Menu Plan Monday – A Peek Into My Pantry

That’s it. I’ve had it with my pantry. Every week I try to use more of what’s in it, and every week I seem to put more into it than I use out of it. Well today we declared war on the pantry. My sweet little seven-year-old helper and I emptied the pantry onto the kitchen counter. We left the baking supplies and small appliances on the bottom two shelves, and we didn’t move the paper products. (Those were in pretty good shape.) Here’s what we found:

Cornmeal that expired in January of 2011, 2 jars of unopened mayo that will expire in February (no way we’ll use both by then), a couple of bags of dried beans that I didn’t know were in there, expired cranberry sauce, more pasta sauce than I knew we had, and lots of other goodies were lurking there!

I tossed what needed tossed, pulled out a few things that were still good (but I knew we wouldn’t use) for the food pantry, and got busy taking stock and organizing what I had. Here’s what we have now:

Yes, those drawers pull out, and yes I adore them. Oh and YES that IS indeed empty space that you see behind my 1970s style Tupperware canisters. 😉 That’s what a wee bit of organization will get you!

I do have another cupboard where I stash things like pasta, wraps, taco shells, and all of my other baking supplies. It’s in pretty decent shape, so I left it out of this project. My objective here was to take stock of what I can use up this week as I menu plan. Now that I can actually see what I have, that just might be doable!

Oh by the way, one added bonus of today’s project is that I got to teach my daughter how to say Worcestershire sauce. Every seven-year-old should master that skill, right?

:: Dinners ::

Dump & Run Taco Soup – I’ll use kidney beans (because I found three cans in the pantry) and some tomatoes & corn from the pantry.

Chicken Parmesan (The Cheating Way) – I’m going to try just cooking chicken breasts in pasta sauce in my Crock Pot. We’ll see how that little experiment goes. I’m using up some pasta sauce and pasta for this one.

Easy Layered Mexican Pizza – I’ll be using up the stray bottle of taco sauce I found (and had no clue I even had!) and some wraps.

Sausage Fried Rice – Out goes some rice from the pantry! My family LOVED this last time I made it.

Pepperoni Rolls – This is not a pantry meal, but we’re having some friends over. We loved this last week, so I’d like to share it with our friends this week. The pantry will have to take one for the team on this night.

If you’re looking for some general menu planning inspiration, stop by Menu Plan Monday hosted by I’m an Organizing Junkie.