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Preparednesspro has an interesting challenge for August.  Eat for two weeks using only the food in your house, and see exactly how prepared you really are.  No fair going to the store!

Well, I’m not planning to do that, as we had a car this weekend and I have to shop when I can!  However, I did assess my pantry and set my own challenge.  Can we eat for a month on our food stock, only buying fruit and veg, milk, and bread?  We’ll find out!

I do have powdered milk, so technically I wouldn’t need to shop for that and I also have all of the ingredients to make bread.  (I can make about 30 loaves with ingredients I have in my cupboard right now.)  However, fresh milk is cheaper than powdered right now and I am loathe to turn on the oven in the August heat, so we’ll be purchasing those (knowing we wouldn’t have to in an emergency.)  I’ve been turning over the problem of month-long fruit storage in my mind, and I’m thinking about canning some of those 69 cent peaches and plums.

We’re stuffed to the gills.  24 boxes of pasta, 28 cans of tomatoes, 40# of dried beans – and you can’t even see the jars and jars of peanut butter, 20# of brown rice, or 10 canisters of oatmeal!

I am very blessed to have deep pantry shelves.  They go 6 regular cans back (0r 4 large cans)!  I did buy more tuna than I technically needed for a 4 week challenge, because our HEB was giving away a can of Bumblebee FREE if you bought 1 box of Barilla pasta.  I’ve never tried canned chicken before, so we’ll see if the store brand tastes good.

We spent on food: $194.74

99 Cents Plus: $7.08

Wal-Mart:  $63.00 (approximately)

HEB: $39.72

Kroger: $48.73

FoodTown:  $36.21

I’ve budgeted an additional $25 each week for fresh fruit, milk, etc., which would make our monthly total under $300 which, frankly, boggles my mind.  I’m not sure we can stay on that budget.

Before I went shopping, I made a list of 14 meals that could be made out of the pantry.  I tried to use a variety of different beans and canned products so it didn’t get tiresome.  We’ll be eating this menu twice – 4 weeks worth of meals.  I plan on using fresh and frozen produce to round out the meals, but if there was a disaster or something, we wouldn’t have to have salad with our spaghetti in order to survive.

It’s a good test run for a Houstonian in the middle of hurricane season!  I listed pantry items used next to the menu item, and noted any non-pantry extras we’ll be using.  We also eat about 2# of frozen veggies with each meal (about 4 cans worth).  I should probably have gotten canned veggies in order to be more accurate, but we aren’t actually surviving in an disaster right now and I don’t like canned.  I’ll only eat them if I have too.

We’re eating:

1.  Red beans and rice (red beans, rice, canned diced tomatoes, canned corn; frozen okra/veggie blend)

2.  Curried chickpeas, ww flatbread, cucumber salad (chickpeas, ww flour for flatbread) (adding fresh cucumber and onion salad)

3.  White beans with garlic, onion, and tomato served over polenta (navy or cannellini, canned tomatoes, onion, cornmeal, powdered milk) (frozen spinach)

4.  Chicken alfredo florentine (canned chicken, powdered milk, whole wheat noodles) (frozen spinach)

5.  Black eyed peas with greens, barley pilaf, corn fritters (Blackeyed peas, carrots, barley, cornmeal, oil.) (Frozen greens)

6.  Lentil shepherd’s pie (lentils, rice, potatoes, carrots, onions, leftover veggies) (I have some pork carnitas in the freezer we’ll add, too.)

7.  Spaghetti (Canned tomatoes, whole wheat pasta.  Lentils or meat for protein.  In our case, we have some Italian sausage in the freezer we’ll use.)

8.  Burritos (pinto beans, canned tomatoes/salsa, ww flour to make tortillas)

9.  Lentil enchiladas (corn tortillas, dried chiles, carrots, canned tomatoes, lentils, rice) (cheese, sour cream)

10.  Tuna casserole (tuna, pasta, milk for white sauce, onion, garlic, celery)

11.  Split pea and barley soup (split peas, barley, onion, garlic, carrots)

12.  Cuban black beans (black beans, corn, tomatoes or salsa, rice)

13.  Lentil soup (lentils, greens, carrots, onion, garlic, balsamic vinegar)

14.  Clam spaghetti (canned clams, powdered milk, onion, whole wheat pasta)

My next project?  Canning plums and figuring out how to dehydrate my own spinach so that can be a pantry item too .

Check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans!