Living from your pantry- Cheap Meals

Whether you are needing to stretch until your next payday, or just needing to clean out your freezer- every once in a while it's a great idea to "eat from your stash".



The challenge comes in stepping away from old faithfuls (in my house, the girls would eat a PB sandwich everyday if you let 'em) and trying something new. This is also the great part. By refusing to go to the grocery store for a period of time (a week or two weeks) you force yourself to "think outside of the box". Sometimes this isn't really by choice....

I hope some of you will join me in this challenge-- and let us know your creative meals. This week we had some unexpected issues which are going to make it a tough month. So, I'm trying to stretch not going to the grocery store until after July 15th. (Two paydays from now.) Join me! (Misery loves company?? Nah... .I love a good challenge!)

Issue Number one- We are OUT of milk. Am I allowed to buy any? I have some CVS ECB bucks-- does it count if I don't pay money??? Maybe we need some rules...

Day 1: Dinner - Spaghetti and Meatballs (from freezer). I usually add meat in the sauce, but not tonight. That meat can be a whole other meal. We served tea and green beans.

Day 2:

• Breakfast - the end of the milk with cereal (hmmmm... this might be an issue)
• Snack - Fresh fruit (leftover grapes from our trip and some strawberries)
• Dinner - Frozen popcorn shrimp, cottage cheese (no milk, so this is the kiddos dairy), edamame from the freezer. Water to drink.

Since it's going to be meals that might not excite the kids- I tried to make this one a good one. All things they like. Now I'll try to ration the likes with the dislikes... see if we can make mealtime more pleasant while we stretch.

Tomorrow I have no waffles, and I have cereal- but no milk. I have some evaporated milk and some condensed milk, so maybe I can make one of those work for waffles. I'm off to make a freezer / pantry inventory and see what I can dig up to keep us happy the next few weeks. This will likely be most difficult for my dear hubby, who loves his morning Cheerios.