Pantry Challenge Week 1 Wrap up!

Week 1 of the pantry challenge has ended and was a huge success. I only spent about $60 on groceries which is AMAZING! Ten dollars of that was probably on milk (my kids love the stuff) and twenty five dollars was spent on coffee. You might be thinking...WHAT!? $25 on coffee?? But we *love* our coffee. We got an espresso machine for Christmas so we have been making all sorts of yummy lattes. We bought some good espresso beans and a HUGE can of Tim Horton's coffee for the coffee pot. Saves me from making multiple trips a day to timmy's!! The remaining amount was spent on fresh vegetables and a few ingredients needed for meals.

On Friday I had written down that we were going to have leftovers but we ended up eating them all for lunches so instead the kids had grilled cheese (a favorite) and Greg and I had appetizers. We had loads of frozen appy's left in the freezer from new years.

On Saturday we were very busy running errands (on a day where we got hammered with snow, up to our knees!) so we had lunch out at the mall. This was our only meal that wasn't cooked at home this week.
For dinner that night I picked up a roast chicken at the deli and we had it with some rice and nice organic salad.

On Sunday we spent the day cleaning and making snow forts.

Greg made crepes for breakfast. We had crepes filled with berries, apples and cinnamon and my personal favorite, nutella and banana.Top that off with a soy latte and it was a pretty perfect start to a snowy Sunday morning. For lunch I made one of our favorites, Tuna Cakes. I will try to post this recipe in a separate post if I have time. For dinner Greg cooked his signature meal, breaded pork chops, his gourmet potatoes and corn. It is becoming somewhat of a Sunday tradition!

So here we are on Week 2 of the pantry challenge. I don't have my meal plan done yet, I am still waiting for inspiration to strike, but I did make a delicious pot pie for dinner tonight to use up the leftover roast chicken as well as the vegetables I had on hand. I am finding that this pantry challenge is really helping me create more meals without a recipe. I have been relying more on my cooking sense and tasting what I am creating and it has been turning out wonderfully.

Dairy Free Chicken Pot Pie

3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup diced carrots
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add your diced carrots (I had some organic baby carrots that were going to go bad soon so I just sliced them up.) and garlic with some salt and pepper to season and cook for 3 to 5 minutes.

1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup white wine
1 3/4 cup chicken stock
2 potatoes peeled and diced
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen corn
Dash of Thyme

Sprinkle the flour over the carrots, scraping up all the brown bits in the pan. Then add the wine and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and add the rest of the vegetables and the thyme. Let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes until it begins to thicken and the potatoes start to soften.

Then pour into a casserole pan. Cover with your favorite pastry crust. Bake at 400 for about 40 minutes .

 

 

It smelled SO good we couldn't wait to eat it! Everybody loved it, what a perfect winter meal.