Another week eating down the pantry!

Had a pretty successful week! Made up everything that I planned last week, even got the milk on special for the mac cheese, 20c a litre!!
In the last 10 days I've used up -
several frozen meals for Michael and I, frozen roasted meat, dressing, 3 coconut water, 2 (partial) packets dried fruit, (partial) packet SR flour, 2 jars sauce, 2 steak, 1 bacon bag, 500g chicken packet, bag of wraps (only had a few in it, 2 packets of cheese sauce, (partial) box cereal, pasta pack, 2 frozen cheese containers, tomato paste, 5 small tubs of yoghurt(frozen) and 1 bag of frozen veggies

I made:
Country Womens Association Biscuits and Slices: Quick and Easy Biscuits

I also made some muffins, using up bits and pieces from the cupboard. 

 

I made up a double batch of chocolate custard using the cheap milk and pre mix I'd made up years ago!!Into the freezer I added, honey mustard chicken, curry lamb and Mexican beef for Michael and for myself mac cheese!!

No plans for the next week, I'm riding my 200km charity ride on Sat and Sunday, so an easy week eating down what ever we manage.

Home Sweet Home!

I have returned home from my month away (house sitting for my best mate, for the most part- while away I actually cleaned out a great chunk of their pantry :D haha, crazy!). I took 3 bags of snack items from my pantry away with me and ate most of it. What I didn't eat I've made the effort and eaten up since I came home! Michael has eaten a good deal of his meals up (yay!) and also eaten a bunch of canned soup/insta meals, so very happy there. I've caught up my inventory sheets, as he'd not kept up with that (lol what else would you expect??).

For the last week I've not really eaten much of my pantry. I have used up a couple of small things, but mostly it's been finding my feet, so have been using up my supply of freezer meals. So far this week I used up, chilli sauce, dressing, box of vegie delights, 1 bag bacon (was 3 pieces in a bag lol), a heap of roast meat that was frozen (we used it to make a quick and easy dinner on Sunday night), used about 6-8 frozen meals.

On the weekend we went up to my mothers for the footy grand final (let down, the West Coast Eagles lost :( ), while I was there I picked up a few pantry supplies that mum no longer wanted (this happened last time I was there too haha), so I will work them into my use up pile!
Plans for the coming week -
Make a healthy mac cheese for me
Use up some frozen chicken and make a curry type meal for Michael
Make a batch of biscuits for Michael using up fruit and or nuts from the cupboard
Continue to use down and not buy pantry type supplies from the shops!

Pre holiday wrap-up

Not really achieved too much in this 'week' it really was a short week, Tues-Friday. Have eaten down a few things, frozen meals, a packet of dried cranberries that had 30g left, packet of hokkien noodles. Eaten out of a few other packets, but they're not finished with yet lol. Pantry is looking better, even though not that much stuff has gone from it, pulling everything out for the stock-take made me tidy it up :)
There is a bunch of stuff on my kitchen table which I'm not happy about, some is new stuff mum gave me as well. I would have liked to 'get rid' of it all before going away, but it will have to wait til I return.
I do plan to take some pantry stocks with me to use up while I'm house sitting, so that's good ahahah, but pretty much for the next month my pantry will stay as is. Michael will eat some canned/packet items, but mostly he'll live from the freezer.

End of week wrap-up

So week 1 done and dusted, in all fairness Sunday was the end of the week and we actually went away on Friday night to my mothers place, so food wise, we lost some opportunities to eat out of the pantry. We also got home late today (Monday).
I am very pleased with the results so far though.
We only bought 2 bread, 2 milk, 2 tubs of yoghurt and some salad vegetables.

 We used up completely -
7 frozen meals
1 frozen veg,
1 bag cooked chicken
1 packet of cake mix
4 containers with small amounts of pasta
2 frozen chicken stock
1 roast (turned out that was corned beef)
1 cooking sauce (Kantong style)
2 bottles pasta sauce
2 bags of bacon
1 bag dehydrated peas
1 wholegrain bun
1 packet vegie delights
1 part bag sushi rice

I also swapped my mother a packet of normal cous cous for a packet of pearl cous cous. While at mum's I also acquired a few more things, so I've already thought about how to use them up.

