Homesteading Forum banner

Your Food Storage Meals - January

57K views 95 replies 21 participants last post by  Bikram chhetri 
#1 ·
In my December food storage thread, a bunch of folks expressed an interest in continuing with a group thread. This will be a place to discuss cooking from food storage, share menus, post recipes, and whatever else we get ourselves into :D
 
#2 · (Edited)
Count me in. I did a rough draft of what we were going to have for the month. I am hoping to spend less than $200 on groceries that we will need (milk, eggs, any fresh produce) I have a lot of stuff to use up, but if there's a REALLY good sale on something, I will still buy it. The main thing is to try and make due for us. I have some debt to pay down and I need my wedding ring fixed (lost the diamond) and don't have the money to do that yet, hoping by the end of January!! Also, I am working for a week at a university bookstore and will not have as much time to cook or shop.

Today-white turkey chili (using leftover smoked turkey in place of white chicken chili)
Tuesday- Lasagna, I have one box of noodles to use up and then I will be going to homemade pasta since I found a roller/cutter at GW for $9.99 and have only used it once.
Wednesday-smoked ribs (we had some in the freezer that I got on clearance that dh wants to cook up)
Thursday-beef & noodles (with homemade noodles from a friend that borrowed my pasta maker)
Friday-chicken enchiladas (using a whole chicken that we butchered and with friends and will save some of the meat for something else)
Saturday-http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/potato-crusted-yellowtail-snapper-10000001622399/ (fish that my aunt gave me, they do a big fishing trip every year)
Sunday-homemade chicken nuggets or Salads if we are too full from a luncheon at Church
Monday-beef stew
Tuesday-Chix cordon bleu
Wednesday- Church tacos
Thursday-Spaghetti & Meatballs
Friday-Turkey Noodle Soup (using leftover turkey carcass in the freezer)
Saturday-steak bites
Sunday-Chili
Monday (bookstore week) sloppy joes
Tuesday-Sauerkraut & Sausage
Wednesday-church chili
Thursday-pork loin, balsamic brown sugar glaze (already cooked & shredded in the freezer leftovers http://www.rachelcoo...balsamic-glaze/
Friday-pizza (going to splurge maybe?)
Saturday-Texas Road House? (Dh & I have a gc for him doing sound in a wedding)
Sunday-ham
Monday- chicken pesto ranch (I've made this before using chicken breasts and we used homemade kale pesto that I have in the freezer) http://picky-palate....chicken-thighs/
Tuesday-Chili Cheese Dog Casserole http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/chili-cheese-dog-casserole
Wednesday-Chicken & Noodles
Thursday-fish
Friday-meatloaf
Saturday- ham & potatoes http://joyinmykitche...ml#.UsHpDrRW21c
Sunday-homemade pizza
Monday-Pork Sandwiches
Tuesday-Jambalaya
Wednesday-sloppy joes @ church
Thursday-Ham & beans
Friday-Cranberry meatballs/quinoa http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cranberry-sauerkraut--meatballs
Saturday-Gumbo in the freezer


Everything is subject to change, it's just a rough draft.
 
#4 ·
Wow!! I am impressed!

Thanks, I also took an inventory of meat in our freezer:
The chicken is from a local university (we paid $2.50 each and butchered them ourselves. The beef is from my parents, we pay processing and that's the end of it, except for hamburger, my dad had a bull processed last fall and we got about 140 pounds of hamburger from it. The fish is from my aunt, they fish every year and this year she gave a bunch of it away at Thanksgiving. The polish sausage was a menards deal, they were free after menards rebate, I have an $18 rebate check to spend on other stuff now.

