Cleaning out the Cupboards

So, I had a whole other post prepared on homemade baby wipes... and decided that I haven't had enough experience with them to fully post. So, I'll be holding off on that... and discussing another topic: Cleaning out the Cupboards. This is not so much a 'go green' tactic as it is a 'save some green' option. Call me lazy, call me poor, call me cheap... call me what you will, but this without a doubt is a great way to save some money every now and then.

How many of you have at least 1/2 a pantry full of non-perishables that at one point or another you bought and just have never used? Cans of this, boxes of that, a freezer full of something... however, even though all of this stuff is in your cabinet, you open your pantry door or freezer and think "I need to go to the store, there's nothing in this house to eat!". We are very guilty of this.

However, every now and then I put my foot down. I insist that whatever is in our cabinets will be eaten before I make another trip to the grocery store. This means mixing random ingredients to make a baked good of some sort, getting creative with dinner or snacking in new and interesting ways. I can pretty much guarantee that hiding in your cupboards is at least a meal or two (probably 3 or 4 - or more).

Just recently, we went at least a week on having 'nothing' in our cabinets. We had a little bit of meat in the freezer that we mixed with random ingredients, often making surprisingly yummy meals. For example, one night, I baked chicken in some cream of mushroom soup (I had a few extra cans from the last roast I cooked) and some red wine and it was oh so yummy. I paired that with some egg noodles (that I planned to make chicken noodle soup with) lightly tossed in butter and some herbs and there you have it! A meal. When Ryan wanted something sweet, I made sometime. I went through my cookbooks to find the perfect recipe that we had all the ingredients for (instead of setting my mind to a specific recipe and going out to buy the ingredients).

By the time I gave in and said "that's it, we're going to the grocery store", we seriously had nothing but condiments in our fridge. My brother had finished off the graham crackers left from a fire pit, Ryan had taken finger-fuls of decorating icing that was left from decorating a cake, I had made that box of pudding that had been hanging around and Jude had finished off the stray bags of frozen veggies in the freezer. Our usual supply of 5-6 boxes of pasta, a variety of sides, snacks and fresh fruits and veggies had been diminished.

If this is something you'd consider doing, allrecipes.com has a great tool where you can enter a list of ingredients you want to use (and those you don't) and it will spit out recipes based on what you've entered, making it even easier.