Reddit food challenge week one, erm, I mean week two

So if you remember Kerry and I were nuts enough to agree amongst ourselves to follow reddit's 52 week food challenge this year to try and expand our horizons.  Well, Kerry is very excited and I am nuts to agree to do this due to a few things.  I am a very picky person food wise.  I do not venture far from my favorites.  When I go to a restaurant I usually can only find one or two entrees that sound good to me on the whole menu.  I'm the only one in the family like this, I've taken great pains to make sure the boys try all sorts of foods.

Nothing makes me happier to see that week two's challenge (our week one) is Chinese food.  That is one type of food that I really do enjoy.  I just happened to have cold rice in the fridge Tuesday night.  I threw that in a pan with a little oil, two eggs, red pepper, bacon and soy sauce and fried it all together.  It took under 15 minutes and the husband and kids thought it was a great meal.

Next week's challenge is soup, which I love, love, love to make.  Plus since it's 20 degrees out it's perfect soup weather finally!

- Bannon

Pantry Challenge Update #1

by Bannon

If you recall I'm trying to stick to a strict $50 a week food/household items budget until October 1st, you can read my first post here.  I am now eleven days into this experiment and have done pretty good making do with the food already in the house.

My first week highlights:

• Spent $5.18 on two gallons of milk.  I'm not surprised that I only spent this because I had done a fairly large shopping trip a few days before I started this so we were already pretty set in terms of food.

• I stuck to my meal plan every night except for Thursday when I was too tired to defrost some chicken so the kids had pizza.  I do need to be more on the ball when it comes to setting meats out and prepping for dinner in advance.

This week is already half gone and I'm now getting my meal plan up.  I think that with it being Labor Day week it throws everything off.

Meal Plan week of  9/4/11

Sunday - out to dinner (with a Groupon)

Monday - brats and turkey burgers, potatoes and onions on the grill and green beans

Tuesday -  fish stix, green beans and peaches

Wednesday - chicken noodle soup and cornbread

Thursday -  hot dogs, mac and cheese, vegetable

Friday - pizza and salad for the kids, we will have dinner at a friend's house

Saturday - cold sandwiches and chips (won't be eating at home)

 

 

A Second Post on Sunday!

I had a realization Friday that my house has a lot of food in it.  I went down to the freezer to put a few things in it and saw that it was bursting at the seams.  It almost didn't shut.  This is the first time in eleven years that I have had no more room for food in there.  The fridge's freezer is the same, completely full of food.  So I've decided I'm going to have a pantry challenge.  

The rules for myself are simple.  The weekly budget for the next five weeks will be $50.  I am trying to be realistic here by giving myself that much.  The price of groceries is increasing rapidly and it's outrageous how much some things cost now.  That $50 will cover fresh fruits, vegetables and other staples like milk and bread.  My goal is that I will reinforce this by reporting here on the blog what I spend, making me accountable to all of you.  (The one thing I'm not including in the weekly total is my Costco membership which will be coming up for renewal the next time I go there.  If I post my receipts then that will show up.)

When it comes to eating out I plan on using the variety of restaurant coupons that I have from the various daily deal sites, Restaurant.com and the birthday coupons I've started getting in my email.  I hope to only eat out once a week for dinner and not spend more than $15 for what remains of the bill after the discount.

I'm also going to meal plan weekly.  One of my awesome friends has shared the meal plan sheet she made for herself with me and I'm going to try really hard to stick to planning and following through on my menus.

The goal is to see how far I can go until October 1st with this plan.  Right now it seems so easy but I know as the freezer and my stockpile start getting lower it's going to get harder to do.

Meal Plan Week of 8/28

Sunday - chicken wings, baked potato and green beans

Monday - grilled cheese with tomato soup and green beans

Tuesday - pasta and sauce with fruit and salad

Wednesday - fish sticks, with veg and fruit

Thursday - teriyaki chicken, rice and veg

Friday - leftovers

Saturday - pizza for the kids, birthday dinner out for dh and I

• B