I made up 3 types of new meals for Michael's freezer food, I think I added 15 or so in total, which is now enough to see him through while I'm away. He also has some canned soups etc to eat up, and that will break up the 5-6 types of meals he has in the freezer.  

I leave on Saturday arvo, so that gives me 4 days to eat from the pantry before I leave!!

Let there be cupcakes!!

Day 3~
Breakfast, porridge with P2B (omg sooo good)
Lunch, Pulled pork and a bun from the freezer and salad
Dinner, Thai Chicken Curry from the freezer!
Snacks, rice cakes, dip, cupcakes, fruit.

First of all, wow P2B in porridge, such a great idea! I only had one 'serve' of P2B in porridge, but next time I make it (possibly tomorrow lol) I will try a 1 1/2 serves.

I am so glad I finally used that packet cake mix, it was well out of date (I think it went 'bad' in 2012 lol), they taste great and 10 hours after eating, I'm not dead, so I think I shall live through some very out of date cake powder ;) I pulled out the roast meat, am waiting for it to defrost, I think it is the lamb (YAY!), tomorrow I will probably put it in the crock pot. I also made the pasta for Michael's meals. Have to freeze those tomorrow.
Goals for tomorrow, cook roast thing, freeze pasta meals, continue eating down the pantry/freezer :D I am not planning to blog again until the end of the week, so if you want to see what I made, check my Instagram ;) At the end of the week I'll do a summary!

Inventorying complete!

Day 2 of eating down the pantry/freezer!!
Breakfast, bacon, eggs and pancakes! (All for under 500cals too )
Lunch, Fig and chicken cous cous with green salad
Dinner, Mince chow mein (freezer meal)
Snack was a weight watchers bar, yoghurt and a Jarrah

I did my pantry inventory today.. took a while, but maybe not as long as I thought it would. I had cleaned/tidied it in June. All up was about 2 hours, pulling everything out and wiping the dirty shelves (forgot to do the bottom one )
Not too many surprises as such. There are a few things that are well out of date, but are still ok, so they're going to be used first. There were a few things I refused to put back in the pantry. I WILL use them asap as they're out on the table to annoy me haha. These include things like, sushi rice, cake mix(out of date), gluten free flour(bought last year for Michael's mother and sister), 4 mini bottles of bbq sauce, 2 larger bottles of HP spicy bbq sauce, a squeezy fruit tetra pack (recently out of date). There is a few more things but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Plan for tomorrow. Make the cake, defrost roast thing from freezer, check if it's lamb, keep and cook if it is, discard if it's not (if it's lamb I know when it's from, if it's not, then I have no idea when it was bought), make a batch of pasta for Michael's freezer meals, make a batch of soup for Michael's freezer meals.

Freezer inventory and food for day 1

Well day one done Not so tough ahha.

Breakfast was cereal and milk.
Lunch was frozen vegie delight patties, salad and mayo mixed with dijon mustard and one wrap that had been broken in the freezer.
Tea was frozen kofta meat, sad tomatoes and celery, 1/2 onion and 1/4cup frozen veggies (seriously why did they end up back in the freezer?) and some peas cooked in the fry pan with chilli, garlic and mint added from the herbs and spices cupboard!
Snack was a muesli bar and Jarrah coffee from the pantry.

Today I did my freezer inventory, it took me about 1 1/4-1/2 hours to do. We have a fridge freezer, a small standing freezer (about the size of a bar fridge) and a deep freezer. The deep freezer took a lot lest to go through than I expected, but makes sense as I've been eating down that one for a while now.
Not too many surprises, there was more raw meat than I thought which is good hopefully it will tide us over There are a lot of fully cooked meals already, there are 15 for Michael (his are not calorie restricted) and there are 35 for me, plus 6 lite n easy meals.
I really don't need to cook anything haha.

