Clear out your pantry

What a great idea!

Susan Sabo of Productivity Cafe shares a great method for eating what you have and clearing out (or at least whittling down) all the stuff in your pantry.

From Susan's blog entry:

Here are the guidelines:

1. You start a menu with something that you have on hand. Let's say it's a can of chick peas, potatoes, rice, onions, frozen green beans, chutney, bananas that are starting to turn brown and frozen chicken breast.
   
2. You decide to make a dish or menu using those items. Let's say chicken curry with the items above.
   
3. Put the extra ingredients you need to make the dish on your shopping list. Let's say you need diced tomatoes to finish the ingredient list.
   
4. You purchase that item when you grocery shop for perishables like milk and fresh fruit.
   
5. You make the curry and use all those things out of your stores. And, let's say you savor every bite!
   

Go to the top and start at 1. Again with another pantry item.

Use a great recipe site like RecipeZaar.com to help you search for recipes based on ingredients.

While my pantry could use a fair amount of whittling, I try to reduce what I buy to the absolute necessities by planning meals out in advance.  I actually created a Meals calendar as one of my Google Calendars, and I share it with my husband and son.  We plan menus together, Eric and I shop for the ingredients and all three of us take turns on preparing the meals, such as this lovely cheese omelet, made by Ben.