Cleaning out the Kitchen

As I said in a previous post, we have been doing our best, in the past few weeks, to clear as much out of our kitchen as possible. Instead of shopping, we have been emptying out the pantry, fridge&freezer, and garden. We have been buying fresh veggies still, because duh. But we have gotten our cabinets down to practically empty.

This is where we were up to on Wednesday morning.

Freezer: 2 blocks of flavoured tofu, 1 block of plain tofu, bread, 2 ice bottles (for keeping our food cool when we move), pumpkin ice cubes for Nacho, 2 seitan steaks, 3 pumpkin muffins, 1 jar of mango chunks, 1 jar of chickpeas, a handful of blueberries.

Fridge.

Pantry cabinet 1

Pantry cabinet 2

Pantry cabinet 3

Okay, so we still have a lot of food. But we have been focusing our eating-efforts on things we knew we could finish off in the timeframe. So a huge thing of chickpeas, and the 4 jars of jam Andy brought home from a field trip, weren't included in our list (you bet I made a list).

Eating down the pantry, for us, has meant eating pretty well. Here are some of the yummy things we've had so far...

 Remember when we bought 22 packages of sweet chilli flavoured tofu for 20cents each? We weren't even halfway through them when Andy brought home a few more packages of other-flavoured tofu, left over from a field trip which was massively over-catered. We're down to two, finally, thanks to meals like this one. Tofu, fried briefly. Also, brussels sprouts with leek, spinach, and the last of a jar of vegan bacon bits from the US. And basil potato salad in the background. The dressing for this salad used up a tin of coconut milk, a bunch of basil from the garden, and some capers from the fridge.

 

Pasta, from the pantry. Sauce, made from 3 tins of tomatoes, the last of a jar of tomato paste, some sundried tomatoes, the end of a jar of capers, a jar of artichoke hearts, and some green olives. And a heap of basil from the garden.

 Pizza/focaccia. In front, caramelised onion and za'atar focaccia. In the back, hawaiian pizza, which used up a block of seitan from the freezer and a tin of pineapple from the pantry.

Tapioca pudding, which used up all the big tapioca pearls, a tin of coconut milk, some bananas from the freezer, and some of the rainbow sprinkles from the pantry.

Black bean tortilla chip soup (based closely on the recipe from La Dolce Vegan), which used up a jar of frozen black beans, a chilli from the freezer, spinach from the garden, some chips, and a whole bunch of garlic chives from the garden.

Chickpea & seitan green curry. This used up a jar of frozen chickpeas, the last of the seitan blocks in the freezer, some garden spinach, all of the brown rice, a tin of coconut milk, a bit of ginger from the freezer, and the rest of a jar of green curry paste.

A green smoothie, which used the last of the frozen pineapple and bananas, and some spinach from the garden.

So not too much to go yet, but we still won't be eating like paupers, if the past fortnight has been any indication!