Saturday, January 23, 2010

frozen food challenge

we have 3 freezers in our house. i mean, we have the one in our kitchen, we have a small deep freeze and we also have a fridge in our garage (most people buy these for beer, ours is full of dr.pepper, juice and soy milk); hence, three freezers.

yesterday i was getting into the deep freeze for some ice and i thought ''holy heck do we have a ton of food in here''. i mean, a TON of food. then i opened the other freezers and while they weren't busting at the seams, they were pretty full too. i am a bargain shopper, i stock up on items when they are on sale* or i have super good coupons, and then freeze them til i need them.
 *when i say ''sale'' i mean giant bargain; like getting 5 bags of shredded kraft cheese for $1 or getting 4 bags of Reames egg noodles for $1. i try to combine awesome store sales with coupons to get the best deal
not only does this save us money, but it also keeps us prepared in case of a major storm or emergency. not only are our freezers stocked but our pantry (aka giant lazy susan) is too. well i decided to challenge myself, i wanted to see if we can eat only the things in our freezer and pantry until payday, thursday the 28th. i mean not purchasing anything in addition to what we have (unless we run out of peanut's milk). so the first thing i did was make a list of everything in our freezer(s). for the sake of keeping myself organized as well as possibly inspiring someone else to do the same, i'm going to share that list:
meats:
1.5lb boneless skinless chicken breast tenders
1 lb. sausage
1.5 box of chicken nuggest
1lb bag of beef ravioli
1.5lb pork ribs
veggies:
3 bags of broccoli, 3 bags broccoli with cheese
1 bag corn
1 bag peas and carrots
1 bag frozen hashbrowns
1 bag chopped onion
1 bag chopped onion/celery/carrot mix
meals:
homemade chili
homemade potato soup
homemade chicken noodle soup
2 frozen pizzas
other:
5 pkgs kraft shredded cheese
1 bag frozen biscuits
2 bags of egg noodle
2 boxes of Cheerio
fruit:
2lbs strawberries
1lb peaches
9 bananas

whew! i told you it was a ton of stuff. so after listing everything out, i started looking in the pantry as well and mentally putting meals together. once i realized how well my pantry was stocked, i started another list. one list for dinner meals and one list for lunches. here are those. keep in mind that i literally have everything on hand needed to make these meals:

Meal #1: Chicken Fried Rice
-l.5lb blsl chicken tenders
-2 cups of peas and carrots
-a couple eggs
-rice
Meal #2: Breakfast for Dinner
-1lb sausage &
-1 bag frozen biscuits to make biscuits and gravy
-1 bag frozen hashbrowns
-scrambled eggs
-fruit smoothie using strawberries/bananas/peaches
Meal #3: Ravioli
-1 bag beef ravioli w/spinach and cheese
-spaghetti sauce
-1 bag broccoli w/cheese
Meal#4: Pork ribs with Rice
-1.5lb pork ribs
-rice
-1 bag frozen corn
Meal#5: Chicken Nuggets and Fries
-chicken nuggets
-french fries
-fruit salad
Lunch#1: Potato Soup
-thawed homemade potato soup
-fruit salad
Lunch#2: Homemade Mac & Cheese
-kraft shredded cheese
-mickey and pals shaped pasta
-milk, butter, velvetta
-1 bag frozen broccoli
Lunch#3 Pizza
-frozen pizza
-applesauce
-corn
Lunch #4: Soup and Sandwiches
-thawed chicken noodle soup'
-grilled cheese sandwiches                               
Lunch#5: Chili
-thawed chili
-jiffy cornbread
-fruit
that is 10 meals, made completely from on-hand ingredients. while i am a pretty frugal shopper already, even i am amazed that we have enough food to feed a family of 5 for a full week! breakfast is usually cereal, yogurt and juice so that is taken care of as well.  typically i spend about $70 a week on groceries, sometimes more depending on the cost of produce. that means that this week i am saving $70+ and we're clearing out overfilled freezer. the great part is that we're still eating fairly healthy and balanced meals. thank goodness i stock up on fruit and veggies during dillons' 10/$10 sales!

so without sounding to bossy, i encourage you to check out your cabinets and freezers...you might just be amazed!

5 comments:

  1. That is awesome! I really have to go through my freezer. I have tons of food that needs to be eaten. We've been eating out quite a bit lately because I just haven't been very organized lately. Thanks for the reminder!

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  2. That was us Tricia, we were spending money eating out with a full freezer at home! I actually had fun coming up with everything and turning it more into a game. There are a ton of choices for meals each day and no pressure to run to the store. GL!

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  3. so awesome Shannon! I do similar things often. I LOVE having food stocked. I've been working on trying to have a 3 month supply on hand. It saves so much on groceries when i can buy then at a good deal and then "shop" in my pantry when I need something for a meal.

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  4. That's awesome, Shannon. I have often thought that I need to use on-hand ingredients for a week to "cleanse" our food supply.

    Your design is just adorable, too. I really want to learn some coding/design. Did you teach yourself?

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  5. Thanks Heather, and yes I'm self-taught. I mean I had an HTML class in High School but don't remember too much. If you go here, she has a lot of tutorials and such for blog design:
    http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/category/tutorials/blog-design
    And for backgrounds I usually search for free digital scrapbook sets, most from shabbyprincess.com. If you ever need any help or want me to try to come up with something for you, just let me know. I love doing it!

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