Klatsch: Don't Shop Now!

Fat Guy · November 26, 2009

I'm in sort of a weird break period at the moment. Last night I had to have dinner at L'Ecole, the restaurant at the French Culinary Institute. Not only was this a meal I didn't have to cook out of my pantry, but also it was all I could do not to take on more free bread supplies. I restrained myself. Today is Thanksgiving so we'll be going to my mother's house here in the city. Tomorrow is the Thanksgiving reenactment at my wife's mother's house in Connecticut. Saturday is a Thanksgiving reenactment at our cousins' house in New Jersey. I imagine we'll acquire a lot of leftovers along the way. Then I'm off the grid Monday-Tuesday. So I probably won't get back into the true spirit of the challenge until Wednesday and beyond.

This morning I made eight peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for us to have at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I finally polished off the raisin challah and started in on a really nice raisin-nut loaf that was sitting behind the raisin challah. I think I have enough bread in the freezer to make another 20 or so sandwiches, and I intend to use it all. I may be able to use up all our peanut butter in that process too, if I lay it on thick as I have been doing. Unfortunately, I'd need to make more like 100 sandwiches to use up all our accumulated jams, jellies and preserves. We also have all these peanut-butter alternatives around -- almond butter, sunflower-seed butter -- that are going to require creativity and willpower to use up.

I got my camera back from Sean only to have it usurped by my wife. I promise as soon as I can pull it off I'll post photos of the Thomas Keller fried chicken experiment.

judiu · November 26, 2009

I'm in sort of a weird break period at the moment. Last night I had to have dinner at L'Ecole, the restaurant at the French Culinary Institute. Not only was this a meal I didn't have to cook out of my pantry, but also it was all I could do not to take on more free bread supplies. I restrained myself. Today is Thanksgiving so we'll be going to my mother's house here in the city. Tomorrow is the Thanksgiving reenactment at my wife's mother's house in Connecticut. Saturday is a Thanksgiving reenactment at our cousins' house in New Jersey. I imagine we'll acquire a lot of leftovers along the way. Then I'm off the grid Monday-Tuesday. So I probably won't get back into the true spirit of the challenge until Wednesday and beyond.
This morning I made eight peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for us to have at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I finally polished off the raisin challah and started in on a really nice raisin-nut loaf that was sitting behind the raisin challah. I think I have enough bread in the freezer to make another 20 or so sandwiches, and I intend to use it all. I may be able to use up all our peanut butter in that process too, if I lay it on thick as I have been doing. Unfortunately, I'd need to make more like 100 sandwiches to use up all our accumulated jams, jellies and preserves. We also have all these peanut-butter alternatives around -- almond butter, sunflower-seed butter -- that are going to require creativity and willpower to use up.
I got my camera back from Sean only to have it usurped by my wife. I promise as soon as I can pull it off I'll post photos of the Thomas Keller fried chicken experiment.

Oy, gevalt! 3x Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Can't wait to see the fried chicken :wub: !

**andiesenji** · November 26, 2009

Things have been so hectic for me during the past several days that I have not been able to document or post about my meals - mostly uninspired but all from my pantry/fridge/freezer.

I did shop at Smart & Final on Monday but only for foodhandler gloves because I was out.

I felt very virtuous checking out with only the gloves and a bottle of floor cleaner. :rolleyes: The clerk asked if I no longer loved them... My usual expeditions involve a full cart and help loading my van.

Since Sunday I have had five teens in my kitchen for most of each day. They wanted to learn how to bake holiday cookies, quick breads and other treats to deliver to home-bound seniors and people with disabilities.

They bought all their own ingredients and the containers with money they collected at a car wash at their church (in 40-50 degree weather) last Saturday.

It has been many years since I have had a bunch of teens in my house for extended periods and it is exhausting.

The questions were endless.

All are from homes where both parents work, they largely subsist on frozen dinners and fast foods and none of their kitchens are equipped for much of anything in the way of real baking. Not one had ever seen a food processor or a stand mixer in person. Sad that!

On the two mornings they arrived early, I prepared breakfast - a strata with eggs, ham, artichoke hearts and broccoli rabe on Tuesday and sourdough waffles with sausage and eggs yesterday.

They went out for lunch all three days - I suspect fast food.

The guinea hen I braised last week became a hot chicken dish with rice, peppers, pineapple and a spicy sauce Monday evening.

The carcase was combined with some other poultry remains from the freezer and turned into a lovely stock.

