and collect because why?
• & some other stuff

I'm excited about getting rid of things and next week's menu plan already!

Katie

GF/DF Menu Plan with Pantry Challenge

I ended up making a turkey over the weekend so I'm using parts of it this week.

Dinners:
Monday - turkey noodle soup (gf, ef noodles to try)
Tuesday - pot roast (meat in freezer)
Wednesday - turkey pot pie (gf crust in pantry)
Thursday - pancakes/sausage links (links in freezer)
Friday - Bible Study dinner, bringing a side dish but don't know what yet
Saturday - linguica stew (linguica in freezer, tomatoes in freezer)
Sunday - smoothie & popcorn

Lunches:
Monday - sausages (freezer)
Tuesday - waffles
Wednesday - biscuits & gravy (leftover turkey gravy)
Thursday - turkey sandwiches
Friday - hot dogs/corndogs (gf hot dog buns)
Saturday - waffles
Sunday - grilled cheese

Breakfasts: canned fruit & oatmeal.  Berries.

to buy:
more potatoes
bananas
yogurt & df yogurt for smoothies
2 gallons milk

Katie

2017 Groceries Week 3 - $45.86

Shoot.  There's no way I can keep to $20/week.  It'll be more like $35 while I continue to try and use my stockpile.  The good news is I'm using lots of stuff out of my pantry & freezer!  I have almost everything on the pantry shelves instead of the floor (other than the bulk buckets that are supposed to be there).  And I'm finding stuff in the freezer like some chicken and masses of sausage links.  We'll definitely be cooking sausage up with our weekly pancakes.

Ok - Groceries:

DH went to the store Monday and bought a gallon of conventional milk for $2.99.

I went to Haggen on Wednesday.  I happened to be near one and they had some good sales!  It was B1G1 for 5# onions and 1# organic carrots.  Organic potatoes were $3.00 for a 3# bag and organic romaine hearts were $3.99.  Eggs were $0.99 each with a coupon & I picked up a few bananas adn two apples.  Now, I'm not likely to use all 10 pounds of onions before they go bad, but I would have paid 75% of the price for just 3# so I figured if I even use 4 pounds I 'break even' on the price.  I spent $17.30.

I went to Fred Meyer Thursday, resigned that I really had to buy more milk and ketchup.  I decided to up my weekly goal to $30.  I also bought sour cream & DD2's dairy free sour cream.  I spent $10.53.

Then Saturday night DH ran out of creamer.  And we had planned to make popcorn with company, but DD2 was out of butter.  So DH went to the store.  He paid $3.29 for cream that I usually don't spend more than $2.00 on, bought organic milk (instead of the conventional he bought Monday - thankyouverymuch) just because it's good to have extra so we don't run out, and 2 kinds of dairy free butter because he wasn't sure which to buy.  It was $15.04.

Total for Week 3: $45.86
YTD 2017 Total: $94.71
Weekly Average: $31.57

Pantry Challenge - Little Victories & well, Challenges

So I made my menu plan Sunday.  I threw it together & hoped it would work for the week.  Here's what's happened so far:

• I got home from Classical Conversations Monday and DH had eaten the huge container of leftover taco soup that I'd intended us to eat for dinner with a green salad.  OOPS!  So I thawed some organic ground turkey and we made soft tacos.  I had tortillas & salsa and a tiny bit of cheese.  It worked.
• Tuesday I had meant to use that ground turkey in the spaghetti sauce, but I happened upon a dozen meatballs in the freezer!  I don't know how long they've been in there, but they had cheese and I'm sure that's why I hadn't used them.  We used most of a jar of spaghetti sauce and I put the rest in the fridge.
• Wednesday I made pizza for lunch and we used that last bit of spaghetti sauce mixed with some pizza sauce that was in the freezer.  It was enough!  
• Dinner tonight was the Qrunch patties.  They weren't a huge hit, but on hamburger buns with ketchup, a side of big pickle, and the promise of a brownie for dessert they got eaten.  Also a good chunk of freezer space freed up!  I have another 2 boxes/8 patties that we'll likely have another day or I'll feed them to DS1.  He gobbled his quinoa burger right up tonight.  

Tomorrow I have to dig out a Costco-sized bag of nuggets for lunch and I'm defrosting sausage links for our breakfast for dinner.  Additionally I'm supposed to make an enchilada casserole for Friday night.  I have all the ingredients for the regular version, but I need tofutti sour cream for the mini DF dish still.  In other news we're having company for Sunday dinner and I decided to bake a turkey.  Yes!  I love getting that big guy out of my freezer!

Katie

GF/DF Menu Plan with Pantry Challenge

We're home all week.  Hooray!  But it's going to be a busy week with our homeschool schedule back in full swing.

Dinners:
Monday - Leftover Taco Soup
Tuesday -  Pasta & Red Sauce
Wednesday - Quorn patty sandwich/burgers (lots of random hamburger buns in freezer)
Thursday - Pancakes
Friday - Enchilada Casserole (babysitter)
Saturday - Chicken Noodle Soup (trying egg free egg noodles from a friend)
Sunday - Smoothies & Popcorn

Lunches:
Monday - Sausages, veggies (packed lunch)
Tuesday - Waffles
Wednesday - Homemade pizza!
Thursday - Chicken Nuggets
Friday - Homemade mac'n'cheese (GF/DF version)
Saturday - leftovers
Sunday - Pot Roast

Katie

2017 Groceries Week 2 - $33.90

This week DH and I were in Disneyland for 3 days.  Praise the Lord our flight was able to land in Portland Wednesday afternoon, but then the roads were so bad no one could come pick us up at the airport!  Eventually we were able to figure out how to get an Uber ride to my aunt's house in the suburbs where our 5 kids were with my aunt, uncle, & mom.  The lame part of the Uber was that drivers were in high demand so we had to pay 2x the typical charge!  The awesome part of the Uber was that the driver showed up in minutes, was friendly with a clean car, and he had the tire chains that were required to drive that day.  The snow was so bad we had to stay the night and drive Thursday after all DH's work meetings ended for the day.  And then there was NO WATER until the pipes thawed Friday evening.

So my meal plan kind of went out the window.  We ended arriving home almost at 11pm Thursday.  Friday was box mac'n'cheese & taco soup in the crockpot.  I didn't use any water cooking dry beans but found enough frozen beans to make the soup.

TMI, I used ice from my frosted over freezer to melt pots of water.  Then I dumped the water into the toilet bowls to force a flush when needed.  I felt SUPER resourceful.

Saturday I made pancakes & bacon for lunch and the kids had saucy chicken over rice for dinner.
Sunday we had grilled cheese, smooothies, & a can of soup for lunch.  Dinner was popcorn & smoothies.

Friday I went to the grocery store since we were out of just about everything. I bought organic yogurt to make smoothies $4.69, creamer for $0.87, organic cottage cheese for $1.79, organic romaine for $2.00, 2 bell peppers for $0.99, whipping cream for $0.99, bananas and an organic cucumber for $1.50.  I don't know why I splurged on cottage cheese but I spent $13.93.

Saturday I bought a gallon of organic milk for $5.99 & I had to tell the kids we're switching back to oatmeal.  Organic milk is expensive!

I also went to Costco to buy hummus and rice crackers.  Technically the rice crackers aren't part of the pantry challenge, but I'm doing a 'clean eating' thing and need something I can eat!  I spent $13.98.

Overall I spent $33.90, which is much more than I hoped.

Week 2 Total: $33.90
YTD 2017: $48.85
Weekly Average: $24.43