I like to shop for DEALS. When I find a great deal I stock up on that item and then it takes up space (lots of space) in my pantry, fridge and freezer. I have found lots of good deals lately, so it was time to clear out! This is what led me to start the Eat What You Have Challenge.
How often do we go to the store and buy what we need for a recipe, without checking to see what we have first? How often do we start with a recipe or a meal we want instead of opening the fridge to see what we have first? How often do we create a meal plan based on ideas from Pinterest instead of what is already in our house?
I am SO guilty of doing all of these! I started this challenge 13 days ago and I am still going strong! The Eat What You Have Challenge simply means: be creative, make meals from the food you have and do not go grocery shopping. Pretty simple, right? Since I am still going strong, I had to make a slight modification to this as I still have small children, so I have gone grocery shopping, but I only purchased the perishable items my family cannot live without: milk, eggs, fruit, and veggies (and in MODERATION). Every recipe I have made has been with ingredients I already had on hand. I had to get creative. I had to make some adjustments and substitute this instead of that, but in the end I have made some delicious new recipes! Not to mention the money I have saved. Phew! My bank account is thanking me! ;)
Here are some of the meals I made since starting this challenge:
Oatmeal with dried blueberries! Yum! I don't know about you, but I have a lot of dried fruit in my pantry. For a while my kids would eat it as a snack with some nuts, but recently they decided that wasn't cool any more. Kids change their minds so often, it's hard to keep up! I didn't want the fruit to go to waste, so I needed to find a way to use it--> Oatmeal! Cooking it with oatmeal rehydrates the fruit and therefore my kids had no idea that they were eating the food that they rejected the day before. A win for Mommy! Not to mention this uses 2 items in my pantry, it's delicious, healthy and the whole family loves it. Needless to say we had this for breakfast a few times. :)
Fish Tacos! I usually prefer fresh fish, especially since I live near the coast. I feel like there is just no excuse to eat frozen fish...except when I find a great deal on one of our favorites! We try to eat fish regularly, but that can get pricey, so occasionally buying frozen keeps the cost down. I used some frozen white fish from our freezer and used some Greek yogurt to make a scrumptious sauce. Lots of people have asked what I put in the sauce and really it's simple: whatever I want! Lol! I usually wing it and just open the fridge and add whatever sounds good. Sometimes I add relish to make a mock tartar sauce, other times I add cilantro, garlic and the seasoning I used on the fish. It just depends on what I am in the mood for!
Baked Chicken & "Hashbrown" Casserole! This was so simple and so yummy. Thawed 2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces and seasoned both sides with Chicken Dust. My husband made this delicious Dust for some grilled chicken a while back and it was yummy, so I wanted to try it on baked chicken too! Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes depending on the size of your chicken strips. The "Hashbrown" Casserole is actually spaghetti squash! Recipe for this one is coming soon! I am still tweeking the recipe!
These meals were not crazy, or gross or out of the ordinary. The key to this challenge is to start by cleaning and organizing the fridge, pantry and freezer. Knowing what you have, create a meal plan that only uses the ingredients you have on hand. For me this meant really being creative with lunches. Once I had the dinner figured out, I used the leftovers to repurpose for lunches. For instance I used the left over chicken and make a Chicken Quinoa bowl: leftover chicken-chopped, quinoa, steamed frozen veggies, and some seasonings for flavor. That's it! It didn't feel like leftovers because it was totally different from how we ate the chicken for dinner.
Are you up to the Challenge? How long to you think you could go without going to the grocery store?