Tomorrow I will do the pantry inventory (oh boy!). I also will look at cooking up some more meals to tide boy over when I'm away.

While I'm on this challenge, I will still buy milk, bread, fruit and vegetables! But that's it. There is a chance we'll need more coffee and sugar too, that'll be allowed if we need it haha.

Eating down the pantry!

So lately I've been reading about eating down the pantry, and it's something I seriously need to do! I've organised my pantry a few times over the last couple of years, but I never seem to make a dent in what is already there, we just seem to add new and exciting foods to what we had. Enough is enough! Time to Eat down the pantry!
So I am biting the bullet and doing the pantry challenge / freezer challenge! I only have 12 days until I go away for 1 month, so I am going to continue on after I come home! I will be taking photos and putting them on my instagram account. I am planning on blogging it too, but I know myself, so be sure to check the insta a/c!
I have a ton of meals already made in my freezer, so that's going to make it easier. What is going to make it 'harder' is trying to stay to my lower calorie diet as I try and eat through the pantry.
I also need to make up a few more meals for the freezer for Michael, as he will be home alone while I'm away and never cooks for himself!!

Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie

Yum!! Instead of peanut butter, I used PB2, so I used 2 tablespoons (like 45 cals yeah!). This recipe didn't make as much as some of the others, but boy it felt like a treat smoothie. Hit the gym, got doms, life is good :)

Citrus smoothie

Finally one I'm not 100% in love with. This one wasn't bad as such, I am just not a huge fan of lemon. Really though I would have it again, it's just on the bottom of the list ;)

More swapsies!!

Ok so I pretty much didn't stick to this recipe haha. I didn't have a whole banana so I exchanged 1/2 for some mango, I also didn't have pineapple so I exchanged that for watermelon. The chai tea I used was strawberry bliss from T2. Was really lovely!
So this is the end of the first week of smoothies for me. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised! I was expecting them to be horrible, gag worthy and that I might end up eating all the fruit and vegetables rather than make smoothies.
I've stuck to my diet pretty well this week. I had one 'blowout' and ate 500cals of yoghurt, which pushed me up to 1700-1800 cals. Still even with that breakout I dropped 2kgs this week, which I am super happy and impressed with! 3kgs to go until my cruise goal!

Tasty strawberries!

This recipe was super fast, all no fuss fruits. I really loved the flavour too. It was amazing that the strawberries could be tasted even though there wasn't that many of them compared to the rest of the flavours. This one didn't make as much as some of the other smoothies, but still a winner!

Swapsies

I changed this one up as I had run out of pineapple, so I used watermelon which is on the list of ingredients you can swap one for one. Watermelon worked really well for this! I also ended up running short of almond milk.

Day 3

This smoothie really surprised me, actually I'm pretty sure all smoothies have surprised me lol. The flavour was pretty good! I was expecting it to be over citrus'y but it wasn't. I'm sure if I had a better blender the chia seeds would smash up better, but that's ok.

Get your smoothie on!

WOW! So if ever there was a green smoothie you should try, it should be this one! My gosh! It was delicious. A very similar recipe to that used in the challenge is up on Incredible Smoothies. It was sooo tasty. The only thing I didn't like was the high sugar levels, but that's what you get when you use a whole mango.
I am amazed at the taste of a green smoothie, honestly I expected everything to taste like a bunch of spinach. I bare eating spinach, but I don't love it! So far I can't even taste it in the drinks. Whoo!

Please don't forget to sponsor me in the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Every dollar counts to helping fight this disease!

