Pantry Challenge Game Plan

Tomorrow is 2026!  Wow, how did that happen?

I feel like I'm not going through my pantry in the proper amount of time, so I'm doing Pantry Challenge January.  It's a chance to use items before they go bad and challenge myself to come up with new uses.  It saves money when all the December bills come due by using what you've already bought.  You can evaluate why an ingredient is languishing while others seem to run out, and adjust what you stock accordingly.

The big rule is that you set your own rules.  The ultimate goal would be not setting foot in the grocery store for a month, but that is not necessary.  I have a list of items I'm permitting myself to buy, generally highly perishable ones.  Can't keep bananas fresh for 31 days.  Any recipe I make should have as few new purchases as possible.  If there's an exceptional deal on something I know I'll use, like toilet paper or coffee, I can stock those and not count them as current grocery purchases.

In particular, I need to do something about the kitchen freezer.  It's where I keep my vegetables and a few other items.  All the stray bits and leftovers are crowding out what I prefer to keep in there.  Also, I need to have room in it for the chest freezer defrost in March.  Because I'm already thinking about that.

The last time I tracked my spending during a pantry challenge, I stayed under $50 for the month.  That was 2022, so I'm not holding out for the same result.  At some point, I'm bound to celebrate the extra room in the freezer by filling it with ice cream.

What I'm focusing on isn't simply reducing the quantity of an item in the pantry or freezer.  I want to use the oldest items and anything "best by" the first half of 2026.  I want to reduce the condiments in the fridge.  The kimchi is almost a year old.  So are the cranberries in the freezer.  This is about rotating through ingredients and deciding whether I want to buy them again.  Maybe I'll remember I love something I've been passing over and incorporate it more.

The real trick is to continue coming up with new recipes.  Can't have peanut butter pasta every night, as tempting as that may be.  If I do this right, you'll never notice that I'm only using items on hand and from the garden.