Use It Up, Wear It Out: The Challenge

My pantry is full of weird culinary odds and ends. I started to get bugged by it about the same time that I realized that the Downright Domicile needed to drastically cut spending this month. Since my day job pays me somewhere between volunteerism and Chinese minimum wage, we've been behind on the midwife bills (among other things. We just won't mention those). Now that Adam is done with school for the summer and can work now, the pressure's off a little bit, but we will be daaaangerously close to missing the 100% payment deadline at the end of July.

Now, I definitely lean towards the crunchy side, but I'm gonna have to say no thanks to an unassisted childbirth in the bathtub.

Enter the week of Use It Up, Wear It Out.

It's common knowledge that one of the easiest expenses to control is food. And I refuse to spend any more money on food right now, when I have a whole bunch of random ingredients in the pantry that just require a little ingenuity to become dishes. So, for each day this week, I will choose one pantry ingredient that needs to be used up and figure out some way to incorporate it into the day's menu.

I'm so looking forward to the challenge, that I am opening it up to you, as well! I would love to hear the creative ways that any of you might be using up food hiding in the back of your pantry. Feel free to write a post about it and share it on the Linky! Happy cooking!

The Use It Up Saga:

Day 1: Grapenuts

Day 2: Soup