During the summer, my monthly discretionary budget is pretty strict, but I recently had to "borrow from Peter to pay Paul" due to some unexpected expenses. Which means that the pantry clear-out is even more important.

There was a large bag of frozen hash brown patties in the freezer with a paltry six patties left. What to do ... what to do ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, I asked for suggestions on my FB groups as to what to do with canned tuna. One of the most popular suggestions was a tuna noodle casserole. I finally got around to making it and wondered why I'd waited so long. Cause this is some tasty stuff, folks.

For a recipe I went with the one from the Campbells (TM) website ( Read more... )

It's always fun when you have all the ingredients for something that catches your eye.

I saw these delicious looking biscuits on one of the FB food groups I belong to. When I checked out the link I found that the recipe used whole wheat flour and fine porridge oats and not all purpose flour. I happened to have some leftover finely ground rolled ( Read more... )

Over the last few years, I've made many resolutions to empty out my freezers due to excess frost build-up. Unfortunately, great grocery sales keep tempting me to bring home more goodies to stuff inside ( Read more... )

At the end of the month, things can get a little tight, but you can still eat steak and make it cost effective if you plan well.

As I've mentioned before, I have a tendency to eat WAY too much meat. And especially steak, which I don't buy very often. Remember the rib steak in THIS post? I could eat the whole thing (and I HAVE) but I decided to ( Read more... )

Since it was a slow day, I decided to do a combined inventory of my two freezers. The one in the basement is being used for long term storage while the one upstairs is for items that are in more frequent usage. Hopefully this will encourage me to use up the items that have been there for the longest time first. I'm thinking of transforming the ( Read more... )

Since I've been working every day this past week, which is great news for my bank account, I haven't had any energy/time/inclination to do any cooking. Luckily I had options.

Leftovers can be turned into tasty new dishes or meals with very little effort ...

... oh wait, I've said that before.

Here are a couple of examples:

Chili Cheese Dogs - ( Read more... )

I was going to do some grocery shopping on Saturday morning ... best laid plans and all that. In any case, I dug the last package of sliced baked ham out of the freezer and whipped this up for supper on Saturday after doing 2 loads of laundry and trying to fix the mess that the latest Firefox update caused on my computer.


( Read more... )

As of today, it will be 4 months since I embarked on a pretty ruthless program of clearing out my pantry, fridge and freezer(s).

( Pantry Clearance Status )

The last time I was in the basement rooting through the new freezer, I spotted 3 packages of Philadelphia cream cheese.

You know what that means, don't you?

Cheesecake, of course ... but what kind can I make with items already in my pantry?

1. Pina Colada cheesecake - I have rum (2 kinds), shredded sweetened coconut and chunks of pineapple in my ( Read more... )