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When I was reading blogs at work yesterday, I saw someone (I don’t remember who! but this seems like a pretty obvious idea to me) talk about doing a freezer/pantry challenge to use up items and prolong the time before they grocery shopped again. With roommate away on vacation for two weeks, it seems like as good a time as any to eat through what we have and try and go until the new year without grocery shopping. We’ve kept it pretty bare-bones for the last week or so anyway because I was away for the holidays, so there wasn’t a reason for extreme grocery shopping, but I’m going to try to just eat off what is in the fridge, freezer, and cabinets for a couple days. (Ideally I would do it until she comes back, so we can truly figure out how much it will cost to replenish, but I don’t think I’m that creative culinarily.)

For night one, I had some leftover pierogies, a turkey burger sans bun, and grilled (frozen) peppers and onions. Was so good and I now want to only eat that for the rest of my life, but that’s not the point. Tonight I’m grilling up some hamburger and using a box of hamburger helper – not overly healthy or even that good, but needs to be eaten.

Have you found any meals that you love during a grocery challenge? How else do you keep your grocery spending low?