Menu Plan for January 24-30

Sunday: Homemade pizza
Monday: Roasted Vegetable Pasta (whole wheat pasta) with salad
Tuesday: Sweet & Sour Shrimp with brown rice
Wednesday: Pintos & Cornbread
Thursday: Pork Chops, mashed potatoes, & broccoli
Friday: Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Saturday: Cream Cheese Danish (Ladies' Planning Meeting at church); Leftovers for dinner

This is the last week of the "Eat from the Pantry Challenge" and boy am I ever glad! We have run out of many of our staples like black beans, refried beans, and ground beef, and will have used up the shrimp, pork, and chicken this week. Plus, I miss doing some serious grocery shopping! However, we have saved money by not spending the allotted $60 a week on groceries. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet the $75/month budget for this challenge. I'm not sure what my numbers are right now but will post them at the end of the week. I am curious how we did overall.

I know this challenge has been an excellent opportunity for me to buckle down and control my impulse to stockpile, a discipline I was really needing! And I have had to be creative on many occasions, which has led me to find some great new cooking ideas! Since I ran out of pizza sauce early in the month, I found that using regular canned tomato sauce with canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano added, which I had a lot of, is actually as good, even better to me, than regular pizza sauce. Try it sometime! Also, I tried a lot of new recipes, some good like quinoa and black beans, and others that were just mediocre. I know that I will definitely do this challenge again in a few months because I have gotten to clean out my cabinets and freezer, which is very nice!