From the back of the pantry, hiding from the warm yellow light of the kitchen sits a lone box of instant mashed potatoes. How this box of potatoes got there is a bit of a mystery. I always make mashed potatoes from scratch, since real potatoes are so inexpensively frugal, especially when they are on sale for buy one bag and get one free. It is not unusual for me to have two 5- or 10- pound bags of potatoes available. So where did the…gasp…instant potatoes come from?
My best conclusion is to blame it on my husband.
No, no, wait, there is a good reason behind blaming him. For holidays, he likes to make twice-baked potatoes, using instant potatoes to help give additional volume. So maybe that is where they came from. I can’t recall the last time my husband actually made his signature side dish, so I feel no qualms about using this box for my pantry challenge.
So tonight’s dinner will be made up of recipes on the Hungry Jack Instant Potatoes box, crusty herb baked chicken, and garlic-cheese-onion potatoes. I’ll serve some broccoli from the freezer on the side.
For breakfast today, we used up some more pancake mix and chocolate chips. Since we are out of fruit, I opened a large jar of apple sauce, which the kids greedily sucked down. My family just loves fruit in almost any form.
Lunch will be some egg salad on bread with baby carrots on the side, cut up very small for the toddler of course.
Yesterday’s pantry challenge wasn’t much of a challenge, since we used up a frozen eggplant parm from the freezer for dinner. For lunch, I made a point of using some of my canned soup stock, so we had tomato soup with cheddar cheese, served with bread and butter. The soup was really yummy with the added mixed cheese. Some instant oatmeal packets and fruit cups made our breakfast.
How am I doing in my pantry challenge?
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