Tuesday I defrosted one of the stuffed pork chops I had prepared two weeks ago and roasted that for dinner. Lunch was the leftover chicken dish.

Wednesday lunch was a rather insipid ham sandwich with a green salad and dinner was a sausage and apple casserole with steamed mixed vegetables, all from the freezer.

I slept in this morning because I was up late last night and have not yet begun to contemplate breakfast - or brunch, which may turn into lunch if I don't get up from this desk.

More later.......

Fat Guy · November 27, 2009

Yesterday at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade the Procter & Gamble people were out giving away free cans of Pringles. The full-size cans. We walked past a few times. So now we have four cans of Pringles added to our inventory. From my mother's house we took home about four pounds of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, sweet potatoes and cornbread -- enough to make several meals out of. Not that we're eating at home today. We're having Thanksgiving II in Connecticut. I'm glad I've been clearing out the fridge these past couple of weeks so we have space to put all this stuff.

robirdstx · November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving Day is Day One for us. Breakfast was breakfast tacos – potatoes and onions fried in duck fat (see photo below), scrambled eggs, bacon, and shredded medium cheddar wrapped in whole wheat tortillas – and orange juice. No lunch today as we would be having our T-Day feast by 4 pm. Dinner (photo of my plate below) was a turduchen roll cooked in my brand new Cuisinart Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven (did a beautiful job!), roasted turkey thighs (buttered and seasoned with rosemary, sage, and thyme), herb and mushroom bread “stuffing” cooked in the crockpot, perfect mashed potatoes, turkey pan gravy, green peas and scratch made dinner rolls. Day Two: Breakfast was leftover mashed potatoes with gravy (one of my favorite foods) and buttered rolls. Lunch was individual casseroles with a slice of turducken topped with “stuffing” and pan gravy. Dinner tonight will be a repeat of Thanksgiving dinner. By Saturday we will be moving onto other uses for the leftover turkey. Plans are to make turkey salad for lunches later in the week. Turkey enchiladas, using chile verde sauce and corn tortillas from the freezer, and a turduchen and andouille (from the freezer) gumbo are also on the menu for dinners this week.

**andiesenji** · November 27, 2009

After my report yesterday morning I went to the home of friends for dinner at 4 p.m. and entertainment (several of their children and grands play instruments and sing).

Desserts served at 7 p.m. along with some terrific coffee and chocolate drinks.

I had made a large pie with some of the pork mincemeat I made a couple of weeks ago and chopped fresh oranges (except for the white part), flavored with some tequila that had been in my cupboard for several (many) years! :blink:

No leftover pie!

They had flan, pumpkin pie, regular mince pie, coconut cake, a mango sherbet with lime custard (secret recipe from Mexico) and several puddings and gelatin things popular with Hispanic people.

Earlier there had been a tres leches cake but it suffered an accident while en route from car to kitchen so no go for that.

I can't begin to enumerate all the dishes served at dinner. There were nearly fifty people there and most had brought one or more dishes so there was lots and lots and lots! I tried to taste a tiny bit of everything but it was rather overwhelming.

I am not a big fan of nopales but one of the women had made a dish with them cut in narrow strips (not quite julienne) and sort of pickled and tossed with toasted bits of corn tortillas. Absolutely delicious and I am going to try to get the recipe.

There were two turkeys, one roasted, one deep fried. Both excellent.

There was half a roasted pig - I think it was a javalina but forgot to ask the source. There was a big pan of carnitas and another of barbecued goat. (I came home with some of each so will be having tacos for dinner today!)

There were tamales with various fillings - chicken and beef for sure, others I did not taste.

Numerous potato dishes both regular and sweet - didn't try them all. Various vegetable dishes - tried only a few. However there were Mexican squash stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs and cheese (and some chiles) that were exceptional. They look rather like zucchini but are shorter, fatter and a lighter green.

Several tomato dishes - grilled tomatoes with bread crumbs, cheese and chiles - a different mixture from that in the squash. Excellent.

Can't recall much else. I got home about 10 p.m, fed the dog and went to bed.

I've been very lazy today, late breakfast (cereal with milk) and, worst of all,

I have yet to unload the leftovers from my van refrigerator. A serious attack of laziness is upon me.

Hopefully back to my regular routine tomorrow.

OliverB · November 28, 2009

well, we had an exciting Thanksgiving at the inlaws. I did break from the no shopping as I was in charge of a veggie dish and after reading the editorial of a recent saveur wanted to make one of the cranberry relishes mentioned there. The beans recipe turned out very good, was from one of thse $4.99 cook books at B&N. Lots of pine nuts sprinkled with paprica, some onion and garlic, all quite good. The cranberry and fig chutney is really very good, also features pistachios and two whole unpeeled oranges and ginger. The little cubes of orange skin, the nuts, the ginger, all creates little flavor explosions. I highly recommend this one, I made the whole recipe and have plenty left over. You can find it here:

http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/1992/01/cranberry_fig_chutney_with_cinnamon_and_pistachios

Turkey was a 12 lb bird, my wife's parents brined it for the first time, which IMO really improved the bird tremendously. They used an Alton Brown recipe with salt and honey. Bird was cooked on the rotisserie of their outdoor gas bbq. Also was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny so all the kids could go outside instead of on our neves :laugh:

Unfortunately my 2 year old girl fell against a glass table and got a cut on her cheek, mom and grandmommy went off to the emergency room for 4 stitches. Not to gross anybody out, but there was a lot of blood as face wounds tend to spout. A sight I plan to erase from memory quickly. All went well though and she's up and running as if nothing happened. Only a very small tape over the wound and it looks like she might get a shiner, we'll just have to come up with a good story for preschool on Tuesday :raz:

Once they were back she was all over the pumpkin pie and ice cream and we realized that with up to 7 kids around at these gatherings, this was the first time we had a trip to the doc in 10 or so years. Not bad!

We finished the turkey meat today for lunch, and as all my meat is frozen I had to break with the rules once more and got some thin cut pork cutlets, I'll flatten them out very thin, bread and fry them and we'll finish the beans and have some of the cranberry fig chutney. The later is also excellent on toast or muffins in the morning, which will be breakfast. Maybe with my last 4 eggs and some more of our recently made bacon. And I hope I have what I need to make the Saffron rabbit recipe I found recently, otherwise I'll throw some beef on the bbq I think. I'm gonna keep with this challenge for a while longer, it's fun! I will have to get milk and muffins and as grow season is over here, I'll get some salad to keep things a bit on the healthy side, but looking at all the stuff that piled up over the last year or so, I can probably go until x-mas w/o any major shopping. Timely too, as we just hat to put over 3k into my wife's car, my car needed new tires, and there's a certain gift heavy fest coming up at high speed.

I'm also starting to have fun rolling up to the cash register with 2 or 3 items instead of bags and bags of things (that I later found I bought months ago already...).

Belated happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Pierogi · November 28, 2009

Had T-day dinner out as a guest, so (bummer) no leftovers, but also no shopping.

Breakie this morning was the last of the sad, sad graham crackers smeared with a bit of peanut butter (pantry). But they tasted OK (a tad soggy but OK) and filled the need.

Dinner was some Carolina-style pulled BBQ pork from the freezer. I'd made it over the summer, and it was great then, and really good now. Served on a roll from the freezer, with frozen potatoes (ok, I'll cop...they were 'Tater Tots) and some slaw. Good, quick tasty dinner, and killed one package of rolls (this one was a bolillo) and the pork from the freezer, put a good dent in the 'Tater Tots and used fridge stuff for the slaw. I have a bit of the pork left, which I will use for tacos for brunch/lunch on either Sunday or Monday.

As a motivational note for us all....I heard on the NBC evening news tonight (the national broadcast) that 40% of the food produced in America is thrown away.

That, to me, is appalling, especially when there are SO many going hungry in this country, which is supposedly the most affluent in the world. That said, I know *I* am certainly guilty of throwing away enough food every week to feed at least one other person, if not more. I have always felt vaugely guilty about that, but needed this push to really examine it. I consistenly over-buy, and this is great way to remind myself to break that habit. And it really is, at least for me, a habit. I see it, I want it, I can afford it, and I buy it. And then it expires/rots/wilts/dies/goes bad in the pantry/fridge/whatever, and I toss it, thinking, "damn, too bad, I'd have liked to have used that".

40% discarded. That is a national tragedy. And I'm a part of it. But I'm working not to be.

40% of the food produced in America is thrown away. Let's keep that as a mantra.

