Skipping a Weekly Grocery Store Trip

We never got around to our food shopping last weekend. After some other errands and fun family time at our favorite restaurants, we just simply ran out of time. And oh yes, we had a 2 hour detour to the urgent care clinic for an earache (Dylan). So we began our week with no food. This is pretty challenging!

A couple of years ago, there was a challenge to this effect on eGullet. People went multiple weeks without any food shopping and documented their pantry cooking adventures on the site. It was fun to watch, but I had never tried it myself. Here's how we have gotten by so far:

- Breakfasts are no issue at all. I have cereal at work, Michael grabs a yogurt (we bought a giant pack of them at Costco a week ago) and the kids are cool with cereal and oatmeal, both of which were already in the house.

- Lunches have been easy too. Max just does PB&J and Dylan has been doing pita chips, hummous, and cornichons. We also have some individual apple sauces, snack pack chips, etc.

- Dinners are interesting! On Monday we had corned beef with a side of bubble and squeak (mashed potatoes with cabbage). The corned beef was purchased a week ago at Costco but was vacuumm sealed, so it was still good. The cabbage was also old as were the potatoes. I added an onion as well. We ate the above with a side of frozen peas. Last night, Michael made scrambled eggs with leftover corned beef, frozen broccoli and some onion. It was delicious. Tonight we're doing a chicken casserole made with cream of celery soup, frozen broccoli, frozen peas and canned chicken from Trader Joe's.

It's like we're living in a bunker.

Comments

[kyooty]

sounds pretty good so far.

[Deidre]

I love it.

This happens to me about once a month. and unfortunately, most of what is in my pantry is canned tomatoes and red lentils. I end up making a lot of dahl like things!

[JoAnn]

I do the same thing a lot - last night was saltines with cheese and a scrambled egg and the last of the salsa. Tonight will likely be the chicken breast I took out of the freezer with the last of the salad stuff. I guess I will have to go shopping when the fresh and frozen vegetable bins are empty.