Pantry Freezer challenge

I am a huge believer in a well stocked pantry and freezer. It's amazing to be able to come home with just some chicken and milk from the store and be able to whip up a great dinner. With a can of tomatoes you can go Mexican, Italian or Moroccan. You can make pasta in minutes.

Managing it, is another story.

I ran into this last night which I just picked up chicken and a couple of veggies for the kung pao chicken I planned for dinner. I was going to use up the rest of the veggies in the crisper and had brown rice to cook at home.

So, after cutting up the chicken, I opened the pantry door to discover I was dangerously low on soy sauce. So much so, I couldn't make the recipe. And no rice wine vinegar. How could I have fig balsamic and sherry but no rice? And brown rice, our rice of choice, nope- had about not even a half cup which would not be enough for the planned leftovers the next day. Luckily, I had a bottle of spicy stir fry sauce in the pantry so I used that instead. Enter the steam bag of frozen rice from the freezer. So, dinner went on as planned, and really who wants to back to the store when it's after 6pm?

I did a fair job of cleaning out the pantry & freezer before moving. But, I am a sucker for buying stuff on sale and clearance because I'll use it someday. I know a lot of it stems from those lean grad school days and under/unemployment days which are behind me. (Knock wood!) But in moving, I found out that I had a lot of duplicates- I mean who needs two huge containers of corn starch? Apparently I thought I did!

So, progress in cleaning out stuff? I used some leftover frozen turkey in the curry soup. The remaining of it is in the freezer (one step forward and, well) We have two more bags of turkey! I think a couple of casseroles may be in the mix or a batch of turkey noodle soup to send off to someone.

Mental Inventory

Frozen sweet corn- totally have to use that.

Roasted hatch chillies- tortilla soup- maybe with turkey? ;-)

Frozen cherries- yum

A slew of frozen meals.

Half open package of Morningstar Farms sausage crumbles

The cheeseball my Mom snuck home with me

Sloppy joes- may be my lunch tomorrow

Duck breast

Potstickers- may have these this week- with some asparagus-

Of course, this just scratches the surface!

And having this upcoming weekend off I was thinking about a couple of cooking projects to further stock my freezer- making chicken stock and bologonese sauce. Or maybe I should work around the house and eat black bean burgers for dinner and gain some more precious free cubic inches of freezer space. Hmmm....

One my things I will have to pay more attention to is the dreaded expiration dates. My baking plans around Christmas didn't work out- so had to end up ditching the heavy cream I bought. Ditto the overage of cottage cheese that we had. And since I bought yoplait yogurt on sale (5 for $2 at Dahls), I checked the dates and bought the one slated to die first with me for breakfast. I was really in the passion fruit mood- but had to settle for strawberry cheesecake- tough life. I did put my celery in one of those green bags that my Mom gave me- so we'll see how that works. I never ever use up a thing of celery. Ever. Too bad Mischa doesn't like celery.

Of course my Mom's freezer is infamous. My friend Jamie noted that once that lone package of eggrolls had been in there the entire time he'd known me. Years. So, Ma- up for the challenge?