Menu Plan Monday & Pantry Challenge Update

I can’t believe we’re already entering the last week of January. This month has flown by!

This past week, we had a lot of fun with the pantry challenge. I resolved last night that I may need to stay committed to this through February in some regards. We have SOOOO much food still.

Here was my pantry 2 weeks ago:

I did get a chance this week to reorganize my pantry, and take an inventory of what I had.

Here is our pantry now:

You can see that there is no food left on the top shelf, and the bottom shelf is very sparse. This makes me happy to see this, especially when I really feel like I’m not getting anywhere! I hope that this week, I can put an even bigger dent in our pantry.

I don’t plan on making a grocery trip, except to get some more sprouted bread and eggs.

The highlight from this last week was the Southwest Bean & Seed Burgers. These were incredible! Mark and I both agreed that they will be going on my top 21 meals list. The only down side to this meal is that from start to finish (including clean up throughout), it took me an hour and a half to get everything on the table. On the other hand, taking the time while the burgers were in the oven to clean up saved us from clean up time afterward. Therefore, I think it really evened itself out. Plus, they were so delicious that I didn’t mind the time spent on them.

I also made some Lemon Cupcakes from a Duncan Hines Cake Mix that was about to go bad. I made lemon icing for them, and sprinkled walnuts on top. Although they weren’t very healthy, and I won’t ever make them like that again due to all the processed items in the mix … we LOVED these. I am now on a quest to figure out how to make these “more healthy.”

I’ll try to do better about taking pictures of foods, but my camera battery was dead every time I went to take a picture. It’s charged and ready for use now though! 🙂

Here is our plan for this week:

Breakfasts: Oatmeal & Fruit x 2, Blueberry Waffles & Fruit x 2, Eggs w/ Toast & Fruit, Cereal w/ Toast & Fruit

Lunch: Pea Soup w/ Salad, Roast Beef Sandwiches & chips, Almond Butter & Jelly w/ fruit & chips, Leftovers x 2

Dinner:

Monday: Fish w/ Goat cheese, salad, sweet potatoes
Tuesday: Saucy Baked Pork Chops w/ sweet potatoes & brown rice
Wednesday: Bruschetta Chicken, carrots, potatoes
Thursday: Leftovers or Meatless Chili w/ spaghetti & cornbread muffins
Friday: Date Night – dinner out
Saturday: Roasted Pork loin w/ wild rice & sweet potatoes
Sunday: Leftovers