This is the last day for May’s challenge. What I hope we’ve all realized is that either we keep enough supplies at home to eat three meals a day for at least a week, or we need to improve. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the things that I’ve learned to do, mainly from living so far from a store, is improvise . . use what I have in the cabinet and not worry about whether it’s the exact ingredient called for in a recipe.
Weekends are always busy. I know many folks love the longer days of summer but I do not. We don’t stop til dark. In fact, I had to come in from outside to do this post because I was already late.
For breakfast today, we had eggs from the chickens, along with sausage I had in the freezer and biscuits from gluten free biscuit mix. For lunch, we had leftover chicken salad and for dinner . . I guess either we’re not having it or we may have a bowl of fruit. We did have to make a run to town this evening. Vince needed hinges for something and we ran by Tractor Supply to get more of the sprinklers that fit on T-posts.
If you will share your blog post for today’s challenge and if you want to make it a summary of the week, that would be great too. Thanks for participating!
Sherrill says
WHAT?!! You were in town & didn’t grab a bite to eat?!! I did LOUSY today because my boy didn’t have school today (all week worked during the day and went immed. to school so no dinners out with him). We made up for it today as we went for lunch AND dinner. Oh well..would rather have done that than stuck to the challenge one more day. But I COULD have done it every day..just chose not to. But never did say it would’ve been healthy eating! 🙂
Norece says
Made it all week without doing any grocery shopping or eating out. Good to know that we could do it, if we have to.
Pat (EagleKnits) says
We’ve done pretty well this week, even though we weren’t “officially” trying to follow the challenge. I think DH and I could easily eat for a month on what’s in our pantry, even though the meals would be pretty boring that last week. 🙂 However, one of our grandsons just graduated from high school and moved in with us to work and attend college. I’m going to have to revise quantities upward and add some items that he likes to my pantry! The biggest thing I need to do is to become more intentional about what I have on hand. Right now, I stock up on an item, but then use almost all of it before buying more — that needs to change, since disaster could strike at any time. My goal for the next few weeks is to inventory what we have on hand, decide how much of each item we need to keep on hand in order to always have a month’s supply, and make purchases in the areas we’re lacking. The next goal will be to get a three month’s supply built up, then six month’s. It will be a slow process because we’re on a fixed income, but we will do it.
Carol Harper says
Almost made it… Had part of a sandwich husband bought yesterday for lunch so failed there. But breakfast (coffee with milk and juice) and dinner (pork chps, app,esauce and the last of the asparagus) were all freezer, fridge or pantry supplies.
Carol Williamson says
Today was all out of the pantry….cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and hamburger helper with added veggies for dinner. Didn’t do too bad all week. Had to get a few supplies while in Flagstaff on vacation on Monday and then soft taco shells for last’s nights chicken enchiladas. (totally forgot them on my grocery list last week.). I usually buy for 2 weeks meals at a time so this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. This month I planned all month’s menus for dinner – long list, hence the forgotten soft taco thingies. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks Judy!
Paula Hensley Murphy says
I bought canning jars today at a garage sake for .10 cents a piecnow all I need is the green beans!
JudyL says
Great price!!
Cookie E. says
While I didn’t post I did take on the challenge. Ate out once because we were invited to a party, otherwise ate from the pantry, freezer and what was in the fridge.
One of the things I did this week was use the broccoli florets for roasted broccoli and then ran the stems through the food processor and got another side dish with leftovers by making broccoli slaw to which carrots, celery and onions were added. Also made cream of asparagus soup with the asparagus ends for a lunch and grilled the stalks for a different meal. Necessity remains to be the mother of invention.
I make my own mayonaise because due to food allergies. Breads are never an issue because we maintain a gluten free diet. I did find recipes on line to make tortillas using arrowroot poweder and coconut flour. They were pretty good.
All in all it was a pretty successful week and I found that I’m still very well stocked. What we need to be better stocked with is first aid supplies and we’ll start working on that
Vicky says
A question, Judy. I think the thing we dread the most is loss of electricity for a prolonged period of time. I was without for eight days during Hurricane Andrew. I know you have an alternative source for electricity but most of us don’t. Would you recommend canning over freezing? “Lost everything in the freezer” is what I hear the most during a power outage. Thanks for your comments on this.