4 whole chickens
1 turkey
2 hams
1 pork tenderloin
1 pkg Yelloweye fish
2 Maui Maui
1 pkg Wahoo fish
3 bags cooked shredded pork
2 pkgs chicken breasts
6 pkg polish sausage
3 Smoked sausage
1pkg TN pan fish
2 Porterhouse steaks
1 T-bone steak
1pkg Salmon
Lots of hamburger
1 Arm roast
3 Soup bones
1 oxtail
3 Stew meat
1 beef Brisket
1 pkg Ribeye
A bunch of hamburger
& also sliced ham (had a whole ham sliced and put it into individual bags)

Aldi will have chicken breasts on sale for $1.49/lb starting on Thursday, I will probably get a few packages just to add to the freezer, I have nuggets, cordon bleu and that will use up what we already have. I am feeding a family of 5, dh, dd ~16, ds 14, ds 12 1/2, so hearty appetites and dh expects meatier dishes, not casseroles every night. and we have two cats, I am stocked up on food & litter for them.
 
#7 ·
I'm not ambitious enough to do a whole month food plan but I do go out and shop in my freezer at beginning of the week. Keep a weeks' worth of meal fixings in the house that way and we can do a better job of spreading out the different cuts of beef. We don't eat meat everyday. Rarely pork unless from local sources. Perhaps once a week we'll have chicken. Several times weekly supper is homemade soup and bread so have leftovers for lunch. Like fake tuna salad for lunches..you'd never guess it's made with garbonzo beans! Sunday night is pizza night...unless we just eat big bowls of popcorn!
 
#8 ·
Here's our New Years dinner. Ribs, German potato salad (made with home canned potatoes) & veggies, I only buy whole carrots from Sam's unless homegrown, celery usually on sale at Aldi & peppers only in the winter on clearance at Meijer (usually ~3/$1) I won't pay full price for produce in the winter.

Breakfast was free Panera pastry (that our church sometimes gets)

Super will be leftovers plus some homemade coleslaw.
 
#10 ·
Thanks for making this a sticky Angie! I wanted to post and couldn't find the thread...duh.

Thanks to Viggie's thread last month I got out some of my #10 cans and looked at what I had stored for dehydrated veggies and started making some soup mixes from the book "Soup Mixes from Dehydrated Products" talked about on the Preserving the Harvest or Cooking forum. I made 2 different potato soups to start. I've never worked with potato flakes before. The soups came out well overall. They were a little bit grainy the first night, but excellent the next day, all grainyness gone. I didn't use butter powder as I didn't want to open an expensive can and I can easily now use fresh.

Now I need to mix up more of those soups (they fit perfectly in a quart jar) and make some others.

Kristinemomof3 - wow, your meal planning makes my head spin, I can't think that far ahead! I can do 5 days max, 4 is better and by then I want to eat something I hadn't thought about earlier. Very impressive.

I desperately need to clean out our freezers, especially the chest freezer as mine does not look like the picture someone posted on here with beautifully organized bins and milk crates!!

I like the idea of slashing our food bill this month and seeing what we can eat up. Honestly, that then makes me anxious that we won't have enough food on hand! But my food budget and 'stocking up' budget are separate....
 
#11 ·
I'm impressed, too! I NEED to inventory the freezers and the pantry shelves of canned goods, but just have too much on my plate to do it. Plus, it just looks overwhelming. I am using my home canned and frozen food, tho! Tonight was chili and pears, the chili is the last jar of some I canned in 2010. Still great. I did dehydrate lots of veggies this year, so need to get busy and make things from them. You all are inspiring me!
 
#12 ·
Today I made turkey noodle soup. Turkey carcass was sent home with me from ds/ddil's the Sunday before Christmas (frozen until I could deal with it), used onion and carrot from cold storage, garlic powder, celery seed, basil, rosemary, pepper, salt and egg noodles from storage. Yummy, yummy!

Along with cooking from storage, I also have a shelf in my fridge that is designated for leftovers, and I'm trying to eat from that shelf first. Trying not to waste food, right? So, one of my meals today was leftover mashed potatoes and gravy and ham, with carrot sticks left over from chopping up carrots for the soup. I have half an onion (huge onion) diced and stored in a pint jar for my next cooking session. I'm thinking corned beef hash. Potatoes and onion from cold storage and a can of corned beef from the pantry. Need to eat up more of the food on the "leftover shelf" first.

