i think im very lucky in that I have help at home and he is the one doing most of my day to day cooking. so in terms of what I have stored in the pantry never really comes into the picture.

when i get down to cooking, I prefer doing from scratch i.e. head out to buy everything and cook everything as fresh as possible.

Oh wizkid, I see what you're saying, but at the same time, when I go to the grocery store, I tend to get carried away buying fixin's for meals, forgetting we only eat three times a day.

so the pantry challenge helps things out with my overstocking problem. Also, since starting the PC last week, I've only had to go to the grocery store once, for milk, and I got out of there with spending under $10. Not bad considering I can spend $100 at the grocery store with my eyes closed, and I usually go several times a week. Gahhh.

My cupboards and freezer are starting to look bare because I was tired of having all that extra food in there. I didn't buy any meat this past payday, and we still have enough left to last till next Friday. But only just barely, LOL. Maybe I should have bought a package of hamburger meat when I was thinking about it. The cupboards look bare because that's what I've been making for lunch for me and my daughters, when I'm not reheating leftovers that is.

I think this week, I'm going to go over my recipes, and try, once again, to make a 2 week menu for us. I'm hoping that we can stick to it this time. It depends so much on how I feel when it comes to dinner time, plus how much hubby feels like eating when he gets home from work.

well, I kept it going nearly 3 weeks, but finally had to start restocking meats and veggies. Am very pleased with having cleaned out so much of my crazy pantry-stocking habit.

I've done a version of this before (it's alternately titled "I don't have time to go grocery shopping...what can we make do with at home?" ). Our pantry is basically stocked with pre-packaged TJ food for when we don't have time to cook, so there's not a lot of 'recipe' material in there.