The Challenge

Started this morning by making some lemon poppyseed cakes for Eric as he is heading home for the weekend and he loves these. While rooting around in the cupboards I again was feeling guilty for all of the old and unused things we buy over time that ends up in the garbage:(

The trigger for this idea was an unusued half butter nut squash. I looked up cake recipes, but they called for more than I had, so made 1/2 a recipe of soup! It was wonderful, and I used all but the peels and "guts" of the squash, my vermipost appreciated this though (worms).

SO, Today I am starting a Kitchen Cleanse. No this will not require any kind of colon busting concoctions :) I am taking stock of all items in my kitchen that will probably go to waste if they hang around much longer, so I am challenging myself to try to use most, if not all items over the next month or so. I will be using several online cooking sites to help me with this. Food.ca and Allrecipes.com are my favourite sites.

As time goes on I will supply links and reviews on my creations. My goal is to only buy fresh fruit, veggies and meats, and to try to save some cash in the process!

This is a list of the ingredients I hope to use up.

Dry goods:
10 pounds of potatoes (we hardly ever eat potatoes)
dried bread
pitted dates left over from Xmas cheese plate (1 cup)
crackers
rice crackers
rice wrappers
dried stir fry noodles
wheat germ
wheat bran
muesli cereal
all bran buds
minute rice (I only use long grain, Adrian bought by accident)

Frozen Foods:
cooked salmon fillet (6oz)
tomato sauce (2 cups)
strawberry cherry jam (2 cups) from Grandma Sylvia this summer
Grated fresh ginger (2 Tbsps)
Mexican hot chocolate by conchita (1/2 package)
1 package spinach
bananas (3 cups)
corn niblets (2.5 pkgs) someone made a mistake.....
hot red peppers from Mexico (2-3 cups)
Hashbrowns (2 cups shredded)
Pitas (3)
Burrito wraps (2)
freezer burnt buns (8 hotdog, 8 hamburger)
2 Litres of frozen half and half cream

I would love suggestiions!