frugal kitchen tasks

With the holidays over, I’ve been getting back into the frugality swing of things full-time. As I mentioned previously, Greg and I are challenging ourselves to eat out of the pantry and freezer as much as possible this month. When we moved over a year ago, we brought along food items that we should have used up a while ago like frozen cranberries. I put a list up on the whiteboard near the kitchen as a reminder of what needs to be used up.

Today, I focused on starting dinner, tidying the small pantry, tidying the spice cabinet, restocking the freezer with homemade waffles for my youngest son, repurposing items, and cooking veggies that are a little old.

My youngest son loves to eat waffles for breakfast. I love making them with this small waffle maker on the left even though the process takes longer. While I made the waffles, I started prepping dinner.

Dinner tonight will be meat sauce made from a pound of mild Italian sausage, crushed tomatoes, sauteed pepper and onion, and various seasonings. Greg and I will have the meat sauce over zucchini strips while the kids have it over pasta.

A friend of mine, Darla of Heartwork Organizing, is doing a monthly organizing challenge once again. If you join her Facebook group or visit her site, you can see the monthly schedule. This month is the Kitchen and Pantry. Today, I decided to tackle my spice cabinet and the corner cabinet along with our small pantry. While it’s currently hard to see the spices (which I will remedy), I did inventory and refill the bottles. I also combined a few bottles and set the empty ones aside for repurposing. I need to make a spot for storing them.

I did the same thing in the small pantry and moved the spices stored there to the corner cabinet. We don’t use the corner cabinet as much as we could, partially because it’s deep and a little high for me to reach. My goal is to store backup items for the spice and baking cabinets.

When I refilled the flour and sugar containers in the small pantry, I emptied out this resealable bag. I’m going to put it in my car for trash and accidents. Since it’s resealable, I know I could put stinky stuff in it until I can get to a trashcan.

Before Christmas, I bought 2 bunches of asparagus on sale. I still had a bunch left in the fridge looking a little tired. I used some in a quiche earlier this week. Today, I air-fried the rest in our smaller oven. Since our electric bill was twice as much this month due to Christmas lights, electric heat, and lots of Christmas baking, I’m retraining myself to use this countertop oven as much as possible. My husband says it uses half the electricity of our wall oven. We bought the Breville about a year ago; it’s been a good purchase!