JudyL says
I’m going to do a whole blog post about that. Maybe I’ll bump it up to the top of my “to do” list.
Diana in RR,TX says
Even tho I didn’t post I did enjoy reading everyone’s efforts. Growing up the way the two of us did we generally have enough here to get through at least 2 weeks, maybe more. It may not be what we always want to eat at the time, but we won’t starve either! For one reason or another we ended up eating out quite a bit this past week, but usually had a lunch from the leftovers the next day!You may get me back into canning, but need to figure out where I would keep things.That would take some major rearranging, so right now will stick with store bought canned goods and a well stocked freezer! You always come up with interesting topics, can’t wait to see what is next!
JudyL says
It’s really not a whole lot different except I love having the home canned meals. If I didn’t love canning, I surely wouldn’t do it and I’d be happy to have storebought canned goods.
Diana in RR, TX says
Before we moved overseas I canned a lot. Also had some very good farmer’s market and other good places to get things. All of our moves stateside meant moving lots of home cannef goodies. Found one of Mom’s old canning books the other day. Lots of scribbled notes in it. The thing about putting up your own food it is just the way you like it!
Beth C in MA says
This is an amazing challenge. Although I haven’t actively participated, it has made me stop and think!! I am looking forward to the next challenge in June.
JudyL says
That’s exactly what I was hoping it would do — just give us all a little more info and help us think about the “what if” scenario.
helen-mary says
Judy, thanks for hosting this challenge – it was fun. Blogging every day was kind of tedious though – I’m not sure how you manage to post as much as you do. You must do it when you take a break in between collecting eggs and squashing grasshoppers. 🙂
JudyL says
That’s exactly when I do it . . sit down to take a break and start typing!
Katie Z. says
We drove 2 1/2 hours one way yesterday to help my sister move, so breakfast was out, lunch was provided by my sister, and supper was back at my mom’s house. We really only bought one meal, but nothing came from my house except snacks!
Barbara says
It was an easy week for me, but I know that some of the future challenges will not be.
Don’t anyone hate me, but I really don’t like the taste of food out of a can…it is so rare for me to eat something out of a can I swear I can taste the can. Soooo I’m seriously thinking about canning again.
I changed out my stove to a glass top with the microwave on top, so my two large canners are not going to work.
I think a small American canner is going to be just what I need to get going again.
Marlene says
Judy I’ve enjoyed the weeks posts and comments very much. I didn’t get to participate this time because Jerry and I are on a mission trip – five weeks this time – and were eating in the mission cafeteria. However, I’m going to “test” myself when I get home. I can’t wait to try it! blessings, marlene
JudyL says
Great! And good for you on the mission trip! Our challenges aren’t so much about doing the exact challenge at the exact same time, but simply getting us to think about what we could do better.
Bev Gunn says
I kind of did this over the winter with all the snow we had in northeast Indiana. I just make sure there was milk and bread in the house and used out of the freezer and cupboard for meals. Cleaned out quite a bit and now have to restock. Thankfully we never lost power and the furnace kept cranking along-have to get it serviced and the air conditioner looked at for the summer. Then will turn attention to the inside of the house and get ready for next winter in case we have two snowies in a row!
Appreciate the time you have taken to raise our awareness of this, especially for those who are not 1/2 mile from two grocery stores! But, when the weather is bad, I just hibernate in my basement and only come out to eat or go to the bathroom. Of course, when it is hot outside, I do the same thing-is much cooler in the basement and my sewing is all down there!
JudyL says
How I miss my basement!
Theresa says
With the exception of pre-planned events (like taking the new interns out to lunch) we did pretty well. What I need to do to follow up is to: move somewhere where I can have a garden when I retire, and in the meantime keep plenty of frozen, canned and dehydrated veggies around, since they make up most of what I’ve been eating. I didn’t realize how much of my diet was fresh veg or fruit before this. It helps with knowing what to stock, and allows me to think that if I needed to, I could always temporarily eat a lot more carbs because they’re so much easier to store.