The Pantry and Freezer Challenge Week 2

Welcome to the Pantry and Freezer Challenge Week 2 update! Last week was a good week in our kitchen and I achieved a great deal, making two large batches each of two of our favourite meals I’d planned to cook so that we can use up some of the items in our pantry and freezer.

Once again for breakfast during the week, we had Melba toast mostly with homemade Marmalade. We are now 2 ½ packets down and while our breakfasts are normally not this monotonous we are trying to use up whatever we can from our pantry this month so we really didn’t mind! Over the weekend I whipped up one of our favourite and very quick, cheap and filling breakfast meals – baked beans with fried eggs on toast or polenta toast (you can find my recipe for Baked Beans & Eggs on Polenta Toast here) and I used up the 2 tins of baked beans in our pantry for this.

I made a very large pot of Bolognaise sauce for pasta and in this recipe I used up the 1.5 kg Mince Meat from the freezer as well as the butternut strips and baby marrow strips which we had. I also used the Bolognaise cook-in sauce packets as well as 2 tins whole tomatoes and 1 tin tomato & onion mix. While I would have preferred to use my homemade Tomato Sauce for Pasta in this recipe, I decided to go for the tinned variety as we are trying to use up items in our pantry and freezer this month. You can find the Bolognaise Sauce for Pasta recipe here.

I then made another one of our favourite meals, hearty vegetable soup. I had quite a few ingredients in both the pantry and the freezer (whole corn kernels, whole tomatoes and the packet of barley & lentil soup mix) as well as some fresh veggies to add to the mix, so it was difficult to resist making this soup even though winter is now almost over and we won’t be craving super-hot meals as much. Both my husband and I love this soup and considering the amount and variety of vegetables I use, which always varies, it’s healthy and full of goodness. It’s also an inexpensive, meatless meal. You can have a look at the Hearty Vegetable Soup recipe here.

I made a very large batch of both the Bolognaise sauce for pasta and the vegetable soup. These are meals which I often make and usually in large batches which I can then apportion and store in the freezer. Bulk cooking is always so much more economical not only because I save on electricity that I would use if I had to cook the same meal more than once but also in terms of saving myself time during the week. Defrosting a delicious, homemade meal from the freezer when I get home after a long day at work means I can have supper ready in about 15-20 minutes instead of standing by the stove and cooking a whole meal from scratch for an hour or two.

And finally for dessert I used up the 2 packets of instant Rice Pudding which we enjoyed immensely. We also had such fun by the stove making 1 whole packet of Prawn Crackers – I’d really forgotten how nice they are!