Pantry Challenge: Week 1 Update

Week 1 of the Pantry Challenge was (mostly) successful! I posted my goals & menu plan earlier in the week so that I would have some guidelines to follow.
 

Shopping

One of the guidelines of my challenge was to spend $20 or less each week. Unfortunately I went a wee bit over spending $21.43 between shopping trips to Kroger ($1.98 OOP), CVS ($0 OOP) and Dollar General Market ($19.45).  I didn't get a picture of the DG trip but it was mostly produce and a couple of markdowns I found.

Menu

The menu plan took a little creative twist on Wednesday.  DH was supposed to make sloppy joes but upon checking the cabinet the Manwich I thought was there wasn't so I quickly turned to Google searching for a simple "homemade" recipe. He already had browned the hamburger so anything that called for cooking onions or peppers with the meat was ruled out.  In the end I combined a few recipes adding a little of this & that.   Our sloppy joes turned out good - not the same as Manwich - but tasty enough to take the leftovers for lunch the next day.

We also had guests over on Friday night for dinner (chicken pot pie, salad, cheesecake squares) proving that a Pantry Challenge can be fun!



Organize

• Organize fridge/freezer upstairs DONE!
• As you can see from the picture above (should have taken a "before" shot!) I organized & inventoried the freezer upstairs.  I found a few mystery dishes in there that got trashed along with a few things that were waaaaay in the back like a bag of frozen blueberries and enchilada sauce.
• Organize freezer downstairs WORK IN PROGRESS! 
• I am still working on this one so it will be back on the list for next week.
• Organize kitchen cabinets  WORK IN PROGRESS!
•  I am still working on this one so it will be back on the list for next week.
• Plan & make breakfast each morning (I always forget to bring breakfast to work!) DONE!
• I managed to have breakfast every day this week even if it wasn't your typical "breakfast" fare since I had leftover scalloped potatoes one morning. ;-)

All in all week 1 went really well!  Tomorrow I'll share our menu plan & goals for Week 2.

Until then share your progress with me! How did your week go?


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