Category Archives: Use it Up

Low Carb, Use it Up

Use It Up project–january 25, 2019

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I am still working hard at using up things that need to be used. As simple as that sounds, it has taken some effort and creativity to stay on task. As the month nears an end, I am realizing that there are still a LOT of items that need to be used. So, I will continue this project into February, while buying a moderate amount of groceries as needed. Here’s what I did this week.

Did I mention the ugly produce I got for free 2 Wednesday nights ago? I’ve been working to use it up. We’ve been eating the mandarins, trimming up the apples, I cooked the spaghetti squash and am working on using the potatoes. None of this is keeping well, which makes sense as I picked it out of the bottom of a tote bin which contained a lot of bad produce, as well as this usable stuff. (It was outside the church, for people to take if they wanted it. I don’t think it could have possible lasted much longer in the condition it was in, so I’m glad I found some good things)

I made cheesy scalloped potatoes with ham yesterday. I cut down the amount of the cheese a lot, and made it lower-fat and we had small portions so Rob could still enjoy some on his diet. It was really good, and there’s lots left.

I baked the spaghetti squash towards the end of last week. We ate some with salt and pepper and a little butter a couple of times. I put the last of it into these muffins instead of zucchini. It worked fine. I just chopped the strands up into smaller pieces and stirred them into the batter at the end. I put cinnamon sugar on the top and they were great! We have not used spaghetti squash very much in the past. When we put pasta sauce on it as they say to do, neither of us liked it very much. So, we just decided to treat the free one as squash, which we both do like and not even pretend it was spaghetti:).

I did fry some up instead of hash browns one morning, along with some chicken sausage, and I enjoyed it as long as I didn’t try to pretend it was potatoes.

I got a few veggies from the old produce rack. There were 3 little zucchinis in one of the bags. I made zucchini noodle lasagna with them. I used cottage cheese that was in the back of the fridge, mixed with mozzarella cheese, frozen long ago, found in the depths of the freezer out in the shop. Although the cottage cheese was expired, it was never opened, so was perfectly fine. It really lasts a long time as long as it’s sealed. The sauce was turkey burger, onion, and the pasta sauce I canned last summer. Rob really likes this kind of lasagna, and it’s low-carb, low-fat, so he wanted some this week.

Much of the food we ate for the rest of the week was leftover from last weekend. I’ve had soup several times from the big pot I made last Saturday, and I started in on the ham I’d been saving out in the camper fridge. It is the last 77c/lb one I got right after Christmas and I didn’t freeze it because it is good until mid-February.

The other thing we’ve been burning through around here is eggs. Thankfully, my aunt got 2 dozen for me last weekend, and I got 2 dozen more. Rob eats eggs several mornings a week. I had eggs for dinner one night. Jake and Patsy started in on scrambled eggs last night and ate several. They were both back at it this morning, and I had some, too. Most of a dozen disappeared between last night and this morning. I’m delighted! Eggs are so healthy for us all.

How is is going for you?

Use it Up

Use It Up Challenge–January 17, 2019–Pink Beans!

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I went out to the garage, where most of my pantry storage lives, and brought in an ice cream bucket, 1/2 full of what I thought were pinto beans from the 50 pounds Rob bought last fall. Instead, they were pink beans. I seriously do not remember when I bought them, but I know it’s been a long, long, long time. I determined they would be the focus of the challenge this week as it was time for them to go.

I soaked them over night and part of the next day. I hoped they were not so old they would not soften. They softened. Whew!

I made a crock pot full of southwestern beans for the college age group to eat on Tuesday night. It was our turn to cook the meal. I wasn’t sure if young adults these days liked beans, but there were very few left in the bottom of a full crock pot. They were cooked with ham broth, salsa verde, and onion. I want to make it again soon, for our family, probably using pinto beans. They were that good!

I cooked the rest of the beans with water and salt. I froze 2 packages for later.

My purchases this week were from Costco. I bought Mexican cheese, a rotisserie chicken and 2 huge cans of peanuts. They were $6.50 (ish) and it was BOGO for free. In all, it was about $25. Otherwise, I’m still using things from the fridge, cupboard, home-canning, freezer, etc.

Some corn tortillas were way in the back of the fridge. I pulled them out. I made 2 pans of enchiladas. One was using frozen poblano peppers from 2015 (yikes!) and some cilantro, 1/2 and 1/2, onion and garlic made into a sauce. I got the recipe from the current Rachel Ray magazine and changed it a little to fit what I had on hand. I added some of the chicken from Costco and used the Mexican cheese. I also used beans in there. In the second pan of enchiladas I used the same filling, but used the enchilada sauce I canned last summer. I froze that one for another day. Its pretty small, and will be just right for Rob and Patsy to quickly warm up one evening while I’m still at work.

Another thing I made from those beans was a chili that also used some of that rotisserie chicken, plus a sweet potato that has been lurking under the sink since Thanksgiving. When it was grated into the chili, it looked like cheese in there, but neither my mother or I could really taste much flavor from it. Regardless, it was healthy, and the recipe tasted good.


I used some frozen spinach that was put into my freezer last year to make turkey-spinach meatballs. We are having a family gathering tomorrow, and I want to serve meatballs. I was also able to use some gluten-free bread crumbs that had been frozen sometime in the past and stuffed into the little freezer.

Rob made some tuna cakes. He used more of those breadcrumbs, some onion, a little of the cheese, 1 Tablespoon of lite mayo, salt and pepper. Then he baked them for about 20 minutes. They were really tasty little cakes. We are eating lots and lots of salads these days, and these went well with his salad today at lunch.

