Being off work together as a family – makes it feel like a holiday weekend (although maybe it’s more like Groundhog Day). It the spirit of trying to make things fun, we decided to pretend it was Christmas. We turned on the Christmas music, had the turkey thawed and ready to go, and we even got a little snow and had to turn on the fireplace!

So we’re still trying to use up the “back pantry” items, a few of which are long past their prime and probably should have been thrown out a while ago. I’m not recommending using “expired” ingredients – but I am also not afraid of things that are past their “best by” date provided they are not perishable or damaged. We’ve definitely noticed that by being thoughtful about using what we have and trying to avoid the store that our grocery bills and our weekly trash production are way down.

My late father-in-law and grandmother were children of the Great Depression and never threw ANYTHING away, expired or otherwise. John, my father-in-law, had an extensive collection of expired canned foods, condiments and unrecognizable leftovers that my family cleaned out of his apartment after his passing. Inspired by them, we used what we had to make a holiday-style dinner. We also used my Granny’s dressing recipe, which always makes me think of how resourceful and pragmatic she was. It is measured in soup cans rather than cups (see the separately posted recipe) and everything she made was from scratch, often without a recipe or formal measurements.

With no extended family to share in the bounty, we had a whole week’s worth of food (see the follow up post) that I am also proud to say was completely consumed – nothing wasted or thrown away at the end of the week!

I am so impressed by my friends whose creativity and cultural diversity inspire a much broader range of pantry successes than I could imagine. Here are a few shout outs from the last two weeks…

Jasmine & Seth…

Tony and Amanda…

Susan and Chris…

And from our house…

The best part of a turkey dinner is the leftovers, right? Well, without the extended family to share in the big meal, there’s a lot more leftovers. So after three courses of turkey dinner and several rounds of sandwiches, it was starting to feel like Groundhog Day rather than Thanksgiving or Christmas. So we had to think of more creative things to do with our turkey leftovers…

After finishing the green beans, we used the leftover Hollandaise on poached eggs at breakfast for the next two days. After running out of sandwich-worthy turkey, we took the smaller bits and combined them with carrots, onions & celery bits with a frozen pie crust and made a savory turkey pie…

Final product with a side of au gratin potatoes (thanks to Hungary Jack!)…

Day 4 – Turkey and chicken tacos for lunch (not pictured), followed by turkey and chicken Caesar salad for dinner. We added some frozen spinach and filo to create “spanikopita” style pockets for a change of pace. We didn’t have any feta cheese, so we just used some diced onions, cream cheese and shredded cheese, added 1/2 a can of artichoke hearts (we threw the rest in the salad) and made a filling which we wrapped in some thawed filo and brushed with some butter…

By day five, the family was begging for something other than turkey. So we used the instant pot to turn the bones and remaining bits into turkey broth/soup base and froze it, anticipating a return to turkey in a few days. We made a big lasagne (turkey free!) and ate that for a two days before thawing the soup base for the last hurrah of turkey dinner…

Our 8 year old proposed that I teach her to cook as part of our challenge. My husband agreed that this was a great idea – for ALL our kids. He is now a good cook, but he started off behind the curve, having graduated college without ever learning to make spaghetti or use an oven. So moving forward, we assigned each child a night every week that he/she is responsible for dinner. That includes creating a menu, preparing the meal and cleaning as you go (also a key skill). Our youngest went first and used the last bits of turkey in the fridge and some supplemental chicken to make taco salads (not pictured). Our eldest took the next night. I reminded her that she had to use what we had – no grocery run – and suggested looking at our family recipe book which often has some favorites with less ingredients (many of which can be substituted). I also was really pushing the turkey soup base as a main ingredient…

What she picked was a recipe from my childhood that I haven’t made in years – Beer Cheese Soup and Beer Bread. We had three beers left in the fridge, enough for the soup and two loaves of bread. We added the ingredients to the soup base, including leftover veggies from the turkey pie, substituted canned cheddar soup for Cheese Whiz, finished off some Velveeta from the back of the fridge and supplemented with some extra shredded cheese (to make up for the shortage of Velveeta). My daughter repeatedly exiled me from the kitchen every time I tried to wander in and help. She did a terrific job and made a fantastic meal…

We’ve now had two rounds of soup, so I’m getting ready to freeze the rest (probably two more meals) and have moved on to holiday ham (Happy Easter!). We normally have a huge Easter brunch with our family and friends, so this year is definitely strange. We bought the ham, because you can only buy 2 meat items (and a ham seemed smart/economical), and cooking the ham for Easter felt festive/sentimental. But after cooking it in my pajamas today, and not having any company to eat it, I realized a few things: 1. That is a lot of ham. 2. I think our guests usually eat most of the ham. 3. I don’t really like ham that much, and that is A LOT of ham…

I do like having little mini-tubs of diced ham in the freezer to add to eggs, quiches, soups and of course our favorite family breakfast recipe, “Ramones” (named after my Granny K, Ramona, who always made them). Simple, cheap, delicious, filling: Ramen noodles sauteed with diced onion, peppers, ham and topped with poached eggs and cheese. One of my former colleagues renamed them “Ramen Surprise” (which is now what my kids call them). During breakfast, he suddenly turned his fork over and commented, “Wait a minute, is this ramen noodles? I thought it was potatoes, but it’s Ramen… SURPRISE!”

So I’m already scheming on what to make with ham this week. I guess we’ll see… Happy Easter everyone!

Here’s some successful(?) mashups from this past week of the Covid pantry challenge. Got some basic groceries yesterday (finally), so we should be better able to transform the pantry items into edible dinners this coming week.

