Pantry challenge week 1

On Saturday I went through our pantry and cleaned it out.  I pulled out anything that had been there for a while, had been purchased for a specific recipe (and then not used), open packages, near the expiration date, or just something I didn't think we'd get to unless given a good push.

Much of this accumulated during "morning" sickness and the holidays.  We've only been in this house for about 6 months, so I didn't find anything too surprising or old....this time.

The freezer contained a bunch of open bags of frozen fruit and veggies, a roast, a couple of bags of frozen soup, boxes of Trader Joes pastries....random stuff like the pantry stash.

I made up a rough meal plan for the next week or so.  I'll have to go to the store next week for a certain birthday girl's meal requests, but that's it.  No $$$ being spent this week on food!

Here's the general plan for this week, along with using the fresh fruits and veggies we already had hin the house.

Breakfast
1)Finish off all of the open cereal and granola I found in the pantry.
2)Use up some of the instant oatmeal packets we have too much of...they are generally reserved for hubby's breakfast, but I bought too many when they were on sale.
3)TJ's pastries one morning
4)Banana pancakes- these are just made using frozen bananas and eggs (we generally add cinnamon too).

Lunch
1)Baked potatoes/sweet potatoes
2)crackers, PB, cheese, salami, veggies, fruit
3)spiced cider, quick breads, veggies etc

Dinner- I didn't need to get very creative here since we had some meals in the freezer that needed to be used.
1)Left overs from a large Ham dinner that we made on Sunday.  This will end up being a couple of meals for us this week.
2)Tuscan soup
3)Teriyaki salmon, veggies, and rice
4)Oxtail stew- We recently bought 1/2 a cow.  I'm using the Oxtail now knowing that its a part we normally would not use.  We shall see....

Next week I'll likely get more creative, if my pregnant brain can manage that.  Having all of the "extras" that I want to use collected in one place and out for others to see means that some of the kids have been contributing their own ideas and are finding things they are looking forward to eating.

What about you?  How's your menu looking?  In what ways are you getting creative?  Do share!