Fat Guy · November 28, 2009

Here's one of the many articles covering that 40%-wasted estimate:

"Americans Toss Out 40 Percent of All Food"

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/27-1

I'm not sure what the real number is. Over the past year, researching this issue, I've been reading anything from 25% to 40% depending on methodology. Whatever the actual number is, it's pretty alarming. Imagine the economic and ecological benefits from being able to produce 40% less food for the domestic market, import 40% less food, etc. Not to mention, it means the average person can save 40% on the food budget.

And here we are doing something about it. A small thing, to be sure, but we're trying to prove a point and we're proving it: it's not only possible but, for a lot of people, easy to go a week or two or more without acquiring new foodstuffs. I'm glad we're doing our part to move the ball forward on this issue, and I thank everybody who has been participating and hope a whole bunch of you will now come out of the woodwork and do this for a week. We'll keep the topic open until the mission is accomplished.

And happy Thanksgiving. Surely an appropriate time to be reflecting on these issues.

Elisabeth · November 28, 2009

Ok, week 2 is coming to an end and I imagine it'll really get to be fun next week!

A quick rundown of this week's meals:

Wednesday night: Szegeginer Goulash (sauerkraut, pork, onion, apples, paprika, garlic, sour cream, caraway; all slow-cooked for some 12 hours) over potato dumplings from a mix. I love this sort of thing! (but I suspect M. just played along out of sheer love.....)

Thursday (Thanksgiving Day):

B: bagels (I bought them the day before), with equally contraband creamcheese and lox from the fridge

L: none, 'cause breakfast had been so late and we were going to have TDay dinner at friends'.

My contributions - as determined in advance were:

1. appetizers (a. small stuffed pastries made of roti dough saved from the week before. It made really bad rotis - I had bought the package at an Indian grocery and when I went to cook them, the rotis stuck together, didn't puff, and were generally disastrous. I mushed to leftover uncooked rotis into a ball and put it into the fridge. I had planned on wrapping it around meatballs for an appetizer, but instead I chopped a quarter cup or so of cooked ham and mixed it with some chives from the garden, a couple of tablespoons of Vermont Butter and Cheese Quark from the fridge, and a teaspoon or so of half-and-half. I rolled the dough out and cut it into squares, put a scant teaspoon of the filling on, folded it over and baked it at 350. They came out super tasty; perfect appetizer!

b. And then I cooked up a package of pork-and-bitter-melon soup buns from the Chinese grocery that had been lingering in the freezer. Not bad, really.

2. A vegetable dish: Since I had a bunch of yummy veggies from my CSA farmshare from the Friday before, I made a pan of roasted vegetables with: one potato, a kohlrabi, one sweet potato, two parsnips, one large onion, one head of garlic, peeled, one small rutabaga, two white turnips; all tossed with olive oil and salt, and roasted at 350 for an hour or so. This was really delicious.

Of course we came home with leftovers; our friends had cooked an 18-pound turkey for only 6 people!

So we had turkey (white and dark meat), cranberry sauce, a bit of stuffing and a couple of fantastic poached pears with a ricotta filling, for Friday's meals.

Friday:

B: I had a bowl of leftover Black Bean Soup over leftover brown rice, with salsa and quark stirred in; M. had his usual bagel with lox and cream cheese.

L: a handful of corn chips; breakfast had been so much, I wasn't hungry. And it was M's turn for Black Bean soup. It doesn't ever seem to end!

Milt · November 28, 2009

On Wednesday, we finished all of the various leftovers in the refrigerator. We wanted to have room for the upcoming Thanksgiving leftovers. Still, Wednesday dinner was enjoyable.

For Thanksgiving, my wife and daughter prepared the meal and I bought what they wanted. We still managed to use the two frozen turkey breast tenderloins instead of buying a turkey. We also used half of the accumulation of sweet potatoes on hand. I did buy a little over two pounds of green beans, which were prepared with oh hand bacon. Fresh cranberries, a pint of whipping cream, and miniature marshmallows were also purchased for our salad. Our daughter made an apple pie on Wednesday evening using on hand Rome apples and an on hand store bought crust. My wife tried a new dinner roll recipe and it is a keeper. I bought stuffing mix as directed.

Those purchases and preparations provided our dinner meal last evening and will do so again tonight. Tomorrow will find me supplementing the leftovers with, at least, a meat dish. We will finish the turkey tonight.

I am seriously planning our meals now and will use what is on hand to the greatest extent possible. Tomorrow I will buy some milk.

My cooking experience is much more limited than that of many of you. I need to have a recipe in front of me and I am seldom confident around making substitutions. When looking for a recipe, I do try to find those which are calling for on hand ingredients. So far, I am reasonably successful doing that.

