Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Eating from the pantry menu


I am still having fun with my eating from the pantry challenge. We have been able to use up some stuff that has been hanging around for a while and freezers and shelves are looking a little roomier.

 We have also been as a general rule eating pretty yummy and healthy food. I am happy with this experiement. We actually still have a lot of food around so I think February will be another month of trying to not buy very much but rather do a lot of eating of what we do have.

I had hoped to share actual dollar amounts today but I don't know where Ken has the reciepts right now and he is busy so I will try to add that up and share it later. I am pretty sure I have done fine with my goals.

One of our favorite meals from last week was a Mongolian recipe that we tried.

It is called Buuz. (I wasn't sure how to pronounce it so I said it the same as Booze, it made for some interesting conversations.) It is a steamed dumpling.


At the same meal we tried their special tea with milk. They also add salt. We weren't so sure about the salt part but we liked it with honey and spices (more like chai tea).

 I shared some of my other cooking from last week in my post about Pumpkin. Another of our successes in using up something was I used up a bear steak that had been given to us. I grew up eating all sorts of meat (goat was normal, we also ate duck, goose, pheasant, guiney, quail and squirrel) so eating bear shouldn't have been any big deal and eating bear burger wasn't, I have done that several times, but I had heard bad reports about Bear steak and so wasn't to excited about using it. I soaked it in vinager overnight (It helps tenderize wild game- it works good with venison) and then mixed it with some beef steak and made "Mongolian" BBQ. It worked fine. Ken really liked the meat.

Here is our menu for this week:

Monday:
Breakfast: Pancakes
Supper: Bean soup, cornbread and jello with lots of raspberries in it.

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Mince Nut bread. (I have a bunch of our home canned mince pie filling so I thought I would try this.)
Supper: Fried liver, potato wedges, coleslaw and peas,

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Hashbrown Casserole and applesauce.
Supper: Meatball Soup, garlic bread and fruit.

Thursday:
Breakfast: Baked Egg Puffs and prunes.
Supper: Mara is cooking Spaghetti and Fruit salad.

Friday:
Breakfast: Fried Eggs, Toast and Fruit.
Supper: Chicken, Baked potatoes and broccoli.

Saturday:
Breakfast: Coffe cake, cheese and Oranges.
Supper:  Goat broth gravy on brown rice and green beans.


What was your favorite meal from last week? I would love to hear, it might give me some ideas for future menus!

This is linked to Money Saving Mom.

9 comments:

Nola said...

Our current favourite is homemade pizza, but made with a baking powder crust and spelt flour. We've been making extra small pizzas along with it so that we have them left over for Sunday lunch. We also just found a new cookbook "Wow this is Sugarfree" which has tons of good ideas and easy recipes, and we are finding many good new ones there. A chicken rice and lentil rice casserole, made with chicken broth, are two new favourites.

tani said...

My favorite meal last week was chicken tortilla soup. Very easy and very adaptable to whatever you might want to experiment with throwing in. =) Also very yummy!!! Sounds like you are having fun with your pantry experiment. I enjoy following along.

Maria said...

My favorite meal last week was a pasta dish that my husband whipped up with leftovers...pasta with marinara sauce, Swiss chard and three bean salad - sounds weird, but he threw it all in a pan, added more sauce and cheese and it was delicious...

We did the pantry challenge in November and December and it was a cleansing experience. It was nice to have space in the refrigerator, freezer and on the shelves!

Anonymous said...

Seems like you are doing great on this challenge. That Buuz sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Anna said...

Is Ken not home on Monday night? :)I have no idea what I ate last week, well actually I really enjoyed the crepe recipe I made. I used only whole wheat flour and served them with blackberry sauce. Yummy. When we go to Mongolia later this year I really want to try the Buuz recipe. It looks good.I made dumplings with Song once and they remind me of hers. If they weren't so time consuming I would do them again.

Unknown said...

Wow. I didn't even know you could get bear meat. Apparently you don't have many picky eaters at your house? My son throws up when he eats potatoes, it would be fun to see what would happen if I gave him Goat broth gravy. Awesome. Good job cooking all the food in your house, it makes for an interesting post.

Margo said...

I'd love the recipe for Buuz!

My favorite thing from last week was apple-lentil salad - it's curried and sounds strange, but it's amazingly delicious.

Abbi said...

Thanks everybody for sharing ideas! It has been fun to read them.

Joann, The menu has been a bit more interesting lately as I have been trying to use up. The bear meat came from a hunting friend. We had eaten bear burger before but had heard some "horror" stories about the taste of bear steak so I had been rather reluctant to use it. I worked hard to season up and it went over fine. Goat meat is a normal accurance at our house as my parents raise them. Liver is another of those trying to use up what we have. We bought 1/2 a beef this year and when they asked me if I wanted the liver and decided I should take it since I had read that it was good for you. I got kind of grossed out cooking it but we actually didn't mind eating it.

We do try to avoid pickiness here as much as we can.

Anna, you are right that Ken wasn't home on Monday which is how I got away with bean soup. He ended up not being home for supper on Tues. either so got to miss out on the liver. :-) Mom, Dad, Luke and Keren came over to enjoy it with us though.

Margo, I linked to the Buuz recipe in this post: http://proverbs31living.blogspot.com/2010/01/eating-from-pantry.html

Unknown said...

well, my hat is off to you. I can barely cook chicken. I can't imagine what I would do to a bear.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin