Deb from Frugal Living And Having Fun has a great idea for eating from the stockpile!
Pantry Surprise – Eating From The Stockpile
Every week when I plan my Weekly Menus On Monday I plan on at least one day for, “Pantry Surprise”. What is Pantry Surprise you may ask…well “Let Me Tell You How” Pantry Surprise works in our home.
As you may already know, I love to stockpile food when I can pick items up for free or pennies on the dollar. So you can imagine that there is a need for rotating, and using the stock we have on hand to prevent food from going to waste. So once a week we have a meal called, “Pantry Surprise”.
This is a meal that is planned, prepared, cooked, and cleaned up by all three of my girls! I get the night off to work on my blog! “smile” They LOVE it. It gives them a chance to “play” mom in the kitchen for a day. They actually look forward to doing all the work, because it seems like fun more than work to them.
The only criteria I have is NO ingredients can be bought that day to make it, (It all has to come from our pantry stockpile). The meal needs to include a vegetable and olive oil has to be used if oil is called for. The rest is up to their imagination. Cook books can be used, or they can make it up off the top of their head. It has to be a complete group effort on all their parts.
The first thing they do is wash their hands, and put on their aprons!! “cute” Then they take a reusable shopping bag into the “stock pile”/Freezer area to pick their ingredients. Of course you hear a lot of giggling going on down there!! Today, my youngest daughter was overheard saying, “This is ‘Frugal Living And Eating Fun’ as she giggled”!! “smile” I thought that was so cute.
Then they are ready for their master pieces. We always talk about how much the meal came to as well, and try to get it down to $5.00 or less for the whole meal, which usually ends up feeding all of us and then some left overs for my husband to take to work, or for the girls and I to have for lunch the next day.
The meals are not on the top “10″ list for nutritious, but range from being nutritious to somewhat nutritious. Never really bad, because I try and watch what I buy and keep in my stock pile. As we say here at Frugal Living And Having Fun, “It’s Better Than Fast Food”…and that it is!! It is also a meal that they can handle. However, they are getting pretty good at several kitchen/cooking task. Today, my youngest peeled a 5lb bag of potatoes!!
It is so nice to be able to teach my girls the value of using coupons and buying “KEY” ingredients, at rock bottom prices, that can be utilized in many different recipes. All three of my girls say they are going to use coupons when they get married! Well…my youngest thinks I’m going to do the shopping for her…! We’ll see about that one…”smile”
All in all everyone is enjoying the activity. I get a night off of cooking, it adds variety to the weekly menu, we are keeping within our weekly food budget of $75.00 a week, and the girls are learning a multitude of homemaking skills. I guess it does not get better than that!
So this evening my husband worked late because he tutored a student at school. Therefore I swapped my Monday Menu with my Wednesday Menu to give the girls plenty of time to make their “Pantry Surprise”. Here is what they came up with tonight as an example. Now I know it is a little heavy on the carbs, but as I say, “It’s better than fast food”!!
Casserole:
1lb of cooked chicken $1.88 lb
1/2 cup cheese $1.00 for the whole bag $ .50
1 bag Green Giant Steamers $ .99 (FREE with a $.50 coupon that doubled) FREE
Wild Rice (FREE with a $ .75 coupon that doubled) FREE
Dried Onion left over from a can I used in previous recipe $2.00 (Only used 1/4 cup) $ .50
1 cup chicken gravy *practically nothing to make.
(2) Corn Bread from a mix $ .50 each $1.00
Mashed Potatoes with Sour Cream:
Potatoes FREE with purchase of Roast last week. FREE
Sour Cream $ .50/ oz. when used a $ .50 doubled on a $1.50 sale $.50
Total they came up with $4.38 (Fed all five of us, plus a lot of leftovers)
The meal was excellent!!
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Deb is the author of Frugal Living And Having Fun, a website that helps families live more simply and save money on the basics.