On a slight thread drift, I asked my dd for an Orgreenic fry pan for Christmas and so far, I absolutely love it! It will be interesting to see how well it works for frying potatoes for the hash...seems like I always end up using a ton of oil to keep them from sticking, even in my very well seasoned cast iron pan. Maybe I'll be able to make a healthier hash.
 
#14 ·
Challenge taken! I have 2 weeks of menus on paper (and much of week 3). As with each month I just paid the visa bill so there is no money in the checkbook. So for the next two weeks there will be no shopping needed, all meals are from the pantry.

M - pizza
T - Potato and ham soup
w - sloppy joe (home canned)
R - venison sausage and cheese calzones (homemade sausage)
F - pinto beans and rice (we've never had this....from Dec thread ;))
S - Chicken enchiladas use leftover beans and rice
Su - beef over noodles (home canned)

M - Burritos (use any left over beans and rice, home canned meat)
T - Pot roast (fresh or canned veg...depending on it the kids eat the fresh veg before then or not, lol)
W - Spaghetti with homemade sauce...possibly with home canned ground beef
R - kielbasa and fried potato
F - Turkey Pot Pie (home canned turkey....from 2009!)
S - sweet and sour chicken
Su - tuna casserole
 
#15 ·
This thread made me take a look at what we have also. Tonight breaded pork chops, rice, and green beans. Tomorrow ham, potatoes, corn, Saturday ham and bean soup, Sunday pork fried rice with veggies. That's as far as I got so far. Will start planning next week on Saturday.
 
#17 ·
Ok, I'm in. This is going to be a real challenge as when I started filling the pantry, there was only me and dh, now we have 3'dgds (sometimes4). I plan on using my hopefully 2 hours before everyone wakes up to start an inventory and menus. A no spend month for groceries would be great. Luckily, dgd tells me I'm a good cooker.
 
#18 ·
OK, I just showed DH the freezer inventory list and he said, "where are all the weird things? The bags of bones and unidentifiable stuff in tupperware?".

I WILL inventory the freezer this weekend (hopefully getting him to help me!) and start meal planning for this month from it. By posting this I will have to do it....

You all motivated me to not go to the store tomorrow, eat what we have on hand. I do have milk for yogurt making and 1/2 & 1/2 for coffee which are our only store essentials.
 
#19 ·
Ok, even though this is for food storage, I still plan to buy stuff, just not as much as normal. This is what I bought today. I plan to get more eggs next week when Walgreens has them for $1/dozen. We live in a rural subdivision and do not have chickens (yet)

Good day shopping, sausage is cooked up for biscuits & gravy x3 meals.
Potatoes are to can on Sunday.

I went and got a few groceries before we get a big snow storm.





WM, spent $6.92 on

2 pkgs sausage (1.98 each),

Ok,stopped by WM, spent 6.92 on 2 pkgs sausage (1.98 each),

Bic wite out, .97 they only had 1 pkg. free plus .03mm, after $1 coupon on coupons.com

Special K cereal $2.92, $5wm e-card back http://hip2save.com/2014/01/03/walm...-dance-2014-cereal-free-5-walmart-egift-card/


Aldi-large eggs $1.29
whole wheat bread $1.29
navel oranges $1.99
romaine hearts $1.99
10 lbs potatoes $2.49
Thick bacon $6.29
Pork Sausage links $2.19
Total $17.53

and then CVS-

2 deans milk

oxy clean stain 3 lb. container

Dawn hand care .99 sale (.50 coupon) bought 5

3 pkgs gum

used $4/$20 coupon & $5 Beauty Bucks

.50 ECB

Total OOP $10.03 plus $2 ECB

back on the milk

Total OOP $34.48 plus $7 total to use later.
 
#20 ·
I did it! The inventory is done. And DH helped : ) Good thing we did the inventory, I did find some meat that needs to be eaten now and discovered that 1/2 my freezer is taken up with bursting gallon bags of whizzed up tomatoes. We also have much less ground beef than I thought. And need to stock up on more butter!