We don't throw out anything close to 40% of our food. We tend to eat leftovers until they are gone. We consume the most ripe fruits and vegetables first. Actually, we have thrown out more food this past week than we have in the past several weeks. Two sweet potatoes were past saving and after two meals with my cole slaw - it was pitched. That was the most unappealing cole slaw recipe I have used in quite some time. Surely that 40% figure includes a tremendous amount of restaurant food.

I am not sure if I followed everything correctly or not. The above MIGHT be a link to a picture of our basement freezer as it looked before this challenge began. There is as much frost as meat. It will be good to be able to defrost it soon. I just previewed the post and the picture is there. That is as great a success for me as meal preparation.

Above is a picture of our refrigerator when this challenge began. It still needs a lot of work - but the beg of honeycrisp apples have now been consumed. Those were enjoyed by all of us and will be replaced soon - but not yet.

Fat Guy · November 29, 2009

At least according to this article, consumers are responsible for 60% of food waste.

Shamanjoe · November 29, 2009

Steven, that's the message I got from the first Don't Shop Klatsch. I'm just lurking this time round, but enjoying the commentary immensely. Grocery shopping is therapeutic -- it's easy hunting and gathering. I wonder how many calories are stored in the fridges, freezers and pantries of the G-20.

It would be hugely impractical to do, but I bet it would be amazing to see how many calories are contained in a typical american house, each state, the country, etc. Maybe eventually we'll end up like the book "The Future War" where currency is calories, and you buy everything with a book of what are basically food stamps.

robirdstx · November 29, 2009

Saturday – Day 3: Breakfast for me was a buttered banana nut muffin (from the freezer), coffee, and a 3 mile walk. My other half had a toasted English muffin topped with butter and grape jelly and a large orange juice. Lunch for me was half a grilled cheese with dill pickles on dark rye. Husband skipped lunch. This afternoon I cut up the leftover turduchen roll and the turkey thigh from Thanksgiving and made a couple of quarts of gumbo, using andouille from the freezer and other ingredients from the fridge and pantry;

and two and half cups of turkey salad, also using fridge and pantry items.

Dinner tonight was the gumbo with basmati rice.

We still have a quart of the gumbo left for later in the week.

Edited November 29, 2009 by robirdstx (log)

ambra · November 29, 2009

Well, it's been somewhat complicated, but extremely useful!!!! I've fed a LOT of mouths. And made a LOT of meals....

Latest meals:

Meatloaf

Meatballs

Orata oven baked with thinly slived potatoes

Frozen Foccaccia with Robiola and truffle Oil

Soup with beans and grains

Pumpkin risotto

Peperonata

I don't have nearly as much left as I thought I would: Two steaks, one slab of baby back ribs, 3 packs of breast of chicken, one bollito cut of beef, two packs of calzone-type treats, two pieces of bacala`, and a pack of frozen mixed berries. I've got two eggplants that need to be prepared and have just about finished all my base vegetables which will be tragic for me to get through another week without! (Carrots, celery, onions and potatoes.)

I am having a party on Wednesday for my son and his grandmother as it's their birthday. I just could not find anything in my storage to feed 13 people. Plus, I ran out of sugar. So I can't even bake a cake. SO, I will take a break and buy something for that party. It's 13 people! My son AND his Nonna's BIRTHDAY!!! I think it's fair. Expecially since I didn't take off for Thanksgiving this year.

My dry storage is FULL but mostly of stuff I've horded from the US. We don't find many ethnic foods,and being from NYC, I NEED my ethnic flavours. I am not interested in using all that stuff up too fast. I did use up some dry soup mix, for the soup I mentioned above, and used up all my Risotto Rice as I had made it for 6 people. I have some basmati left, and of course pasta.

