Eating Down the Fridge: the Non-Event

This whole "Eating Down the Fridge" thing had me so nervous at the beginning of the week. The milk was looking dangerously low. There were a couple of unfortunate substitutions. If we ran out of bread, there was sure to be a revolt. How were we going to make it through the next seven days without a trip to the grocery store?

Ha! The only thing we ran out of was orange juice; Wynham was not pleased about that. It's true that the tiny fridge is nearly bare, but actually there's another complete meal in there. There's barely a noticeable dent in the the freezer. You can't even tell whether anyone ever went in the pantry or not. Given my "earthquake" mentality, it would probably take at least six weeks to get through all the canned goods.

Still there were some lessons to be learned. I've always known that planning ahead is great thing, but I tend to buy more than we really need (I'm all for leftovers; other members of the household are less enthusiastic). It's nice not to have anything in there that has to be jettisoned because I forgot about it. I stretched the meat, and tried some new dishes. We saved money and time. Nobody went hungry.

Now, for the freezer. That could be scary.

Dreaming of Sub-Zero

Tomorrow we kick off the Eating Down the Fridge challenge -- "a week-long kitchen challenge of abstaining from food shopping, and using up what’s in the fridge, freezer and kitchen cabinets" (thanks to the Tipsy Baker for clueing me in to the event). I've basically been doing something like this for a week already anyway, since I've been sick. Add to that the fact that there are six of us and one extremely tiny fridge, and it's like a triple challenge, really.

When I explained to the family what was going to happen over the next week, I was met with slack jaws and stares of disbelief. But I love a challenge, so I'm going to stick to the rules in my usual draconian fashion. There may be a mutiny, but chances are that if I hadn't mentioned it, nobody in the house would have even noticed my cleverly disguised main dish of martini olives with strawberry cream cheese and mango chutney...

I'll report the results at the end of the week, or maybe before then if it gets really hilarious. Not even the anonymous plaintive "please get food" note I found at the foot of the stairs today can sway me!