1 chicken
3 ground beef
4 ground elk
1 ground pork
5 pork sausage (breakfast style which we never eat)
3 italian sausage
1 linguica
2 brats
3 ham bones
1 pork butt roast
2 pork roasts
1 1/2 # bacon
1 london broil
1 beef fillets
1 ball tip
5 rib eyes
2 porterhouse
1 rabbit
1 chuck roast
5 pork steaks
1 chicken thighs
2 cod fillet
11 lbs ground beef for dog food
10 lbs brown rice
2 lbs yeast
2 gallons chicken stock
2 quarts chicken stock
2 quarts tomato sauce
7 pints pesto
2 packages ravioli's
Chanterelles
2 containers of mystery meals
Spinach, pea pods and green beans
2 gallons of peaches and strawberries
and 10 gallon bags of tomatoes!

I'm not going to list all the bread and pizza dough or lunch size bags of rice....

Overall, a bunch of stuff needs to be used up and I didn't think there was really all that much in there.

For this week I'm thawing a chicken, a pork roast and 2 ribeyes. Leftovers will fill in the other nights.

And I must tackle tomatoes!
 
#21 ·
I did it! The inventory is done. And DH helped : ) Good thing we did the inventory, I did find some meat that needs to be eaten now and discovered that 1/2 my freezer is taken up with bursting gallon bags of whizzed up tomatoes. We also have much less ground beef than I thought. And need to stock up on more butter!

1 chicken
3 ground beef
4 ground elk
1 ground pork
5 pork sausage (breakfast style which we never eat)
3 italian sausage
1 linguica
2 brats
3 ham bones
1 pork butt roast
2 pork roasts
1 1/2 # bacon
1 london broil
1 beef fillets
1 ball tip
5 rib eyes
2 porterhouse
1 rabbit
1 chuck roast
5 pork steaks
1 chicken thighs
2 cod fillet
11 lbs ground beef for dog food
10 lbs brown rice
2 lbs yeast
2 gallons chicken stock
2 quarts chicken stock
2 quarts tomato sauce
7 pints pesto
2 packages ravioli's
Chanterelles
2 containers of mystery meals
Spinach, pea pods and green beans
2 gallons of peaches and strawberries
and 10 gallon bags of tomatoes!

I'm not going to list all the bread and pizza dough or lunch size bags of rice....

Overall, a bunch of stuff needs to be used up and I didn't think there was really all that much in there.

For this week I'm thawing a chicken, a pork roast and 2 ribeyes. Leftovers will fill in the other nights.

And I must tackle tomatoes!
Do you like biscuits & gravy? You should totally make that with the sausage.
 
#22 ·
Do you know, I have never eaten biscuits and gravy! I'm from an old New England family and we ate fish and boiled dinners with an occasional roast or chicken thrown in. Oh, and lots of soup. In the summer it was all about seafood and the huge vegetable garden. The only sausage we had was "bangers and mash".

And I've never made biscuits or dumplings.....but I am up for learning how!
 
#23 ·
Do you know, I have never eaten biscuits and gravy! I'm from an old New England family and we ate fish and boiled dinners with an occasional roast or chicken thrown in. Oh, and lots of soup. In the summer it was all about seafood and the huge vegetable garden. The only sausage we had was "bangers and mash".

And I've never made biscuits or dumplings.....but I am up for learning how!
Oh my, my family begs for biscuits & gravy. You should do make it! :)
 
#25 ·
Do you know, I have never eaten biscuits and gravy! I'm from an old New England family and we ate fish and boiled dinners with an occasional roast or chicken thrown in. Oh, and lots of soup. In the summer it was all about seafood and the huge vegetable garden. The only sausage we had was "bangers and mash".

And I've never made biscuits or dumplings.....but I am up for learning how!
Ummm. What is bangers and mash? Sounds like a punk rock band.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Country Wench
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top