Pantry Challenge 2024

[2024Hackathon]

A relative has downsized. I 'inherited' a mass of pantry items she couldn't take with her. They range from the exotic to the everyday. A lot of them are well beyond their Best Before date (some going back to 2012 like stock cubes).

However, I can't bear food waste. So, I'm making a conscious effort to use up the pantry items along with the contents of our freezer and minimise the need to purchase much beyond fresh fruit and vegetables (we do have a lot of dehydrated vegetables).

I know I'm going to run out of inspiration and find it easier to default to not rotating in the pantry items which is why I'm hoping to keep this here.

Note from 31 Dec. I used some dried whole egg when baking (I used half the amount of fresh eggs and the remainder was from dried) and it was (unexpectedly) fine.

01.01.24 pantry challenge

Breakfast: porridge, HM bread toasted, HM yoghurt (all pantry; I may need to try and shift yoghurt making to dried milk)

Lunch: yesterday's vegetable soup (pantry) with tomato salad (current stores)

Dinner: duck (freezer) with roast potatoes, vegetables all from pantry (red cabbage, rehydrated carrots and celeriac).

We're still eating from our stores and the freezer. However, DH bought some fresh oranges from Lidl (current offer) and we pretty much fell on them like ravening wolves.

I'm complicating matters by switching to a consciously higher protein way of eating to compliment what I'm doing as exercise programmes. So doing what is now 3 sets of meals between us all has been so time consuming that I've not updated here.

The upside, I've eaten 800g of Octopus since my last update. I'm also eating roughly 5 tins of fish a week. (I will not be running out of tinned fish any time soon.)

I'm hoping to settle into a routine of working out high protein options for me and working out a menu that isn't complicated for everyone else (me, the omnivores, and the vegans).

At some point, I have to start on the jellyfish and the seaweed…

I've really fallen off the pantry wagon this month. Worse than that because of this i've had some food waste where veg has gone off before i can use it.

This week i pulled out some HelloFresh recipe cards that only use food we have in stock. Helped me use up the pak choi(lidl offer) that was lingering.

Going to try my best to only buy exactly what we need this week for next weeks menu plan.

I'm not going to beat myself up about the food waste as myself and small child have both been on a run of sickness and this always throws off what we eat. But i can do better and i'd love to have a lump sum left in the joint account this month.

hahahahaha not a chance of having a lump sum left in the joint as we have had lots of one off bills. So need to stick to the pantry and minimal grocery shopping this month.

Determined to eat better and use up my fresh food properly. I'm only buying what we need for the menu plan.

A thing ive started to do to ensure i actually eat the healthy fresh food is to do some prep on my WFH days. I chopped up the strawberries, pineapple, grapefruit and some oranges, pulled the grapes off the stalks to put together for fruit cups and random easy snacking. I'm all too good at avoiding the lovely fresh fruit if its even slightly time consuming for me to prep it.

Also chopped spinach, brocolli, peppers and some other bits for the fridgeto make it easy to prep dinner and salads. Basically setting up my own salad/stirfry bar.

Menu plan is made and im trying very hard to not even do a top up shop until the weekend. we have loads of food but i get such grocery anxiety or maybe i just want an excuse to shop!

I'm still eating octopus and tinned fish (not that you'd know it because it's not obvious that the stores are decreasing). I'm finding it a strain to have to prepare 3 meals and I'm trying to negotiate that other people accept some responsibility for this while eating from our stores.

@2024hackathon it is a large strain being fully in charge of the cooking. Especially when you have to take into account different diets. I would definitely be looking to have others take a turn whilst still using the stores.

Perhaps you could pull together a cheat sheet for the others, noting items that you want used from the stores and also meals that can be made from it. Taking into account their abilities and tastes. Over time they can then build up their repetoire and understand how you use the pantry etc.

I know this is quite a bit of work for you but i know from my own experience that just expecting others to step into my shoes with cooking is not realistic. I know where everything is, what needs to be used up and what we have in stores. If my husband was to cook something beyond the basics it would mean numerous questions and would just be easier to do it myself. Thats not a negative on him its just the way we have divided household duties. There are other things i get to not know about.

Just found your thread and have begun reading the 1st few posts and I have to say........

Oh dear, this sounds like my pantry! 😊 I've spent the last year or so trying to work my way through it all and not hoard so much. I had about 100kgs of different flours, and have everything from miso paste to nutritional yeast and gallons of oil and tins, etc, galore. I didn't really need to shop during the lockdowns as my stores were so large.

Can I just say I have pantry envy, lol, and I'm only a dozen or 2 posts in!

I would love to inherit such a stash, what fun to find uses for it all! I would be in heaven 😍

My dh thinks it's sweet how animated I get when I'm sorting out my pantry and/or cupboards. Just recently, I sorted out my cupboard of containers (eg, tupperware, etc), and he commented how cute it is that such a simple thing gives me such pleasure 😂
I may be a very sad person, lol, but it's true. 😚