A pantry challenge is great if it is time to rotate your pantry!
We do this from time to time. We go through our pantry and find things that we're not eating, then find a way to incorporate them into a dish. Some folks I know have done week-long or 30 day pantry challenges in order to;
1) Eat enough to rotate through their stockpile a bit.
2) Get rid of those things that they're just not eating.
3) See if they can eat only from their pantry.
It's a trial run for when something bad happens and gives you an idea of areas you might be weak in. For us, we go through our pantry to get rid of stuff that we're not eating. My husband, 'Oh he of the shopping love', occasionally comes home with the most random food items and then the rest of us are obliged to eat them up. I'm more of a flour, sugar and baking soda kind of girl myself.
My spouse is in the process of loosing weight and keeping it off with a permanent change of lifestyle. As a result, he's walking every day and eating a LOT more greens than he ever used to. This also means that he doesn't want to eat soups out of a can because there can be a disturbing amount of sugar and other random ingredients. This, and a recovering sick day from work for me, produced husband soup. It's a minestrone style soup, so get out your root vegetables. For me, this is a pantry recipe! Some of the things you need to make this soup; a full pantry and a veggie loving husband or alternately, wife and call it Wife Soup.
Here's what you do – it's a chop & toss soup.
- 6 small onions - chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic – chopped
- Fry to softness
Add:
- 2 qts of previously canned chicken broth
- 1 head cabbage, chopped (this was in my fridge)
- 4 cubes chicken bouillon
Cook for about 2 hours and puree with your potato masher when done.
After the puree, add
- 2 cups dry white beans, any type
- plus 2 pints previously cooked white beans
- 1 bunch parsley chopped
- 5 stalks celery, chopped, (could be dried and a another pantry challenge!)
- 1 head fennel, chopped (again, could be dried)
- Dry basil – 3-4 tbsp
Add pepper to taste and water enough to cook the beans – you don't want 'em to soak up every drop in the pan! Cook for another hour or so.
Remove from the stove top and ladle into quart jars. Makes approximately 8 quarts. Pressure can at 10 lbs pressure for 90 minutes.
If you'd like to add noodles, add them when you re-heat the soup prior to serving. This is what it looks like!