We also had a couple “okay” dinners – my kids keep repeating AT&T’s “Okay is NOT okay” commercials, but everything was edible/eaten…

We have a Frozen turkey saved from the holidays has been defrosting all week. Stay tuned for turkey and dressing (my Granny’s depression-era recipe)… now we have onions, carrots and apples again, so it will be almost like Christmas!

In taking stock of things in our pantry, I found some items that I was not very excited about, but knew we needed to use, among them 3 jars of pickles, and 4 boxes of cake mix. I personally prefer the refrigerated pickles, so these have been in there for a while. My sister suggested maybe I could use the cake mix to batter and fry the pickles. Great idea! Except after tasting the cake mix, I realized the cake mix was way too sweet to work. Also, we’re short on eggs, so I figured the cake mix would have to sit out this round.

However, I did have some cheap beer in the fridge (that I bought for some slug traps in the garden), and thought — beer-batter! Although it was not my most creative meal, one of the things that made it more fun and enjoyable was having a cooking party with friends (through online video chat)! We each got a glass of wine or cocktail, said a toast to good health and good friends, and then cooked. I highly recommend online meetings with friends (it works for cooking, exercise, family “gathering”) and certainly makes you feel connected…

All of us had great success with our dinners and we were also able to engage our families (and teenage cooks) in the process. Everyone agreed that their dinners turned out better than they expected and they would make them again.

My beer batter was light and airy, and the fried pickles were almost as good as I’ve had at our favorite beer garden (again, I think refrigerated pickles would be an upgrade). I ended up with more batter than I needed, so we found some frozen cod in the freezer and defrosted and fried it up too. Not the healthiest dinner I’ve ever made, although honestly I can’t actually remember the last time I fried anything. I would give it 4 stars (the family said 5)…

Here are the photos:

---

My mother’s fried pickles are one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I also really like them with ranch dressing!

– Comment from my 8-year old

---

Here are some additional submissions from yesterday. Keep them coming people! So inspiring!

Now that the challenge is underway there are already some winning recipes. I have been asked to post the recipes (starting with tomato soup). I will add a few interesting observations for the last week as well…

First, our family feels like our food seems fresher and more thought-out (even though we’re not using very fresh ingredients). And the meals have been delicious!

Second, we’re saving a lot of money! We’re not throwing out food; we’re eating all our leftovers; and we’re being more thoughtful about how we use what we have.

Third, my kids eat A LOT! I’m not sure I realized how much they ate until we started rationing things (not severely, but bread and pasta being very limited, we’re trying to use other fillers that normally I don’t pay attention to, e.g., 1 slice of bread per person).

Forth, we’re very blessed. I don’t have picky eaters in my household (actually, if anything my crew are “foodies” and like a wide range of flavors and ethnic foods) and we have a small herb garden with some fresh basil, parsley, chives and dill readily available (although we’ve been burning through it this week). We also have a lot of “luxury” ingredients that many families may not have in the pantry. Mostly, I’m referring to our condiment collection – things like “chili crunch”, fancy Japanese jams and dip mixes that were given to us as Christmas gifts…

I suspect other pantries have more basic items, which we also have…

Nonetheless, most of what we’re making is simple enough that it could be made on a limited budget with very basic items and may be enhanced by the “luxury” condiments, but doesn’t have to be.

So… on that note (and feel free to modify based on what you have), a very basic, cheap, easy, and delicious success…

Tomato Soup – COVID-19 Pantry style

Ingredients (again, whatever you have, taste as you go, adjust as needed, I highly recommend tasting as you go):

• 1 bottle 64 oz. tomato juice (or V8 or similar)
• 1 large can (or 2-3 small cans) of tomatoes (can blend in blender if not already crushed)
• 1 can of condensed milk
• 1 cup of water (or none, depending on your taste)
• 1 cube of bullion (chicken or vegetable or similar)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 small onion, pureed
• Herbs of your choice – we had 3 Tbsp of chopped fresh basil and 2 Tbsp of parsley
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil for cooking onion/garlic

1. Blend onion and garlic in blender until very fine/pasty. Saute on medium in 1-2 Tbsp olive oil until soft/aromatic. If you are using dried onion/garlic you can skip this step.
2. In a soup pot, add all ingredients. Cook until hot.
3. Serve. (That’s really it.)

Suggestions on how to modify:

• Feel free to and any pasta sauce that might be in your fridge (or not), it will thicken and season your soup.
• If your soup is watery, you can add 1/2 or full can of tomato past (3-6oz)
• Can substitute 2c. of milk for condensed milk and water
• Can substitute or 1/2 c. cream for condensed milk, if you have available
• Can substitute broth for the bullion and water
• Use dried herbs instead of fresh (I would recommend Italian seasoning, 1-2 tsp)
• Use dried onion and/or garlic to your taste
• Add a sprinkle of parmesan cheese
• It’s yours – make it work for you!

Ours was a great success. Everyone gave it 5 stars! We served with toasted leftover hamburger buns and bread slices with butter. ENJOY!

Goal: Use only what is in your pantry or fridge to create an interesting (and hopefully edible) meal.
Points for unusual items, presentation, and success (based on your perception of tastiness). Pictures with your creation, ingredients and commentary encouraged – add to the facebook page @pantryofcreativity or email to pantryofcreativity@gmail.com. There is no prize (per-se), but we will repost select entries here as the competition and entries increase… please feel free to spread the word/share the challenge.

You may make “comments” below. Unfortunately this format does not appear to allow pictures with comments.

---

I will start, but I can’t take credit for inventing this one.. beef roast in crock pot with a jar of banana peppers and a jar of deli-sliced red pepper strips (juices included). Out of buns but found a challah loaf in the freezer – made toast (only 1 slice per person!) and created open-faced sandwiches (with a little sriracha mayo). Should’ve taken a pict, but was stressed about getting meal done and work closed out (and hadn’t even contemplated that this would turn into a blog!).

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---