It wasn’t as hard as I had expected. I am in the groove now. I still have to locate the out of date anchovies that my husband has turned into paste. I know him too well. He will convert something we have not used into something else we will not use and eventually I will be allowed to throw it out. No more. I have removed all food items we will not eat and, where possible fed them to the chickens, the rest have been put on the compost.
I use a weekly menu plan and shop only for those items that I need for the weeks’ meals but do not have in stock. This encourages me to use my cookery books and try out new recipes as well as making it a lot easier at the end of the day. All I have to do is look at the list on the fridge and open the appropriate recipe book at the appropriate page. Life is much easier that way. I keep my diary to hand when menu planning, if I am going to be out all day and then doing the Mummy taxi run in the evening there is no point planning a meal that requires preparation and last minute attention. On the other hand, if I have a day at home and everyone home by 6.00 then we can go for something a little more adventurous.
On a good week I shop from the larder and the freezer. Unfortunately now the freezer is mainly offering up those odd things we bought because they looked interesting. I love heart for example, it is tasty and cheap. I am going to struggle to slip it under the teenage radar. We usually buy a whole or half sheep. For some obscure reason I asked for one of the legs to be left whole. Dinner for 15 anyone?
This is what I hope to avoid in the future. No more whimsical purchases. A freezer with only food we know we will eat and know when we will eat it.
Tonight all the girls are out. So the Boss and I are having lobster and crab salad. That’s two items out of the freezer, salad from the garden and dressing made with the ends of various oil and vinegar bottles. A good clear up dinner I think.
one pair of shoes at a time 
I love clear out dinners, I seem to always end up once a fortnight with too many odds and ends of stuff, mainly root vegetables, so we have a clear out the fridge dinner then. It is amazing what you can produce with a well stocked larder and a nearly empty fridge.. So don’t destock the larder too far. You will regret it later.
No fear of it being destocked too far just destocked of the things that have been there for years and never used … and never will be. It looks and feels a lot better already.
I did that twice last year, after the moths got in…. I am now trying hard to use up everything that is still good but getting a little aged. My fault for trying new recipes that only call for a little bit of something, and then the rest just sits there…
If we just were creative and re-use our food, there would be so much less food waste. Love your concept. Use what you have.
Hi Gillie,
I replied to you at my blog, but just in case you weren’t notified (I’m never sure if commenters find out that I replied to them…must figure this out somehow…), I wanted to stop by here as well. Glad to read this pantry post from you because I completely relate to it and wrote a similar post a while back called “Buy Food Mindfully”–it’s linked here in case you’d like to take a look: http://www.joyfullygreen.com/2013/02/instantly-greener-buy-food-mindfully.html. Anyway, happy to make your acquaintance across the blogosphere, and thanks so much for adding Joyfully Green to your blogroll!
Best,
Joy
That meal looks soooo good! I am now hungry and want to dive into the photo and eat it!
Thank you. But I am afraid it’s all gone now!