I broke my camera. So no pics!

judiu · November 29, 2009

well, we had an exciting Thanksgiving at the inlaws. I did break from the no shopping as I was in charge of a veggie dish and after reading the editorial of a recent saveur wanted to make one of the cranberry relishes mentioned there. The beans recipe turned out very good, was from one of thse $4.99 cook books at B&N. Lots of pine nuts sprinkled with paprica, some onion and garlic, all quite good. The cranberry and fig chutney is really very good, also features pistachios and two whole unpeeled oranges and ginger. The little cubes of orange skin, the nuts, the ginger, all creates little flavor explosions. I highly recommend this one, I made the whole recipe and have plenty left over. You can find it here:
http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/1992/01/cranberry_fig_chutney_with_cinnamon_and_pistachios
Turkey was a 12 lb bird, my wife's parents brined it for the first time, which IMO really improved the bird tremendously. They used an Alton Brown recipe with salt and honey. Bird was cooked on the rotisserie of their outdoor gas bbq. Also was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny so all the kids could go outside instead of on our neves
Unfortunately my 2 year old girl fell against a glass table and got a cut on her cheek, mom and grandmommy went off to the emergency room for 4 stitches. Not to gross anybody out, but there was a lot of blood as face wounds tend to spout. A sight I plan to erase from memory quickly. All went well though and she's up and running as if nothing happened. Only a very small tape over the wound and it looks like she might get a shiner, we'll just have to come up with a good story for preschool on Tuesday
Once they were back she was all over the pumpkin pie and ice cream and we realized that with up to 7 kids around at these gatherings, this was the first time we had a trip to the doc in 10 or so years. Not bad!
We finished the turkey meat today for lunch, and as all my meat is frozen I had to break with the rules once more and got some thin cut pork cutlets, I'll flatten them out very thin, bread and fry them and we'll finish the beans and have some of the cranberry fig chutney. The later is also excellent on toast or muffins in the morning, which will be breakfast. Maybe with my last 4 eggs and some more of our recently made bacon. And I hope I have what I need to make the Saffron rabbit recipe I found recently, otherwise I'll throw some beef on the bbq I think. I'm gonna keep with this challenge for a while longer, it's fun! I will have to get milk and muffins and as grow season is over here, I'll get some salad to keep things a bit on the healthy side, but looking at all the stuff that piled up over the last year or so, I can probably go until x-mas w/o any major shopping. Timely too, as we just hat to put over 3k into my wife's car, my car needed new tires, and there's a certain gift heavy fest coming up at high speed.
I'm also starting to have fun rolling up to the cash register with 2 or 3 items instead of bags and bags of things (that I later found I bought months ago already...).
Belated happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Oliver, sorry to be the 'voice of doom', :unsure: but that link is broken, and I REALLY would LOVE to have the recipe! :wub: Thanks!

**JTravel** · November 29, 2009

I didn't "carve" the turkey very well on Turkey Day as only 3 out of the seven of us ate meat. The family did a good job on the nice slices on their visit yesterday....that helped as it was a 20 pound bird. So today was clean the bird day....UGH.....so messy.

I had forgotten how much juicy dark meat is on the back. I have a plate piled high. I bought some corn tortillas (sorry) and tomorrow there will be a big pot of my version of tortilla soup. That should take care of several cans of tomates and extra chicken broth. It will be heavy in meat, and use a couple of onions too. Plus, in freeze, a gift of roasted Hatch chilies from son in southwest. I'll hack off a piece from the chili block and see how much I can use.

Dry storage and freezer or jammed full so I WILL try to resist buying from now till holidays. There needs to be room in freezer for cookies. One good thing in freezer is a coup of a purchase of Chuck Eyes at $1.99 at Wegmans last week. They will be Christmas meal.

LindaK · November 29, 2009

Robirdstx, that turkey gumbo looks great. I would never have thought to use turkey for gumbo--but now I know what I'll do with the leftover turkey that I brought home.

My "no shopping" experience is officially over--I bought Thanksgiving contributions on Wednesday and today picked up some fish and a few other perishables. But it was fun while it lasted and definitely worthwhile. I learned a lot about my shopping habits, good and bad. Hopefully now I'll be more thoughtful about my daily shopping and strategically stashing my freezer and pantry.

Corinna · November 30, 2009

Last week was a bit of a wash/break, as we were out of town a couple days and then Thanksgiving. I have been planning this meal for some time, so I had a set list, and did a good job of only buying what I needed for the holiday meal. (I thank this challenge for that!) I'm back on the wagon and now I have leftovers, plus all my previous store! I have taken leftovers to work for lunch every day since, and today I picked all the meat off the pig and set the bones aside to make a nice stock tomorrow.

I put together a favorite meat sauce recipe in the crock pot using some of the Italian sausage patties in the fridge and all the canned tomatoes in my pantry (not as many as I usually have, but used them up!) I also put in some pork bones, which the recipe calls for but I haven't had up to now. This is currently simmering away. We ate a little for dinner over rice (there is a huge bag of it, and pasta is a precious commodity) along with some bread leftover from Thankgiving.

