Pantry Challenge!

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After all of our Christmas festivities, including having Mr. Mom Endeavors’ family in town for the better part of a week, we were left with a smorgasbord of leftovers. We didn’t want things to go to waste, so we’ve been putting together some rather unique meals as of late. Then, I saw Jessica’s post (from Life as Mom and Good Cheap Eats) about the January Pantry Challenge. And, I’m SO in!

You can read more about what the Pantry Challenge IS and IS NOT over at Good Cheap Eats! For us, it’s going to involve the freezer heavily too! About a year and a half ago, we bought a medium-sized upright freezer that lives out in our garage. And, it really needs to be defrosted–the top rack is getting a decent thickness of ice. We also have a bottom drawer freezer in the house as part of our refrigerator. Honestly, I’m not even entirely sure what’s in there. I’m hoping some of you can relate! So, I’m viewing this the way Jen over at Beauty & Bedlam describes, “this challenge is specifically to use up those things that need to be used up, cleared out, and dug up from the bottom of my freezer”.

My Pantry Challenge Goals:

1. Clean out the freezers and be able to defrost.

There’s no sense in having all kinds of food in the freezer if they never get used, get freezer burnt, and eventually become inedible! It’s time to take stock of what’s in there; get rid of anything bad; and use up what’s still good. Maybe we could even get to the point where we actually have a freezer inventory! That would be SO nice! Getting Freedom from Debt offers up a nice, free freezer inventory printable here!

2. Take stock of the pantry and reorganize.

Much like the freezers, I’m sure there are things in the pantry that have been neglected, forgotten, and may well be past their expiration. We need to go through things and get reorganized! You can see there’s been some attempt at organizing, but it’s failed to remain that way! So, here’s the mess in all it’s glory. Just keeping it real! 🙂 3. Get back on track with meal planning.

I was SO good with meal planning for awhile. It was something that I started doing not too long after Little Brother was born and I started staying at home–about 18 months ago. In fact, if you’ve been a reader for a long time, you might even remember the Menu Plan Monday posts! However, it seemed a trend that we would do it for a few weeks, then something would happen that would get us out of the routine for awhile. Now, sadly, it’s been months since we’ve had a good weekly meal plan in place. So, hopefully by going through what we have & getting reorganized, we’ll get back on track with meal planning!

I plan to share a few updates throughout the month…maybe even some meals we come up with too! 🙂

Anyone else participating in the challenge or have January organizational goals?

*Linked to: Good Cheap Eats

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I’m Sara, a mom to three adorable boys living in the Arizona desert. As a former teacher, I love sharing my passions with others. So, have a look around for creative inspiration about cooking, creating, celebrating, traveling with kids, and more everyday mom endeavors!

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5 Responses

  1. WOw, are you brave opening your freezer and pantry for all to see! I couldn’t for danger of having some large frozen unidentifiable object fall on your foot! I love your goals. Sounds like a great thing for me to do also. Wish us luck. 🙂 Hugs…

  2. I need to a) take stock of my pantry and organize as well, and b) menu plan consistently also. I’ve been reasonably good at menu planning, but it hasn’t been as consistent as I like. If I planned meals from what I’ve got, rather than what sounds good, I could save a lot of money and time! Thanks for this post, Sara!

  3. This sounds like an amazing idea. I don’t have much in my freezer, but I need to get ready for the freezer meals im making, whatever extra space will be awesome.

  4. I’m in. I don’t have an extra freezer, but I am trying to be a little more frugal this year and that starts with the meal planning. I wish there was an app where you could scan the bar codes of food as you bring it home (and enter non-bar code food) and keep an inventory. It’s hard to plan meals when you don’t know exactly what’s in your house.

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