Well, we finally have a move date for our new home! It will be sometime in mid April. Buying and selling homes has really put a strain on our finances. Because of this strain and the fact that we will be moving, I decided that I really need to do a pantry challenge.
A pantry challenge happens when you challenge yourself to use up items in your pantries for your meals. To learn more about having a pantry challenge, click here.
For the start of my pantry challenge, I am going to be a little lenient. Honestly I have had enough stress for a while, so I’m cutting myself and my family some slack. For this challenge, I will continue to buy milk for the kids to drink, although I will use some powdered milk for baking and cooking.
For today, we had the normal sorts of breakfast and lunch. Andrew decided he wanted to have breakfast at school (free for any student who wants it–I always feel guilty for this, and so I buy donate extra snacks for his class), and the rest of us had cereal.
Lunch for Andrew was a lunchables kit I bought for 75 cents on sale (the only time I will break down and get those things). My husband had his normal bagged lunch and Molly and I ate some leftover chicken-and-pineapple pizza.
For dinner, I reached into the back of the pantry stockpile to fetch a box of cheesy enchilada chicken helper that I would normally save for one of my husband’s bachelor dinners. The problem is that he never actually uses these things. To the helper I added a can of chunk chicken, instead of cooking fresh chicken, and I used a saucepan to heat it all. I did burn the bottom of the pan while trying to break up a fight over some Fisher Price Little People. Scouting out the back of the fridge, I found some flour tortillas that were old but still good. I’ll put the helper mixture into the tortillas for an easy meal.
For desert, I’ll dip into some bagged apples to make baked apples with raisins, butter cinnamon and a touch of nutmeg. Okay, maybe it isn’t the perfect complement to dinner, but the kids are happy with it.
How did I do on my first day? Do you want to take the pantry challenge with me?
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