I need ideas to use up the leftover pork, which will hopefully showcase that it's quite tender and flavorful.

So far, I'm thinking: I have a package of wonton wrappers in the fridge, so I will probably make dumplings, as well as a stir fry or two. Gumbo sounds like it could be a good option too.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Edited November 30, 2009 by Corinna (log)

Milt · November 30, 2009

With the Thanksgiving leftovers finished last night - it was time to resume cooking. I made a butternut squash and ground chicken chili based upon a recipe from Allrecipes.com This finished off the three small butternut squash from our garden, the last cherry tomatoes and one larger yellow tomato (also from the garden), along with our last tomato from the grocery store. I also used five cans from the pantry - along with some spices. It was very tasty, but didn't seem much like chili - in spite of many traditional chili ingredients. Tomorrow, we will have chili again. Perhaps the flavors will have melded a bit more by then.

OliverB · November 30, 2009

yesterday we had no power for some 6 or so hours, going into the evening, so we took the kids to Chevy's. Worst idea and worst dinner ever, I'd rather set $70 (including tax) on fire and eat some roots from the backyard next time. Fishy salmon, fishy miniature shrimp and some fatty glob as half of my shredded pork. Simply aweful.

Anyway, so I did not get to making my rabbit yesterday, but it's in full swing today! I'm making the saffron rabbit from the Loebell's meat and wine book, and so far it seems to turn into a wonderful dish. Cut the rabbit into pieces following the instructions in the book, made the stock, the onions, browned the rabbit and now it's all in the pan for a 90 or so min simmer. I'll make some spinach to go along and bake up a bread from the freezer, I think this will be a tasty one! Medieval recipe from Italy, can't go wrong with that :laugh:

Tomorrow I'll have to figure out what to do with the little rest of my bacon, probably some pasta, especially if the remaining 4 eggs are still good.

I did buy two onions and the spinach, which I count as salad, even if cooked. Can't live w/o fresh stuff for that long, but no major purchases at all in almost two weeks! Neat :-)

Shamanjoe · November 30, 2009

My only problem so far is that, even with almost nothing left in the fridge, I forget it's there for a couple days. At least I can see ALL my pantry items, as I'm redoing the kitchen, so they are all spread out in the living room (on tables, book shelves, etc.)..

robirdstx · November 30, 2009

Sunday – Day 4: Breakfast was some more of the banana nut muffins with butter, hot tea for me and orange juice for my husband. For lunch we each had half a turkey salad sandwich with dark rye. We had a late afternoon snack that used up the last of our cheddar cheese and some water crackers and salami. Dinner was a break from turkey! We grilled our last three bone-in pork chops; they were seasoned with sesame oil, five spice, salt and pepper and finished with worchestershire and the last green onion. Along with the chops we had the rest of the basmati rice from last night and steamed broccoli.

Pierogi · November 30, 2009

Saturday update - No breakie (got up late) and for a brunchie/lunch thing had a PBJ sandwich out of stocked goods. Dinner was a bastardized Mexican stew called Caldillo. Normally made with chunks of stew beef or pork, but I had a pound of ground beef that was due to expire and therefore needed to be used. So I found amazingly enough found a recipe for ground beef caldillo, which had ingredients all from pantry/fridge...onion, canned green chiles, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock (a couple of ice-cube sized homemade from the freezer), garlic, spices and potatoes. It was pretty darn good. Wanted some tortillas to go with it, but didn't buy them. I'd bought some dried masa flour about a month ago with the intention of trying my own homemade corn tortillas. They weren't awesome, but they also weren't horrible, especially considering I don't have a tortilla press, and rolled them out with a rolling pin. Will be working to perfect them. Had a salad too, used half a bag of lettuce from the fridge, mixed with some onion, some cabbage from Friday's slaw and some tomatoes. Topped the caldillo with some week-old, but carefully saved cilantro and a minced jalapeno from the fridge. Will have the leftovers for lunch this week.

The "AH-HAAAA" moment was an avocado that had been forgotten in the fridge for about 2 weeks. It was almost ripe when I bought it, and after one day on the counter got pitched into the fridge. I kept forgetting to use it. I pulled it out last night, fully expecting to throw it away. When I cut into it, it was beautiful. A couple of iffy spots I cut out, but I had about 95% of a perfect avocado. Normally...(bad me)....I would have pitched it without even cutting into it, thinking it would be bad after so long in cold storage. I hope that this is a true *lesson learned*.

