CHALLENGE: CUPBOARD COOKING

NEW CHALLENGE: use up all the crap in my kitchen cupboards. No more buying the following items for the foreseeable future: jam, Dijon, tuna, canned salmon, cereal, rice, pasta (of ALL types), nuts, seeds, grains, nut butters, organic kd, hemp bars, coconut milk, dried fruit, olive oil, hot sauce, vinegars (all types) and chocolate.

Except for Lindt Fleur de Sel Chocolate (because we really need it) and anything else that looks new, interesting or good.

Seriously though, I had so much CRAP in my cupboards. There was stuff almost as old as my oldest child. There was stuff that expired 5 years ago. FIVE YEARS!!!!

I feel sinful for having wasted all that food. Wasting food really pisses me off and makes me feel seriously guilty. Hence this challenge. And I challenge YOU all to do the same!

My new challenge is to USE UP all the stuff still remaining in said cupboard.

And this is just ONE of the cupboards I cleaned out today. You don't want to KNOW what it looked like before. It was pure chaos. there are still 2 more big ones to do. I love how organized it looks now. I can actually SEE everything!

DISH IDEAS BASED ON THE CURRENT CUPBOARD SITUATION:
- freezer brownies (always yummy, and raw so it is a super healthy guilt free dessert)
- quinoa burgers
- quinoa muffins
- quinoa salad (do you get the idea I have a lot of quinoa?)
- hummus from scratch
- crafty cooking kits with the monsters (thank you Elena of Me Myself and Us)
- raw crackers in the dehydrator
- lots and lots of pasta and/or rice dishes with different sauces (using, but not limited to: EVOO, dijon, olives, balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, pepitas, salmon, tuna, pecans,tomato sauce, tomato paste, clams, coconut milk, coconut oil, dijon and hot sauce. Did I mention dijon?) Seriously, there must be 2382216554 different types of pasta and 9878937483 different types of rice in my pantry.
- general nut/seed snacking (we have pecan, sunflower, 2 kinds of almond, 3 kinds of pistachio, walnuts, pepitas, pine, sunflower and about 39884403 other types too)
- oatmeal. We have oat groat, steel cut oats, instant oats, flavoured oatmeal packets, and the partically cooked kind. I guess we will be making oatmeal pancakes this weekend, which will make the monsters happy. And probably some more oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies for those suffering from the dreaded "man cold". Apparantly, there is a lot of it going around. So if you suffer like this:

You might just qualify for cookies.

Tomorrow (or sometime in the freaking forseeable future) I will get to those two other cupboards that are mocking me as I type.

I am absolutely dreading it.