Trying new things

So... I have never liked the look or sound of 'green smoothies' they sound terrible and look rather displeasing too. I have a gym instructor that often talks about them and another friend that is a huge fan. I promised said friend I'd give them a go (you know rather than judge them with out trying - as I'd been doing!) Anyhow I signed up to a free 30 day challenge from Incredible Smoothies. I'd signed up and had the emails come in for a couple of weeks before I finally took the plunge. I've been failing at meal planning so I took the leap and put down one week of smoothies for breakfast as well as lots of other healthy meals for lunch and dinner! I've got a goal of 4kgs to lose before my cruise!
Yesterday was the day for smoothie number 1 (which is actually week 2 of the challenge - I'd lost the first email- but the lady that runs the challenge was lovely and resent it). This smoothie was pretty good! I didn't gag which is what I was expecting haha. I could taste the kiwi and the pineapple and the spinach didn't make an impact other than to colour the drink. The only things that could have made it better was if the pineapple was sweeter and if I'd thrown some ice into the smoothie, it was tepid because the almond milk was only made that morning and didn't have a chance to get cold. Neither of these 'bad' things are the fault of the smoothie though :)

Here is my dinner. It's 12wbt Chicken Parmigiana. Michael cooked this!! I was at the gym doing a double class, so he cooked, I'd prepared the salad earlier. I am pretty impressed! I think I might have to make him cook more often. Haha!

Recent Events

Well here I am posting again, almost a record for recent years :D

Call me crazy, but a couple of weeks ago while cheering on my friend Kerry who was completing the 200km 'Ride to Conquer Cancer', I decided to join up! It is a little crazy right? It's a massive challenge, but one I'm excited to partake in. There is a massive fundraising goal of $2500 before I can ride and I have one year to collect that money. If you would like to donate to the cause and help me to get on the road the you can do so HERE. I am so lucky I have my wonderful gym buddies joining me as well as an extended friend group. It's going to be an amazing journey.

I also have to report back, I won the Crafters Cupboard challenge! I'm so excited!! I am totally going to buy some more Jofty Stamps! Love them. Make sure you check out the newest competition over at CC's blog!

Long time no speak

So it seems a really really long time has gone by without a blog post. Where to start?
I was going to come and blog in mid 2012 when I was lucky enough to meet Tim Holtz and do one of his classes here in Australia. I had so much fun and it's something I often look back and smile about. Somehow I never found the time to blog (actually my stupid blogger program stopped working and I HATE using the site to blog).

I posted many a meal here that I ate while doing the CSIRO diet, I ended up going off that, and putting back on most of my weight. Over the last 2 years I've done a mixture of diets/eating styles and am currently doing my own thing, but enjoying recipes from Symply Too Good To Be True (Annette Sym) and also 12WBT, I also get inspiration from Skinny Taste and Slender Kitchen. I am down 56kgs.

Along with the losing weight I've also been getting healthier. I go to the gym most days and even participate in the local Parkrun. I really love the event and I recommend it to everyone! It's a free 5km timed event, and best of all you don't have to run! You can walk, crawl or run :) The kids can be involved and even your dogs!

I haven't been that active in the garden in the last 6-12 months, I had a poor result with my spring plantings last year (due to going away for several weeks at a time in Aug, Sept and Nov), so I ended up with bought seedlings, but then I had friends come and stay for a 'couple of weeks' which turned into 5 months, and somehow routine and things got turned around and I didn't head out to the garden much.

Craft also suffered having people stay, as we only have a small house, I had to pack away my craft table so for about 5 months I didn't get anything done, unless I went away. I'm back on crafting though, and I've been having a lot of fun with that lately. I recently did a "Supplies on Hand" course with May, which I learnt some new things and can't wait to try out.

In January next year I'm heading off with my mother and one of my bestest friends for a craft cruise! We're going on the Voyager of the Seas with Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door! I am so excited I can't wait!!

OK that's enough blathering for me! I will be back soon and post some of what I've been up to. I promise not to be a stranger :D

Week 3 Day 4

Tonight we had a beef vindaloo and the mint yoghurt, had a salad to accompany it. The curry was lovely and flavoursome, but it was really hot, I think the chilli I picked might have been a bit spicey.. that or I should have seeded it lol.. lesson learnt :)

Week 3 Day 3

A basic salad and oven cooked chicken. Unfortunately the chicken was tougher than old boots, and it wasn’t how I cooked it (was lovely and moist, just tough) returned the uncooked portion to Coles and got a full refund AND products to the value of the cost.. so we chose steak LOL.