Today's breakie was a couple of coookies and late lunch (after some Christmas decorating) was a quick cheese and lunch meat sandwich. Dinner was a pizza made with a ball of homemade dough from the freezer, topped with sweet onion, quartered grape tomatoes, thinly sliced garlic, cheese, pancetta and coppa. The onion, tomatoes, garlic and cheese were all from the fridge/pantry. The pancetta and coppa were from the freezer. It was honestly probably the best pizza I've ever made. Killed the dough, obviously, and the tomatoes. Have some of the pancetta and coppa left, the coppa is probably destined for a lunch sandwich. There's cheese, garlic and onions left, but they have much life left in them. A small side salad with the last of the bag of romaine and slaw (believe me, I went through that romaine with tweezers to find all the usable parts......), the other half of the sweet onion and dressing from the fridge. A delightful meal. And the prospect of leftover pizza for breakie tomorrow. Yay !

Fresh veggies are looking a little sparse, but not desperate yet. I have some broccolini that's about a week or so old, that I think is still serviceable, and celery and carrots that for sure are good. I also have about 1/2 a bag of mixed frozen veggies, a small bit of frozen peas (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup) and a huge bag of frozen corn. Also have some hot-house tomatoes, so I'm not desperate yet. I still have a decent amount of protein in the freezer and some canned tuna/salmon/chicken, and several boxes of starchy sides (rice pilafs, etc.). Also have plenty of rice of numerous styles and pasta. I will keep it going through the week, and then we'll see. I do like to keep some stuff in reserve, but I could sure also use the economic benefits of not doing my normal shopping.

I can say I am definately not suffering......

dividend · November 30, 2009

I was thinking about this thread as I sat down to meal plan this weekend, and I decided to go for it. I didn't have Thanksgiving leftovers to help me along (came home from dinner at my parents' with enough for one meal), but I had been to Costco a couple of weeks ago, so it was almost too easy.

Breakfasts are whole grain hot cereal with maple syrup for me, and DBF makes these smoothies every day from oatmeal, bananas, frozen rasberries, milk, and peanut butter.

For packed lunches for the two of us, I made a huge batch of leek and tomato pasta sauce, using leeks, onions, and garlic from the last farmshare of the year, penne/tomato sauce from Costco (I have 20 lbs of various pastas). I'll get roasted brussel sprouts (farmshare), he'll get green beans (frozen from summer), we'll split some huge huge honeycrisps in the fridge, and snack on odds and ends of dried fruit, nuts, crackers, and cheese. I just ate lunch, and it was really good, with cold brew tea from the approximately 1 million tea bags in the pantry. We don't mind eating the same thing all week.

For dinners, I've got a rough plan:

- Pasta with sausage and chard, chard from farmshare, sausage from freezer. We'll eat it with the last of the salad greens and cherry tomatoes.

- Blackened salmon (from parents' trip to Sams Club), rice, something with the big pack of baby cucs in the fridge

- Red thai chicken curry over rice, probably more cucs, everything is either in freezer or pantry

- Roasted shrimp and broccoli, broccoli is languishing in the fridge, giant bag of shrimp in freezer

Into next week:

- Asian slaw, chicken boobs marinated in the dressing and cut into strips, and Korean cucs (recipe from my Korean cube-mate), to use up farmshare cabbage, and more of the cucs (I might buy green onions, since both recipes use them)

- Steaks(freezer), gratin dauphinoise (I would need cream, but this would use up a bag of potatoes, turnips, onions, and thyme in one delicius package)

- Turkey soup using smoked turkey stock, frozen veggies, and frozen chopped turkey

- Curried turkey salad (I would need mayo, since I'm almost out).

I did have to buy orange juice, because it would be really ugly in the mornings around here without it, and bananas for DBF's smoothies, since otherwise he'll buy breakfast from a gas station, but that was it this week. Unless we run out of olive oil. Which would constitute an emergency, right? I'm wondering how the stuff we buy on an as-needed basis fits into this challenge. Stuff like orange juice, olive oil, peanut butter, milk... stuff that is completely consumed and then replaced, but not stockpiled.

And, any idea what to do with celeriac, a whole grain torpedo shaped loaf of bread from Bouchon Bakery (found in the bottom of the freezer), 1# ground lamb, a bunch of tiny little lamb chops, a bag of bread ends, tons of flavored brats (no grilling in the winter), or leg of lamb ends?

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