Pantry and freezer challenge

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 Two weeks ago I decided to start a pantry and freezer cleanse! I’ve done this a few times but this time I’m being very “enthusiastic “! 

I am very frugal in the kitchen so by definition I do not throw very much away.  I’m really good at saving things in little ziplock bags and then tossing them in the freezer.  My mother would be proud! Unfortunately, I do NOT label very much and trying to figure out what I have in these baggies is creative guess work. 

Today, I started with the idea that I would use up the veggies from the fridge and make some soup. While chopping the celery and the onions, I noticed that I had 2 eggs.  What a segue! Haha!

I had found an old chocolate chip cookie mix in the pantry that asked for 1 egg…. So I made cookies.  

For the second egg, Google helped me find a carrot cake recipe that only called for 1 egg which sounded promising. I had the exact amount of carrots, exactly 1/2 cup of sour cream and some oil.  I checked the freezer and it looked like I had the apple sauce required. Alas, that turned out to be puréed summer squash. But I had everything else so away we go! Another quick rummage through the fridge freezer and I found a kid’s squeeze pouch of apple sauce so i was all set. 

It turned out to be very tasty especially with the lemon curd filling! Surprise!! I happened to have a can of that in the pantry! Crazy!

Now back to my soup. In a large, pot simmering in chicken broth, I had all the leftover celery, one onion, some frozen bits of cilantro, jalapeños and parsley, a small baggie of kale and zucchini. I added a couple of potatoes after I puréed it all and ended up with a very dark green soup! It smelled awesome but definitely not pretty! I also found a small baggie of leftover rotisserie chicken!

Lunch was a scary looking bowl of deep green soup- as a result of the immersion blender - loaded with potatoes and rotisserie chicken! I’m not sure how I could make it look prettier but it was delicious!

No pictures because my iPad was recently updated and I lost the blogger to google connection! I’ll work on that later. 

My pantry and freezer are definitely “cleansed” but we could still survive for another 9 days!

What’s left? 

 a large bag of shrimp- 2 meals, 

a beef roast-2 meals, 

a package of brats,

 a frozen pasta dish, 

a frozen rice meal,

 2 lbs of ground beef.  

Plus there are plenty of ingredients for sides in the pantry! 

Tomorrow the shopping list will be short!

Eggs, lettuce, green onions, 1 tomato, a small celery, maybe some sourdough bread, a bit of fruit…, lunch meat, 

Dish washer detergent.




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