Man, I love food.

And in my house I have plenty of room to store food, so I tend to buy things in bulk, or put up large quantities from my garden. But I’m also easily bored, food-wise, which means that I have a tendency to go buy new stuff before I’ve used the old. This leaves food pileups in my pantry and freezer. Then I forget that something’s in there, and before I know it, I have lots of food clutter around.

Now, I’ve done a pretty good job of simplifying my life in general. For the most part, I don’t think I have too many places where I’ve hoarded or have lots of junk laying around. I like this – I do feel better and more free when I don’t have a lot of stuff laying around that I don’t need, so I pretty regularly purge my closet, kitchen, garage, etc. But: I tend to ignore this same approach when it comes to food.

So as I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Frugalwoods, and came across her post about doing a pantry challenge, I knew this would be a great step. It got me a double-win by eliminating waste and cleaning up my house while supporting my goal to give up spending for Lent. Plus – bonus win! – in the age of coronavirus, it helped cut down on trips to the grocery store and could provide variety in my standard home cooking repertoire.

Pantry challenge, here we come.

The rules of the pantry challenge

Obviously, the first rule of pantry challenge is: don’t talk about pantry challenge.

I mean, there aren’t rules, really, but there are a few guidelines I used for myself.

First: by “pantry” I meant all the places where I store food. Pantry, freezer, back of the refrigerator, all included.

Second: one of my goals was to use up some of the things that may have been hanging around extra long. So, I tried to build meals around those items, rather than starting with, say, the chicken breasts that we purchase on the regular.

Third: I wasn’t trying to build up a new stock of stuff that would then be candidates for future pantry challenges, so I wanted to stick to regular ingredients as much as possible. A recipe that let me use up the bag of stir-fry veggies in the fridge but required me to buy two new jars of unusual sauces that would then live in my fridge for the next two years wasn’t helpful.

The limits of the pantry challenge

There are two things that limit the “success” of a pantry challenge, if you think of the goal as ‘emptying your pantry.’

First: I have changed up my diet pretty significantly, and now I eat a keto diet. That means that a LOT of the things in my pantry are basically off-limits to me now. As I surveyed the pantry, I found couscous; wild rice; orzo pasta; garbanzo beans; etc. In my freezer was naan; tortillas; king’s Hawaiian rolls; and puff pastry.

So, the extra level of challenge is to find good things to do with these ingredients that didn’t involve me eating them! My decision: create coronavirus lunches for my kid (since his meals are mostly limited to what he can make quickly in between video games), and make freezer meals to take to friends whose families are impacted by COVID-19.

Second: a huge benefit of living in the Midwest is the ability to access food directly from farmers. For us, this means that we can buy our meat in enormous quantities by getting it directly from a farmer. Save money; know where your meat comes from; help the environment and your local economy by buying local; AND getting more money out of big corporations and directly to farmers? QUADRUPLE WIN! This is really awesome, but it means I’ll virtually never “clean out my freezer” because I buy meet in quantities of dozens of pounds at a time.

So, my goal in this challenge wasn’t really to “clean out the pantry” exactly. Rather, it was to find ways to use things that had been hanging around for a while, and save grocery shopping basically for fresh items to supplement what we already had (basically, milk and fresh produce).

What did I cook?

The fact that we were basically trapped at home during the coronavirus lockdowns helped me stick to this one. I started by scouring the cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer space. Then I honed in on the items on hand that seemed like I’d been moving them side to side for quite some time. Here are a few of the things that made the list and the ‘key ingredient’ I was trying to use up:

• Shrimp stir-fry, with the last of the stir-fry veggies I bought at Costco a few months back
• Chili, starring canned tomato juice and rotel-style tomatoes I put up from our garden last year
• Prosciutto-wrapped chicken and asparagus, again with the Costco extras (prosciutto) and frozen asparagus (which is hit or miss, and this one was a bit of a miss) from last year’s garden
• Breakfast omelets modeled after the “Grand Marais Scramble” I had recently at the Hot Plate restaurant in Minneapolis, using up some delicious salmon I brought back from Oregon
• Cheesy garlic orzo, which Blix devoured in two days.

And the results are…

My freezers are more empty, especially of those things that I guiltily shoved aside every time I opened the door. And I’ve used up some of the items in my pantry that I personally no longer eat, which is a huge psychic benefit.

Spending-wise, I cut our grocery spending roughly IN HALF by eating mostly out of our resources. This happened while we also cut down on restaurant bills because of my Lenten sacrifice.

But I actually got a surprise win out of this plan, too. As I was undertaking this challenge, the immediate and stark economic effects of the coronavirus epidemic was playing out before my eyes. In particular, I became aware of the tremendous pressure food banks felt. Demand is increasing at the same time their volunteer base, mostly seniors who became afraid to leave their homes and college students who left campus for the semester, dried up.

It was jarring to realize I could not relate to that level of food insecurity because of the tremendous resources we had available. Having such abundance while others struggled felt definitely out of alignment with my values – so I got a terrific opportunity to take a look and try to figure out how to respond.

Aligning my life with my values

Here’s how I chose to seek better alignment.

1. Gratitude. Those of us blessed with plenty while others are in want will probably never close that gap. The minimum we can do is feel grateful for what we have. I actively worked (and am still working) on feeling and showing gratitude for all that I have, and focusing on all that I have rather than wishing for more.
2. Giving. I saw that in addition to “using up” what was in my pantry, I could give some away. I ended up gathering two grocery bags full of mac and cheese, canned meats, beans, and paper towels (nothing expired!) and taking them to our local food pantry. We also wrote a check to a local youth shelter to provide snacks to those staying there.
3. Volunteering. We signed up to work a couple of times a month at the food banks in our area, delivering food to those in need. I also made and froze a couple of casseroles for our church’s freezer meals program from the ingredients I no longer eat.
4. Work. Surprisingly, I was presented with an opportunity to use my professional skills to help create an AmeriCorps program to help meet the food needs in our state. I said yes immediately! This is just unfolding; hopefully I’ll have the chance to write more about this in a future post.

Any there ways a pantry challenge can align with your values? Leave thoughts in the comments below.