menu plan monday ~ pantry challenge month

As I mentioned in my last post, our grocery store had a case sale last week. Holy cans, Batman! Greg went the first day for me to make sure everything we wanted was in stock.

With bringing home all of that goodness, the pantry needed a little overhaul. Some people have been getting lazy with putting things away neatly. Although we have lots of shelf space, the design of the pantry is less than ideal. On either side we have these wings that are hard to get to and make storage difficult.

After a few hours of cleaning, reorganizing, and stocking the shelves, the pantry is looking mighty fine.

I found some really old stuff in "the abyss" that needed to see its way to the trash can. Didn't I clean out the pantry just recently? Maybe it's been a few years while.

All of the case sale haul did not fit in the pantry ~ but I had a plan. This summer we knocked out the back wall of the closet under the stairs. Perfect for storing extra pantry supplies.

So, how are we doing with our pantry challenge? Let's review.

1. Use up items from the pantry & freezer. We are doing pretty good. For example, last week I found a bottle of mandarin sauce that needed to be used up soon. I forgot I even bought that! We had mandarin chicken over rice (and broccoli for three of us) and my family deemed it just as good as Panda Express. Hmmm, maybe because the sauce was the Panda Express brand.

2. Stock the pantry. Accomplished! I will be keeping my eye out for good stock up prices still, of course.

3. Save money. Yes and no. The stock up part was pricey (we'll talk about that another day). But as far as weekly shopping, we have been under budget so far, even with the midweek trip I had to make to get a few things for my grade level lunch last Friday.

Last week's menu plan was the same as the week before (the previous post) because I ended up making random things for dinner the first week. Now we have a fresh set of items for the plan:

• chicken & stuffing bake
• swedish meatballs
• quesadillas & corn salad
• bbq chicken pizza
• tortilla soup
• slow cook turkey chowder (new)

Linking up to Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday and Good Cheap Eats for the Pantry Challenge.