I am very pleased with how this challenge is going. I’m finally finding a little space in my kitchen freezer and things are no longer falling out onto my feet when I open it. There’s even a little space opening up in some of the outside freezers! Even though it was gross, I finally used enough things from the refrigerator to be able to really see the terrible mess it was. I had a feeling it was bad, but this surpassed all expectations. It’s clean now, and that’s a good feeling!

I have been using any extra grocery budget money for non-food items I need, like vitamins, shampoo and things like that, and am easily staying within the amount I want to spend. How’s it going for you?

Use it Up

Use It Up Challenge–January 2019

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I was able to spend quite a bit of time cooking this week, and used up several food items that had been lurking around for some time. I made this quinoa salad. I have quite a bit of quinoa in my pantry, because it’s a good gluten-free choice, but truthfully, Lovana was the one who used it the most. Now that she’s in Hawaii, there it sat. I looked up several recipes, and mixed and matched ingredients to make a salad that sounded good to both Rob and I. I plan to put the recipe in my recipe section before long, but basically, it was quinoa, black beans, home-canned corn, green onion, lime, olive oil and cumin dressing, and some home-canned salsa from the cupboard.

I made home-made tomato soup from a jar of tomatoes I canned, 3 scraggly carrots left from last summer’s garden, some garlic, a little home-canned broth, salt, pepper, and 1/3 cup 1/2 and 1/2. Rob likes it, and it’s certainly low calorie, but I, myself, would rather have a little more dairy in there, so plan to put some milk in mine when I warm up a bowlful.

I used some masa flour from the pantry (I got 2 bags when Grocery Outlet had it for super, super cheap, what was I thinking? That is a lot of masa when you don’t make tamales!). I have a recipe for a Mexican pizza with a masa flour crust, which is why I got the masa in the first place. The crust has green onion, cumin and garlic powder in it, along with the masa, eggs, salt and water. You cook that for 10 minutes, then add refried black beans and cheese, and cook for 5 more. It’s really quick and easy. I chopped up a hamburger patty leftover from the birthday party we did not have on Sunday (rescheduled due to a sick child), and added that to use that up as well. The recipe calls for tomato, lettuce and avocado on top. We were in a huge hurry to get Patsy to an event, so we just ate it plain this time.

We ate several jars of home-canned fruit this week. We are finishing up a ham, and cut off pieces frequently for lunches, scrambling with eggs, topping our salads and so forth.

I went to Winco and purchased a few more salad ingredients, and a few items that I needed to make these recipes and to round out meals. I’m delighted, because I’m doing great staying within my lowered budget, and we are eating better than ever, and better yet, several items are getting used! I have been looking through old magazines for inspiration, and will do that again this coming week.

We will all be cooking a great deal this upcoming weekend, as my sister is heading up a formal dinner for the high school group at church. I am making a couple of items ahead, and got the final ingredients I needed for those. Rob will be pulling the big barbecue over there and doing appetizers, green beans, chicken and salmon on it. She has the bulk of the food at her house and we will cook most of it on Saturday, over there, where the event is being held. They already set up tables all over her living area, and the couches are all pushed back for that purpose. It’s going to be fun!

Use it Up

Grocery Plans for January 2019–Rotating the Stockpile Challenge

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Every January, it’s the same story around here.  We have just enjoyed a wonderful holiday with lots of time with friends and family and quite a few treats and goodies and we are in the mood to pare down a little in the areas of eating and shopping.  I think it’s naturally that way for most people. This year was a little different.  We did have a few treats, but so much less than in previous years.  Rob is still slowly and steadily losing weight, and we don’t have that over-stuffed feeling we’ve had in years’ past.  Still, I want to work on my usual practice of using items from my stockpile, so they can be rotated in future months.  This is very important because if items slip to the back of the shelves they may go bad.

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The garden is not producing right now, because it’s rainy, cold and of course, muddy out there.  So, it’s a perfect time to use the food I worked so hard to preserve.

My stockpile has 3 main areas:  The freezers, the home-canning cupboards and the pantry shelves.  This month, I’d like to challenge myself to use as many items from each of those areas as I can in my daily meals.  I plan to shop whenever I run out of things like dairy, eggs and produce.   Although this is primarily an “use-it-up” challenge, I plan to easily stay within my grocery budget, and will use any extra money to fill any gaps I create during this challenge.

I plan to post once a week, showing some of the meals I created with what I had on hand. It’s only January 4th, but I’ve already made several items.

I used some cottage cheese on top of a peach half and sprinkled it with sprinkles to make it seem more festive for Patsy’s lunch yesterday. I also found this summer sausage lurking in the back of the little freezer over the fridge, and pulled it out for sandwiches.

I also made this casserole with some of that same sausage. It has some black bean noodles on the bottom that were gifted to us for Christmas, the rest of some pizza sauce that was in the fridge, the last scrap of mozzarella from a bag found in the freezer, the sausage, mushrooms and olives. It was delicious!

I also made some soup from some frozen cauliflower, zucchini shreds and broccoli and a carton of home made turkey broth. I added an onion, cooked until soft, blended it with my stick blender, and added a tiny bit of 1/2 and 1/2 with a little sweet rice flour in it. It was simple and good.

I hope you come up with some good ideas to use your items up. If you do, please share with all of us. Who knows, maybe you have the perfect way to use up something someone else has an abundance of as well!